Going to School for Fun

Wouldn't it be cool to go to school just for fun?  To take classes because you were interested in the subject, without having to worry about grades or money?  Turns out that Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers is doing just that - at 45 he is a freshman music major at USC.  

Yesterday I heard an interview with Flea on NPR's All Things Considered.  Check it out.  As a chemist, and occasional musician, I especially liked this quote:

"Music is made up out of these building blocks," he says. "Studying how these blocks go together and what they consist of and the math of how it works — it's all the same stuff; it's just different aesthetics that we're talking about."

That could apply to almost any field.

I have to say that I'm envious.  As a teacher myself I do have a lot of freedom, as well as an obligation, to keep learning new stuff.  But I don't have the time to really immerse myself in quite the same way.  It would be fun to be a student again.