Life After Peace Corps - Learning

Learning
One good thing about working for the Federal Government is that there are endless opportunities for learning.  Since I become a Federal employee, I am free to take as many classes I wish.  Within 16 months, I have already earned so many CPE credits that the NYS Education Department will never take away my CPA license.  The classes I took so far included: US Standard General Ledger, US Appropriations Law, AGA monthly Seminar, Federal Employee Benefits Seminar, Advanced Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint and SharePoint.   Some of the classes cost taxpayer more than $1,000.  But my boss approved all my classes.  Learning in Smithsonian takes priority!


I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn although I find my ability to absorb and digest new materials slows down to a certain degree.  I am not the “smart cookie” that I used to be.   I still remember how hard it was in Azerbaijan for our elderly volunteers to learn the language.  It was a daily struggle.  Every night I spent five hours to redo my exercise in the class.  Still, next day, I could only remember 50% of the materials.  Some of my elder RPCV friends accepted the reality that we “the elders volunteer” could not learn and did not bother to study. But I refused to give up.  Not because I hated to lose the “smart cookie” nickname, but rather I believed the only way to be “Smart” is not to let my brain idle.  Besides, there were certain excitement and jubilation when finally my brain opened up and everything started to make sense.  “I got it!”  when one day I was able to apply the Azeri grammar and put a complete sentence together correctly.  It was a marvelous feeling.  Then, I kept creating more sentences, funny sentence, sentences that made my teacher laugh, sentences that made her scratch her head, sentences that made myself proud and happy.   The more sentences I made, the more happy I was.

The next best thing was, I was no longer afraid to talk to the locals.  I might have to repeat myself couple times, but they understood me, and appreciated my effort to try.  Few times, I even got compliments from street vendors who told me my Azeri was excellent.  (I know I should not push it!)

The point is we need to keep learning.  “Our life has end, but knowledge has no end” a famous Chinese scholar once said.  The more I use my brain, the more I realize how powerful it is.  My brain can solve the advance level of Sudoku, can download applications to my iphone (some of my elder RPCVs and even Smithsonian co-workers are so afraid to do!), can create an important Government “White Paper” for my boss.  My brain can do almost anything, only if I never let it idle.

I am not much smarter than others, only I let my brain work harder.