I’m a lazy person. I can admit that. I go to work everyday. I come home and I fall asleep after yet another fast food meal without even thinking to deal with the nightmarish mess that is my apartment. Then I get up way too late in the day to do anything but repeat the same process all over again. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Wrong.

The true problem with my laziness is that I am still cursed with those stupid bouts of ambition that many of us have every now and then. I still want to know things.

Those of you who have read my past columns or my occasional writings on the food page know that I am something of a foodie. I love food. I love new tastes and textures. I love the entire ceremony of a meal, from soup to cake. I love food so much that I have been enrolled for some three years in an online cooking program. (A program, mind you, they say should only take about six months, but you work at your own pace, so….)

The program covers culinary standards and catering, something in which I have always had an interest. But, as laziness has its way with me, I have come to discover that I am a terrible student.

Perhaps my problem is the fact that this is an online course, and no one is actually supervising me and making sure I’m not putting gum in someone’s hair. Or perhaps, it is the fact that there is no one sitting in front of me at all to goof off with, to give me that authentic classroom feel. I need the classroom setting again to bring back my scholarly abilities.

With the recent unemployment situation in the country, I’ve been reading that many of our nation’s unemployed have been keeping themselves busy through the very same kinds of online courses that I’m taking.

I definitely think it is commendable and inspiring to know that people aren’t letting their circumstances prevent them from bettering themselves, hopefully to return to the workforce that much stronger as a result of what they’ve learned.

But as for me, the only thing preventing me from bettering myself is myself. Perhaps man is not meant to be a student again once he has passed a certain age. But wiser philosophers than I have said that you are never done learning in life.

I just wish they would have predicted that there would be so many difficulties re-committing oneself to learning after the proliferation of DVDs, Chinese buffets and, of course, the McDonald’s value menu.

So, I will forge onward, out of respect for the great philosophers of the world — unopened textbook in hand — and face my difficulty to re-commit to bettering myself head on. I hope the great philosophers of the world are correct.