I’m sure I learned something in college, though I’m not certain I can put it into words. My major was Radio-Television, and I’ve worked in radio all my adult life. But the skills I use every day are not things I learned in class. I picked them up while working at the campus radio station.

When it comes to classwork, the greatest course of my entire post-secondary career wasn’t even in the Radio-TV Department, it was taught out of the campus auditorium and it was called “Vaudeville”.

Yes, I took the most academically rigorous route available.

When questioned about this choice by my cash-strapped parents I explained that my mission was to succeed in the media, and since radio and television are entertainment mediums, it was necessary for me to be conversant in other, historic forms of mass amusement.

They acknowledged my logic but still did not pay for the pricier tap shoes.

In spite of my being personally underfunded for this particular class, as part of “Vaudeville” the instructor, Jo Mack Witwer, did managed to teach me to tap dance and to juggle.

Like virtually everything else I learned in class during those years, I didn’t keep up the daily practice and eventually forgot my hoofing and juggling skills though I do like thinking of myself as someone who can, in a pinch, do both.

This all comes rushing back because scientists have successfully duplicated an earlier attempt to create a super-heavy element, a metal known currently as ununseptium, soon to throw its atomic weight around the periodic table under a different, freshly-minted name.

Ununseptium doesn’t exist in nature – it has to be created in the laboratory by bombarding radioactive berkelium-249 with calcium-ion beams. And then as soon as it exists, this inherently unstable element starts to decay , breaking down into other unstable elements before it finally devolves into parts that are capable of existing for a span of time that actually registers with our conscious minds.

But existing for a few milliseconds in repeated experiments is enough to qualify ununseptium for a new name and permanent inclusion in the table of elements. I admire the scientists who managed this and am in awe of their achievement, though with entirely selfish motives.

Here’s why – if ununseptium is an element, then I am still a juggler.

I discovered through experimentation that if I practice for two days straight, I can juggle three balls for five seconds before my eye-hand coordination goes kerflooey and everything hits the floor. But those five seconds are golden, and they make up a span of time that’s much longer than any atom of ununseptium has ever existed.

Mission accomplished!

What are you good at for only a very short time?