I deserve a break today.

A couple of hours ago, I completed my General Pscyhology essay and quiz. The subject this week was Intelligence, about which I had several thoughts, you may well imagine. I composed the document and attached it on the email to the professor with this message:

My submission this week is either brilliant or a steaming pile. Still, it's my baby and I'm not fit to judge it. My heart will not be broken if I score 100%.

I have to say, though, that I'm actually very pleased with the paper I composed. I generally try to cast ahead by at least a week and ruminate the subject of the essay for days and days before I am pressed to submit my labors to for assessment. This one was relatively difficult, though,
because I think there are many ways of manifesting intelligence in this world. As a person will do, I tend to look to the example of my parents. Dad has the most sophisticated mechanical sense of anyone I've ever met. He's a brilliant man.

I remember when I was about 3 or 4, Dad sat with my brother and me while Mom took her driver's test in Memphis. Many years later, Dad told me that Mom asked him soon after if she could take the car and go to the store. He said of course, and that she didn't need to ask. Dad made a great point to me that he didn't want a robot for a wife, and he wanted his children to have an intelligent mother. What could be more evolved than that? This also set a very high bar, and when my (soon-to-be ex-) husband started manifesting the chest-thumping stripe of a cultlike clicque at his church, I ran like hell.

In that subtle way, Dad was letting me know that he sees Mom as his partner, and not his subordinate. He respects her independence of thought, and he can relish that just as he has with her, she has chosen to walk her path in life at his side.

I wish I had total recall and could relate to you the Nick&Nora-worthy banter I've heard between those two over the years, but suffice it to say, it's a very high bar, indeed. I'm glad I've had such great examples of intelligence, so I'd be able to contrast real idiocy when I encounter same. :)

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I think I fared fairly well in my written and lab portions of the A&P mid-term exam. In any case, that's done with for now. As of 4:00PM this afternoon, I'm off school and work until a week and a half from now, and that's a very good thing.