To stay true to one of my resolutions, I managed to read a book this weekend. In fact I read the whole book on Sunday. Granted, it was only about 145 pages, but still it’s an accomplishment. This weekend I read Fahrenheit 451. It is such a popular and important work of literature, it’s on so many high school reading lists and it’s even on some junior high reading lists, that I’m honestly surprised that I haven’t read it already. Or maybe I did read it but just can’t remember reading it. Or maybe I was supposed to read it and just blew it off.
People who know me today and people who know my most recent history probably think that I was an outstanding and exceptional student my whole life. That is far from the case. I was an average student in elementary school, if it’s even worth going back that far. I was a great student in junior high. I was an average student again in high school. And I was an outstanding student through community college and college. I don’t really know why I had these ups and downs in how I performed as a student. I had moments when I was incredibly dedicated and focused, like in junior high where I first discovered my love of history and mythology. When I got to high school I suppose I lost some dedication and focus, and can’t really remember why. It’s not like I was always out at parties or always hanging out with my friends. I was always more of a recluse and antisocial. In high school, most of my friends were in honors or advance placement classes and already starting to study for the SATs in their sophomore year. Meanwhile I was getting B averages (with an occasional C in math classes) in the “regular” level classes. For some reason I was just less focused and less dedicated and not invested in my classes. I’m sure I must have studied through high school, but I honestly don’t remember actually doing it. Maybe I have ADD and just don’t know it…
At any rate, things turned around for me when I started community college and made my way through two additional colleges and graduate school. And it was a complete 180 turn. I went from being lazy and unfocused to incredibly dedicated and focused. It was like I couldn’t learn enough and maybe the difference was that I had the opportunity to choose what I wanted to study. I wasn’t limited by the subjects we were required to take in high school. Sure, in college I was required to take a science class, but I could decide what kind of science class I wanted to take. While I generally have a hard time understanding basic science, chemistry, or biology, somehow I managed to do really well in physical anthropology or geology. I’m generally bad at most forms of math, but did pretty well in geometry. I went from hating reading to loving reading. And somehow I managed to study Greek and Latin at the same time, something most departments discourage because it is often too difficult to do at once. And I managed to excel at both. I suppose once I was in college, I managed to figure out how my strange brain works and what it’s good at. And maybe I was lucky enough to find the right professors who gave me the inspiration and encouragement that I needed. And fortunately I had the family to support my odd and extended educational choices.
Anyway, I started this post to congratulate myself for reading an awesome book, and then went into a retrospective on the history of my education and how my strange little brain works. I take a year off of blogging, and this is what you get. Take what you will of it.
