back to the basics..

I was reading this book on Geology today, that gives theoretical insights into the basic concepts of petrology, rocks & their formation, dams, rivers, winds, glaciers, folds, faults, crystals, yada yada yada..

The book - one of my course books, that we used to study during our engineering.
The drive - to read something I could hardly learn in the yesteryears, to see if it still makes no sense to me.
The result - Spent four hours in reading a book of 400 pages, and unfortunately, it seems like the book really makes sense!

It was very strange to understand all the things that I used to find alien a few years ago (six years ago, to be precise) - we had this dreadful subject called geology, and cramming your tiny brain with all the stuff on these 400 pages, in the perfect order, was the only way of getting in the good books of the prof (or in other words, get some decent marks).

I have never been someone who can reproduce a sentence written in the book, exactly in the similar way in the examination - I even used to goof up theorems in childhood, because one can not afford to miss a word here or there. And when it came to learn a full book of 400 pages, right in order, it was just a hopeless case – hopeless, but good. Good, because I knew I can not cram it up, and hence, there was no point reading it, and wasting time as well.

On the day of our geology exam – I remember I had given the book three complete hours to go through – and today, I gave four! What an irony..

It's amazing to know that there is so much to learn about geology – a subject that I hardly had any respect for. Did you know that there are three kinds of rocks (Obviously you would know this – Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic). But did you know that Igneous rocks alone can be sub-classified into 28 different types of rocks, and that too only on the basis of texture! You have another 12 types of classifications based on mode of formation, another 9 based on depth of origin, further 8 on mode of occurrence.

Or did you know that minerals are classified on basis of 15 properties, the first one of which, i.e. form is further divided into 13 types. Likewise, if you look at all the sub-classifications for minerals, it adds up to more than 100!

And Dr. MPSM (our prof for Geology) expected us to remember all those, right in order, with proper examples as well. What more, he also expected us to identify what will a type be, if he just shows us a rock or a mineral in the lab.

And then I wonder whether even my boss would expect this much from me today. Does that mean my intellectual capacity is increasing or decreasing? Good question, huh.. Guess C will agree on this now!