Back when I was a journalist, I often felt like an expert in everything. Or, at least, everything important: city politics, local crime rates, news bizarre and banal. Given a few hours and a chatty public relations person, I could learn everything I'd ever want to know about property tax appraisals (too boring to recount), or about why Charley, a suburban terrier from GA, lost out on a national Dog of Valor award. (Leading your owner to a partially conscious man isn't valiant enough, apparently).
It was easy to feel smug and smart when I could ask questions all day and there were people who were getting paid to answer them. And there were always answers. Tax appraisal is based on scientific calculations, and Baby, a Great Dane from New Mexico, did, after all, rescue her owner after a car accident.

Getting schooled to become a counselor isn't nearly as black-and-white as my reportorial duties, and these days I find myself an expert in - well -- nothing. Counseling is mostly focused on the internal workings of the individual, not the external mechanisms of the community, and all my factoids about government haven't yet come in handy. I don't think they ever will. Our humming external world turns out to be much easier to get a grasp on than our varied and humming internal worlds. Surprise!