Something new every day

Here's what I've learned recently:

1. Today I learned about the sport of curling; how it's played, and how the scoring works. It's kind of interesting, once you sit down and watch it.

2. Yesterday, I learned what a coypu is: it's a chubby little rodent. If you took its head in one hand and its tail in the other and stretched it out, you might have an otter.

3. The day before that, I learned about the Boxer Rebellion, which took place in 1900 in China.

4. And a few days before that, I learned (finally!) the lyrics to the chorus of 'Scar Tissue.'

I've discovered that learning something new every day is really easy. For me, it's just a matter of admitting that I don't know something, taking the time to find out about it - usually a matter of minutes - or, heaven forbid, asking questions of someone who does know.

That's how I learned about curling. My boyfriend was watching it while we were eating breakfast. My first instinct was to roll my eyes and go find a book to read. See, I've become very secure in my ignorance; in recent years, my attitude has been that if I don't know about something, it must not be worth knowing about.

But Kenny knows about all kinds of stuff - weather systems, and obscure sports, and how things work and where things come from - and I think that's so cool! So instead of rolling my eyes because he was watching something that I didn't know anything about, and therefore had no interest in, I sat down and started watching with him. And it was interesting. And now I know something I didn't know yesterday.

I wonder what I'll learn tomorrow, that I don't know today.