In which I decide to better myself

It's been a long time since I purposely learned something new. Oh, I pick up facts from here and there, and try to store them in the long-term databanks for future retrieval, but I feel like my knowledge is scattershot at best and trivial at worst. It's time for me to limber up the brain and APPLY myself to something new.

But.....what?

Which lobe of my cluttered mind is hungering for some new material to chew on? Which bit of my brain is hankering for some tasty new thinky treats?

I've toyed with the idea of taking up physics, because it seems like NOW is the right time in my life to understand why "what goes up must comes down" is much more than the obvious one-word answer "gravity." When I was younger I didn't want to expose myself to so much math as the physics required, but I'm thinkin' now that with the vast panoply of life experience I have behind me, there may never be a better time to invite math-as-basis-for-logic into my life.

However.

There's also the idea of relearning a foreign language, because there are nebulous plans afoot to travel abroad next year, and I think it would be lots of fun and a jolly good time to be able to talk with people in the lands to which I'm possibly travelling in their own language. Buuuuut, would it be better to learn a whole NEW language? Spanish? Mandarin? NOT French - I don't have the level of cool it takes to speak French. I know! Japanese! Of course! I have absolutely no REASON to learn Japanese, so it's the perfect langauge.

Nobody ever said my thirst for knowledge had to make sense.

I could go to cooking school, but that takes money, of which I ain't got so much of right now, and I'd probably scoff at their silly "recipes" and "measuring cups" anyhow, so maybe not that, though it would be a lot of fun to go to a school that demands you play with you food, and this was too a real sentence, so there.

Whatever it is, it should be a great BODY of work to undertake, more of an avocation or hobby than a simple "class." For example, I don't want to throw just one pot and call myself a potter. I'm way more inot the idea of this new thing being an UNDERTAKING, if you will. It would be preferable to make this something I can do on my own time too, so an online something, with lots of books and articles, would be great.

Yeah - I'm thinking physics.

Or politics.

Or world religions.

You know, easy stuff.

Got any suggestions?