The good: Method cleaners rock. I rock for finding and buying them. So there.
I bought a basic array of Method products and left them for the maids to use this week. Not only did the products work well, the maids really, really liked them. And the house smelled not just clean but GOOD. No Pine Sol or ammonia or chlorine anything. Instead, there were hints of French lavender, lemon ginger, and mint. Only hints, mind you, no odiferous cloud.
The floor feels nicer. The house looks nicer. Everything feels and looks good.
The maids have been instructed to always use the cleaners we provide, never their standard products. And they’re happy about them. In fact, the owner of the service called me today and asked me about the cleaners.
The fact that the products are non-toxic, biodegradable, and packaged in easily recyclable containers is nice, too. It wouldn’t be enough to make up for them being ineffective products, but it’s a nice extra benefit for something that is effective.
The bad: There’s one professor in my major at school who seriously makes me think I am in the wrong field.
I have one class with him this semester, and I really can’t avoid him for the rest of the program.
He’s not a bad guy. It isn’t that I dislike him personally.
It’s that he is an Intellectual in the most annoying sense. He’s all about meta-everything. Analyzing the means of analysis, etc. Page after page of discussion of labels for various specific jobs in the field, rather than getting right down to learning to do those jobs. Yes, he is the professor who appeared in that nightmare.
(The man is also, all by himself, more than enough justification for the purchase of a laser printer if a student (like me) doesn’t find it comfortable to read lengthy discourse on a computer screen. I must print out all the dozens of vowel movements to which he refers so that I can slog through them.)
I am a good writer. I am, in fact, a good communicator. I know that.
But if this kind of nonsense is what is required to get a degree in communications, I am in the wrong field. Because I hate every bit of it.
I am very good at learning new things and helping others to understand them. That is the essence of technical communication, as far as I’m concerned. The material involved is opaque to many but would be of great benefit to them at times. I want to help people like my parents garner that benefit without having to become geeks.
Perhaps I should have majored in some technical field or another, with a minor in communications at most. Or just gotten some general degree in something I enjoy studying, like history.
I’m feeling very confused about my path right now.