Life: The IRL Problem Thread!!

[Nevan]

Yea, I'm a bit arrogant, but not too much.

I'm making 100s in all of my classes but one, and in that one I'm making a high B or medium to low A.

So yea, I think some of it is pointless (ie. Geometry and grammar), which is is, but I do it.

[Ogreasy]

Yeah, I need to learn to stop rebelling against the system and go with the flow.

[mrwiseman]

IRT Cata(2): I stay up to 4 AM 5 days a week... I just can't get myself to sleep too early... Fortunately, I only need to be up early 3 days a week, but I really need to get used to going to bed earlier for when I get a job.


IRT N(1): I have motivation for stuff when I'm not being lazy, but I always lacked some motivation for school and lately I've been having a complete lack of motivation for it; the only thing that gets me passing stuff is the sense of duty, like, I'm on this job, so I gotta get it done. On the contrary, I have mountains of self esteem, I would marry myself if that was possible, lol. I am a bit arrogant, but I know how to admit when I'm at fault and how to apologize when necessary, so I hope nobody I care for hates me for this. As for learning things, I can learn everything naturally, but my memory is trash; I can perfectly understand something and the next 5 minutes I've forgotten it, and I'm no use for remembering numbers other than useless ones. For example, for some reason I always know 512 KB = 524288 Bytes, but it took me a year to learn my cellular number, and I really forgot my own age 2 times already...


IRT N(2): IMO geometry comes in handy here and there; I've had a dozen more useless matters at school.


IRT CBA(2): Try to take advantage of it, instead of rebelling [img]smile.gif[/img]


IRT Cav: Then don't watch TV, much less TV with ads [img]biggrin.gif[/img]


I have to get going, I'll be back tonight and post my experience.

[Cavalier]

i got low self esteem and i hate when ppl tell me to do stuff unless its a friend lol

[mrwiseman]

IRT CBA: Ok, I got time, and this is what I have to say:

I was never a good student, considering what a student does is studying. Besides being lazy, I always studied half the time my friends would study at best; usually 1/4. Not only I don't want to (anybody really wants to go through the BS at school without any extra personal motivation on specific subjects?), but I just plain hate it. And the reason for this is that I have a terrible memory, and education in Spain sucks because it's so based on memory and it never values creativity and raw intelligence. For example, in literature classes, we hardly read one book a year (books that sucked big, large dicks 95% of the times); all we had to do is to memorize author, book, date; author, book, date; author, book, date. That's so lame. In music in high school, we hardly heard any music. We just studied history of music. And other matters weren't too different.

At school, things were so easy I would rarely need to spend a couple hours studying, that's the most I'd really study before an exam, and of course, I always did it the day before the exam, because my memory is so bad if I do it two days before I'll forget it by the time I have to do it. Anyways; because it was so trivial, and I was very good at math, I passed and even got good grades.

High school was different. The first two years were damn easy. I went to a relatively hard school, so the first to years were a snap. I rarely studied. The rest of it, I hated it. I had to study 2 whole days before every final for the first time, and I got used to it somehow, but the reason why I hated it was because back then, I was already doing my stuff in C and Visual Basic, and I wanted to study Computer Science, not Literature/Technical Drawing/Chemistry/Physics/Music and a lot of crap they made me study. Those are NOT my things. I do NOT care for them. And if I do (I do care for most), I hated being forced to study them and having to pass all-memory exams which I'm so bad at. Still, I managed to pass, but since then my grades are just one place above Joe Average. I was, however, pretty experienced with computers and (at least my buddies said) I was very smart and able to express and explain things pretty well. In fact some institute came to run an IQ test on us and I was one of the best in my age, don't remember what I got though (like I would remember with my memory). This is probably what saved me, because when I forgot something in an exam, I would try to deduce it and make it sound like I'm an expert at it; or make such ambiguous sentences if the teacher has a good disposition towards me he/she would think I knew what I was saying, just I was a little bad explaining it. I had the most fun back then though, beause I had a lot of free time, a lot of friends, and still studied few hours with an excellent grades-to-study-hours ratio, while my friends had to study for weeks to pass. I had serious problems with all-memory matters where this does not work, like literature, for example.

But university is the suchsor. I was really motivated when I entered, because I thought I was FINALLY going to learn MY FUCKING STUFF, and not everybody else's but mine, and I was FINALLY going to do something I'm very good at. Stupid me. That's when I learnt when something sounds too good to be true, it's that it's not true. Classes started, and I was pissed I only had 2 Computer Science matters, the other 3 were Physics, Math, and Economics. I wondered why the fuck do we need to learn that. Out of them, only Math would be useful for a Computer Scientist, but what they taught was definitely not the useful part anyways. I still started with motivation, but I was disconcerted at the CS matters. They looked like a completely different universe. They mentioned things I had never heard of, and I was programming shit for years. And, to my shock, I found we were studying theories from the 60s. Yes, 1960s. I got sucky grades, and a depression and rage I had never had for studies. I had discovered university is a place you just go through to get a stupid title to stick on your walls as the ultimate wallpaper, so you can get a decent job for which you'll need to learn everything on your own (and luckily, I already know what I need because I learnt it in my free time). And if you've got no title, you aren't going to get paid like somebody who does, even though what they teach in university (at least in Spain, at least in Computer Science) is 70% completely useless and has nothing to do with the real thing.

Since then, I've been experiencing an absolute lack of motivation. The only reason why I get through it is my sense of duty (I feel it is my duty to do it after all, and it's what my parents want), and my desire to get money once I get to work (and even though I already know everything I need to start, I need the wallpaper to get the jobs I want, so stupid is the world).

My formula to work was to think just like this: I've got a job to do, and I'll do it; I'll get through it; but only under my limits ? which means I'm getting x gaming hours a week, and I'll happily sacrifice study time to ensure I get my x gaming hours. This may seem like a bad practice, but in the end, it keeps me relatively happy, which helps with studies as well. I took the "don't overdo it" to heart.

Another thing of great help to me was that, exactly because I hate it, and I'm so unmotivated, I don't frigging care what grades do I get. I study the hours I planned to, and once the alarm rings, I go home for my daily session of RPG gaming, with a sense of having done my work, regardless if I'm behind or ahead schedule. I didn't really feel happy when passing a final, just the bare happiness of not having to do it again next year. And if I get screwed in a final, I wouldn't feel too sad either: I did my job, I studied my x hours, so I'll happily go home thinking I won't have to bother for this shit for a year, and play some more games. Believe it or not, this worked incredibly good for me, and I even got good grades in the Computer Science matters and discrete math and statistics which I find somewhat useful for CS so I had learnt some of them on my own before.

Last year I really thought I would screw it up because I was months behind schedule with everything. However, I have to say either I got extremely intelligent, or I got extremely lucky (and I think it was the later), because I studied everything the best I could in just one day of inspiration, and managed to pass somehow, don't ask how because I'm still wondering. Having Artificial Intelligence did help a bit (I love it, and I'm good at it), but I don't understand how did I do to not screw it up. And this was not a new feeling for me though, I had something like this happen in a couple matters pretty much every year.

And this kinda gave me some motivation, if only for thinking I'm so lucky I always get my ass saved in the end so it'll be ok.

But I'm still lacking motivation, and I can't tell you how to find it because I haven't found it myself. All I can tell is that my formula for getting through this shit is developing your senses of duty, order, and responsibility, and if it gets too extreme, or you really hate it, maybe you could try to set yourself in a mental state so that it does not matter to you what you get in school, as long as you do your job for the hours you are supposed to. Thinking like "I did my job, now whatever I get is not my fault nor my glory". This way you don't need much motivation other than duty, you don't get depressed, sad, stressed, or anything, and you'll eventually get things done, and this non-depression, unstressed conditions will help for this. I don't give a damn for this piece of shit I'm doing, all I care is that I get my x hours job done and then I go happily home no matter what; like it wasn't a job for me.

This is, however, my personal experience, and every person is different, so what works for me might not work for you.

<font color="#101010" size="1">[ May 11, 2004 03:25 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]</font>

[mrwiseman]

Quick and cheap solution against anger: I have this uber cute, lovely samurai girl in my wallpaper. Whenever I'm pissed for something and I close a window and see her, my anger fades away [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ogreasy]

IRT-Wiseman-
About the write down and act like you know what you are talking about thing. I do this all the time!
Yeah, I'm trying to get back on track.

[Nevan]

I agree that some Geometry is useful, but not all of it.

Some of the stuff I will never use. I've even asked my parents and grandparents if they have ever used some of the stuff and they said no. My grandpa was even a carpenter and a quite successful one at that and he said he didn't even use some of it. Of course he quit school around the 6th grade so he didn't get much Geometry or high maths, of course that was back in the 40s. But what I'm saying is he hardly ever used some of it, but some of it was useful and he used it.

[mrwiseman]

Yes, of course, that's exactly one of the things I'm bitching about the Spanish education: you get a load of things you won't ever need. I think if something will be useful for a 1% of people (at best) alone, it shouldn't be teached at schools. Instead of teaching those marvelous things you don't need, they should focus on stuff it's useful for at least the 80% of people, and even with such a high %, there are so many things they should teach there's not enough time. For example, modern education is forgetting morals, basic computer usage (they teach children how to write, but writing on a keyboard is even more common than handwriting today), new technologies that affect their everyday lives, sex and sexuality (this is always limited because of stupid religion), etc.

[One Classy Bloke]

Agreed. There is a lot you don't need to know. But it seems like wiseman had a rough time in school. While these useless trivial things are pointless, when you get onto some real meat, it can build you up as a person. More culture, and you'll be able to help others with the mainly useless knowledge you've learn. They may find it helpful, and someone needs to know the stuff.