Metaphor man...

My husband calls him "metaphor man." He read Gareth Morgan in grad school, too. As you might guess, Professor Morgan writes about the use of metaphor as "a way of thinking and a way of seeing that pervade how we understand our world generally." He goes on to explain that "We use metaphor whenever we attempt to understand one element of experience in terms of another."

I laughed when I read this because my blog title is a metaphor for my life as an older grad student. Morgan points out that "if taken literally, or to an extreme (a metaphor) becomes absurd." Which, in my case, is also true. I am not really an old dog. In fact, if someone called me a dog, I would probably be offended. In addition, if someone were to imply that I were in school learning tricks, I would also be equally offended, because the reading, writing and amount of work feel like a bit more than mere tricks. But, when I was trying to think about how I would describe how it feels to be back in school--working hard to learn new things and be open to new ideas--the only way I could describe it was to feel like an old dog who is able to learn new tricks, despite what others may predict, think or even imagine, just from looking at me.

I am metaphor wo-man.