Watching a show about volcanos. And wish I'd felt confident enough to go into hard science when I was young, and had a scholarship, and been brave enough to risk failure. Because I think I'd love to be doing meteorology or vulcanology or geology. The arithmetic would be less critical now that computers do so much of the grunt work. I watch and read and feel rather dull that I can only grasp so much, the ideas, the principles, but not the details, at this point. When I was 19, I could have, if only I'd had to. The ideas certainly caught me then, but the nuts and bolts seemed beyond my abilities, given my difficulty with pinning down numerals.
I think we teach children backward when it comes to mathematics. It should be a different class from arithmetics. One to make change for groceries and measure for paint, one to understand scientific principles. My own discalcula with numbers barred me from the rest, which I adored once exposed to them. By then, I'd missed the scientific boat.
Courage came late into my life. Welcome, nonetheless, yes. This isn't real regret, just a passing wistfulness.
Found a few fellow students from the theater program, (that bad fecesbook habit of mine.) One ignored my 'friend' request, and fair enough. Who knows what kind of creep I may have turned into, or how irrelevant I ever was to her. The second I simply wrote to, with a "glad you're alive, that is all." I expect nothing back. I certainly don't like who I was then, and that's all they have to go on. I want them to know that their younger selves are remembered kindly.
Not sure what to call this impulse, to pat a back from long ago and far away. Not nostalgia, those were not good times. Not even reminiscence, I can't even remember the last name of the one person from that time I would like to hear from. More along the lines of acknowledgment of the nudges that influenced me, however glancingly. I remember, and it made a difference of some sort.
All in all, I'm glad I took the paths I did. However lost I was, it all leads me here, and here is pretty good.
Fair enough.
8 comments:
Pragmatic introspection. Pretty impressive. I too agree that numbers mean more in practical settings.
(o)
yes...where you are right now
(o)
I too think that math should be taught differently. It's a critical part of science, but I think part of the thinking involved in analytical math comes with time and practice. Some teachers don't teach you how to work it out...they just make students feel stupid if they can't get it straight off. Seeing how the math and physics actually worked and got used made me interested. Up to that point it was just painful rhetoric.
Math and me have been distant friends and so science became fascinating for me...I'm grateful that my Dad, a teacher, made sure I tried and learned a bit of everything. He wouldn't let me give up on something that was hard...just look at it from another angle. He figured I couldn't decide if I liked something if I hadn't given it a chance.
Wise guy there my dad :)
I've always loved algebra and calculus - and my mental arithmetic is appalling.
G,
Wise dad indeed.
Pacian,
Yup different subjects, and need to be taught differently.
Aha! Now I know why math and I had such a hard time liking each other.
:)
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