"And how does that make you feel?"

Today is a birthday for one of my undergrad mentors, Psychologist Chris Eckhardt. Chris was a PhD candidate in Psychology and I was a second-semester freshman when I took his course on IQ and Emotion. On the first day of class, he gave us sixty pages of reading, and said, "This is doable if you don't get distracted by Seinfeld or a ballgame."

Not only did I learn discipline in his class, I also learned how to remain cool as an academic. My curiosity about Psychology became actual knowledge, and that summer I sought out the Spenser books and actually knew what Susan was talking about (back when her dialogue was important).

I went on to minor in Psychology and it has enriched my writing and my outlook. Perhaps the most important lesson was that an open mind, a flexible mind, will recognize the most and interpret the best.