2025 MW Exam Aftermath

 

For the first time in decades I woke up with nothing to do.  Sure, I had to walk the dogs and take out the garbage kind of crap, but I didn't have anything hanging over me like the albatross of the MW exam.  This summer I am fighting the urge to be 14 years old again, where June/July are a never ending horizon line and each day is an open menu of choices.  "What do I want to do today?"  I sat in bed with the bassets for a couple of hours this morning doing nothing and it was great.  Eventually, the thought creeped into my head... "you're wasting time... getting weaker..."  In theory, this is my rest/recovery period from my big Spring push on that exam, but I'm thinking it's like if you stop running daily when you are in your 40s.  You can get up off the couch and start doing it again, but when you do, it's like you never ran in the first place.  I have a fear that's what I will be like with remembering shit about trunk diseases and "winged vectors" (you know... the fucked up bugs that carry diseases).  If I don't get back at it, I will be the academic version of 41 year old me wheezing after running 800 yards.  Thus, I'm getting back on the horse.

I made myself dive into the shitty exam answers I provided on the viticulture questions as well as the questions I didn't answer.  I made a bad decision when I didn't take that AI question on as it was really just a question asking "what COULD happen with better technology" as opposed to "what AI shit is going on right now".  I could have written such a better answer on that as opposed to whatever bullshit I wrote on the question I took instead.  Oh well, that's behind me now.  That means I have to tackle the holes in my game head on.  I'm sort of like the Carolina Panthers right now.  You can see some bright spots on the roster, but there are some glaring improvements that need to be made in some key positions.  It's not a playoff team right now, but a couple timely additions and you never know.  This time next month, I am going to be a goddamn expert on two legs in the areas of key diseases, pests, and mitigation techniques.  If you run into me, I will force the conversation into a horrible turn into plant diseases.  "Hey, that's terrible that the thunderstorm tore your roof off, which reminds me of how that pesky mealybug is transmitting Leaf Roll Virus in California.  Looks like those folks at the Assistance Dog Institute are doing great work with detection though, wouldn't ya say?".  This is a conversation NO ONE wants to have, but this is where we are headed.

I have also booked a trip to the Loire.  I have never been there, but I got invited to attend some chenin blanc conference across a few days.  I land in Paris where it is supposed to be 103 degrees, which should be very comfortable while walking around an overcrowded tourist city with jetlag.  I'll jump on a TGV train ASAP to get down to Angers, rent a car, and see what's doing out there.  I think the overall plan is solid.  The conference sounds like a good enough reason to stand around some old castles, slam back some white wine, and talk in exhausting detail about soil as I try to avoid making an international incident with my horrific inability to pronounce any French word correctly.  This will also provide me an excuse to visit a Chinon producer who worked with my old college roommate.  Of course, I will have to tearfully admit to changing my correct Chinon answer on the P2 exam during a terrible moment of personal failure.  They seem like nice people, so I hope they won't mind my sniveling sobbing admission at their dinner table.  "Compose yourself sir!  Compose yourself!"

If I am going to get past this MW exam, I will have to change up a few things that have been unsuccessful.  I am going to go headfirst into some of The Boring Shit (to me).  I need to get "more comfortable out of my comfort zone".  That's what a high school football coach would say.  Though I do wonder if getting more comfortable out of your comfort zone really means that you have just stepped back into your comfort zone without knowing it, which is why you feel comfortable again.  Or does it mean that by continued exposure to discomfort it stops being uncomfortable which by definition would just extend the boundaries of your comfort zone into a New Comfort Zone?  I don't know, but I guess I will find out.  

Who wants to talk Esca?