It wasn’t until I flunked out of my first semester of college that I realized high school was more than something kids had be at from 8 to 3 everyday. I also really had a hard time with my focus and settling down, the traditional classroom setup wasn’t idea for the way my brain wanted to learn about things. I would get bored, space out and start writing poetry or songs or drawing comic books or pictures of airplanes and spaceships during my classes. Somehow I always managed to pass all but a few of my classes by the narrowest of margins. If I made a C - that was good. Making a B was almost unheard of. When I made a B in geometry, I liked to shit my pants. Even though as mentioned above in the thread, I had cheated in the class. The only A’s I ever made were in Art, Music, and P.E., the stuff I liked. A lot of D grades and a few F’s.
Several years, jobs, and locations pass and I’m working for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in a new city, St Louis. A single guy wanting to meet a nice lady to date. I decided a good way to meet someone would be by going to night school at one of the local colleges. I took only 2 classes, Public Relations and Intro to Mass Com and made an A in both and met a few female classmates. I thought, “hmmmm, I think I like going to school,” and for the first time applied myself. Being a bit more mature and having to support myself helped a lot too. I did struggle with my college statistics course but managed an honest B. I aced the two accounting classes I took. I just kept going to school, looking for someone I never found but enjoying the process. Eventually, I got my MA in Media Production Management at age 37.
I kind of miss those night school classes. I preferred it to staying home watching TV alone or hanging out alone in some smoky bar populated with lounge lizards.
That’s pretty funny. I sat there for five minutes looking at this trying to figure out how it was misspelled. The hell’s this guy talking about??? It’s no wonder my brain would do that, though, since geography is probably my main interest and I have a collection of many hundreds of maps.
I’ve always been a geography enthusiast as well. My only breakthrough in math was when my exasperated sixth grade teacher explained that my ability to quickly calculate ERA meant that I could do math despite my protestations to the contrary. That realization got me through all the algebra and finite math my high school and college curriculums required.
Lots of stuff here I did not know about you, Devin. Great story, and I admire your perseverance and Sphinx’s. Each of you worked hard to achieve a personal goal, and I hope we all have had similar successes.
I used one too – it actually is a good math teaching aid – sort of “visuals” for advanced math. I also have my father-in-law’s slide rule, which is a pre-WW2 work of art. Lovingly used and preserved through a Chemical Engineering career.
