Behind the Times

It seems now adays life goes by fairly fast. If you take a single wrong step you are suddenly behind with no hopes of catching up with the rest of society. I feel like I have taken 2 wrong steps in my life that have now caused me to be so far behind that I feel I just can't catch up.

My first misstep was in not continuing my dancing at a young age. When I was younger I convinced my mom to allow me to go to dance workshops and the such. I went to a couple of different dance things here and there, but I never continued. I think one of the main reasons may have been because it wasn't considered 'manly' but that also could just be a fabrication created by me by my later self. But in any essence this stopping in my dancing at a young age has caused me to be morbidly behind. I look at even 'beginning' male dancers and I notice that I shouldn't even begin to imagine catching up. Most of them have the flexibilty to bend over backwards and do the splits. They have also learned how to spot properly so that they can turn more than once without falling over. They have also obtained the strength necessary to lift people up as if they weight absolutely nothing. I on the other hand have none of these capabilities. I am not flexible enough to do most of the movement necessary, I cannot even do a single turn without falling flat on my face, and as for strength, let's just say most women without strength training can outdo me. And so due to this I feel hopelessly behind on the times. And the sad part is, I just don't have time to catch up. I will discuss this later though.

My second misstep took place with my other profession, mathematics. This misstep was even more greatly my fault. I went into university thinking that I was going to pursue physics. Because of this I made the mindless assumption that I would not need mathematics, and so I did not try to learn most of it thinking that it would not benefit me much. I ended up being drastically wrong when, now I find out, I turned to love mathematics. Since I was behind on my knowledge, I could not catch up to learn. Even as I learn new and interesting things in mathematics, I still feel like I do not know much about the field. As everyone else is able to write proofs, I can't even create simple ones. As everyone has help to get them through their courses, I only have myself, and again have no time to catch up and learn everything. Also it should be noted that most of the greatest mathematicians had their best works published and exalted by the age of 25. That leaves me with less than 4 years to come up with some brilliant form of mathematics if I were to want to keep my name in the history books. Again, I am hopelessly behind on the times.

Now there are also tons of different things I would like to do with my life. I want to sit and play video games and catch up on all those. I want to learn about computers and the hardware and catch up on that. I want to learn about web design and how it works and catch up on that. I also want to catch up on all the books people read and all the tv shows (star trek mainly) people used to watch and catch up on those. I have so much to catch up on, it's a wonder I slowly don't get there.

So what is this reason I don't catch up on everthing? One word... School. It is the first time in my life that I have felt that school is finally taking its toll on me. I feel like I am putting so much effort into getting good grades that I am not learning anything. Grades have become too much of an importance in the world. Should it not be the knowledge that we obtain rather than a grade? I feel like all I care about nowadays is a grade. And it's starting to impede on my acquisition of knowledge. I have to take 8 classes minnimum in order to continue education so that I can be a teacher. I have to write essays for education classes. Why do I need to write an essay in order to show knowledge and why do you have to put a certain number of words on it. If I want to explain a certain topic in less than 3,500 words then i should be allowed it. Does it matter if my words flow nicely on a piece of paper or not? I personally don't think so. I have gained the knowledge needed from the classroom and yet they ask me to reflect on it in such a stupid fasion. And in mathematics they ask for me to basically write a book on a subject matter. In math I understand most of it. In fact I wanted to do the workload for my math class, but it is mainly the stupid education essays I just do not want to write.

Unfortunately, I must wait until I am out of school until I can 'catch up' on everything. By that point I will be 23 and I will be too late to pursue anything in dance, and I will only have 2 years to catchup and exceed everyone else in mathematics. In essence I must accomplish the impossible. And so I will look to school and say thank you. Thank you for ruining my life.

Still behind on life thanks to school,
Aram the Garmo