Funny Thing, Education

Remember that stack of books I showed you all a couple of weeks ago so you would be 1. impressed and/or 2. sympathetic? No? Well, here it is again:

This is the stack of books that I'm reading through over Christmas for my undergrad research project that I'm doing in the spring semester. My supervising instructor (or whatever she's called) approved my proposal last week: I'm reading a bunch of environmental stuff to find the common rhetorical devices. And then I'm going to write about them. She tells me this is called generic criticism. I call it a great way to beat insomnia.

I kid! Only one of the books put me to sleep so far! And I finished it yesterday. I have all the books sorted by due date, because that seemed like the most sensible way to read through them. And as I'm reading along, I've made this magical discovery: They're all talking about the same things.

Okay, I probably should have know this ahead of time, being as I picked the topic and all, yes? But for some reason, I get really excited when I learn about an incident in one book, and then see mentions of it in other books. Because, hey! I know what they're talking about! And as I understand it, this is in fact the point of education, that you learn something, and the next thing you learn builds on your knowledge of the last thing, and so on in this great long chain until eventually you wear a funny hat and someone with a funnier hat gives you a piece of paper.

So, education works. Good to know I'm not wasting my time and money here.

Have you made any magical and/or obvious discoveries lately? Are there any good rhetoric or environmental books I've left out? Do you want to come and help me read them?