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[Scoops Novel]

How much does an end goal help?

[Nadaka]

EDIT: If college nearly killed me, how am I going to handle the rest of my life?

College nearly kills most people who take it seriously, and continue to handle whatever comes next.  Whatever you do from here isn't likely to be so strenuous.

For me, you get through it by knowing you got through worse than whatever is coming next. Those things that nearly killed you: did not. There are certain times when it's ok and desirable to feel superior to people, because you've earned it. Vector, you have a degree in mathamatics. Most people can't make proper change for $12. This and several other reasons about you are why you are loved here. 

This reminds me. I was a godly convenience store clerk, because I could quickly give change and do my paperwork at the end of my shift. On two different occasions I was accused of having magical powers.

[RedKing]

EDIT: If college nearly killed me, how am I going to handle the rest of my life?

College nearly kills most people who take it seriously, and continue to handle whatever comes next.  Whatever you do from here isn't likely to be so strenuous.

For me, you get through it by knowing you got through worse than whatever is coming next. Those things that nearly killed you: did not. There are certain times when it's ok and desirable to feel superior to people, because you've earned it. Vector, you have a degree in mathamatics. Most people can't make proper change for $12. This and several other reasons about you are why you are loved here. 

This reminds me. I was a godly convenience store clerk, because I could quickly give change and do my paperwork at the end of my shift. On two different occasions I was accused of having magical powers.

*makes correct change without a cash register*

ARE YOU A WIZARD? 

[Vector]

How much does an end goal help?

Not that much, for me.  I always have an end goal.  The problem is surviving until I can complete it.

How did you drive yourself through it?

To tell you the truth, because I could understand the difference between the subject I was learning and the way people trying to teach it to me were acting.  I love my subject.  I would hardly ever say something of this sort, but I can tell you with some certainty that I was born for it.

So usually, what kept me going was telling myself "Okay, I want to give up but I'll just do this one problem."  Most of the time, if I could get myself to start doing an assignment or whatever, I could get myself to finish.  And if I could get myself to look at the assignment, then starting wasn't that hard, because I'd tempt myself into thinking about it.  "I'm not going to solve this, I'm just going to play with it for a couple minutes and then I'll go do something more fun."  Well, my concentration span lasts about seven hours on a good day, so that's usually enough to make a lot of project... and by then I'm interested.

And, for the past year or so, I've watched Elementary every Thursday.  I hate to say it, but having that hour to look forward to helped me survive the rest of the week.

It's a very jury-rigged system.

[RedKing]

It's a very jury-rigged system.

PROTIP: Most people's lives are.

I've been winging this motherfucker for 37.5 years now.

[MonkeyHead]

It's a very jury-rigged system.

PROTIP: Most people's lives are.

I've been winging this motherfucker for 37.5 years now.

SNap. The only thing that stops others catching on is that they too are doing the same.

[FearfulJesuit]

Goddammit, depression, why do you have to feel so good?

[RedKing]

When Thoreau penned that most men "lead lives of quiet desperation", I always thought he meant the frustration of not being able to achieve your dreams. Now I know he meant "desperately just trying to keep a lid on the fact that you have no fucking idea what you're doing". I do a pretty good job of pretending to be a responsible adult. Inside, I'm still that cripplingly shy, bewildered teenaged geek trying to hang with the big boys.


I got issued a corporate credit card the other day. I'm like "Whoa....what the fuck, you're giving me an American Express? And putting me on an airplane and telling me to go halfway across the country and just trusting that I won't abuse it? But...but....that's what businessmen do. Guys in suits. Who actuallly look like they belong in suits."

And then RedKing wore a suit. And it didn't look half bad.   

[Reelya]

I have contact info, but this is the end of this chapter of my life.  I'm moving home tomorrow, finishing and submitting a paper electronically, and then graduation #1 is on Saturday.  Have another 15 pager to write, then departmental graduation on Tuesday.

I'm done, I guess.


EDIT: If college nearly killed me, how am I going to handle the rest of my life?

It only gets easier after college. Or, that should be, as easy or as difficult as you want to make it, since you can pretty much do whatever you like now.

[Simmura McCrea]

Failed uni and burned my pasta, all in one day. Now I'm hungry and in a horrible mood.

[MonkeyHead]

I have contact info, but this is the end of this chapter of my life.  I'm moving home tomorrow, finishing and submitting a paper electronically, and then graduation #1 is on Saturday.  Have another 15 pager to write, then departmental graduation on Tuesday.

I'm done, I guess.


EDIT: If college nearly killed me, how am I going to handle the rest of my life?

It only gets easier after college.

Apologies form some clumsy analogies...

College/Uni for me was like an intense sprint, where the goal was to understand/assimilate/demonstrate advanced concepts with tight time limits. Doing so led to more of the same, up until some theoretical maximum plateau (postgrad). It was hard on me. I struggled, but prevailed, simply as I loved how hard it was. It was almost as if I had to prove that I could take the pace as it ramped up to be allowed to get to the other side where things slackened off, which leads us to the present day.

As for now, in the wonderful world of working/teaching, well, its more like a marathon. The pace is a lot less intense, and the level of difficulty isnt particularly high, but its the repetition, and volume of stuff needing to be done thats the challenge as opposed to the complexity. Whilst my brain could have gone "pop" during some advanced courses towards the end of my education, its more likley now to be the writing of my 3millionth trivial paperwork/form/memo/document of the week that will do me in.

[GlyphGryph]

College, for me, was a leisurely kayak trip down a (usually) gently flowing river to the sea, where I'd occasionally stop off to go for a romp through the woods and collect leaves or bugs or berries or whatever caught my fancy, a even though there were a few rocks, a few close calls, and a point or two where the canoe flipped and I thought I was going to drown, it was actually, overall, pretty great and not terribly difficult. The risks all came from my inexperience, rather than the difficulty of the river. I honestly miss it.

Now, my life involves me being out on the open waters, with rough waves and little in the way of direction. It's definitely a different experience. I thought it was going to be worse, but sea kayaking can be pretty enjoyable in it's own right once you realize that not every direction you can go in (and that the directions the tide wants to pull you in) are equally interesting, but unlike the river you have a lot more control where you ultimately end up. It's more responsibility, but it's not bad, and now that i've figured out how the ocean waves work (i.e. the job market) I'm pretty happy with it.

But I still miss the river sometimes.


Addendum:
I also now REALLY missing living on the river and having a Kayak. Something just great about being able to decide "fuck today, I'm going to paddle up the river and watch beavers and turtles and dragonflies for a few hours until the sun sets over the forest.

[MaximumZero]

Kind of feel like I'm dying of a migraine. Fuck you, caffeine. I'm quitting you for good this time.

[Solifuge]

When Thoreau penned that most men "lead lives of quiet desperation", I always thought he meant the frustration of not being able to achieve your dreams. Now I know he meant "desperately just trying to keep a lid on the fact that you have no fucking idea what you're doing". I do a pretty good job of pretending to be a responsible adult. Inside, I'm still that cripplingly shy, bewildered teenaged geek trying to hang with the big boys.


I got issued a corporate credit card the other day. I'm like "Whoa....what the fuck, you're giving me an American Express? And putting me on an airplane and telling me to go halfway across the country and just trusting that I won't abuse it? But...but....that's what businessmen do. Guys in suits. Who actuallly look like they belong in suits."

And then RedKing wore a suit. And it didn't look half bad. 

I always wonder when and if that will ever happen to me... where I'll suddenly look in a mirror and see an adult, the same way I saw adults when I was a kid. Didn't happen when I graduated high school. Didn't happen when I got my first car. Didn't happen after my first year of college, or my second. Didn't happen when I moved out. Or when I got an office job. Or when I got a lab job.

I still look at my bosses, and at professionals, and at my friend's parents, and I see "grown up". But when I look at me in a photo, or in a mirror, I see myself like I've always been. Sure, I'm about as old as my Dad was when he had me, and my furniture is about as crummy and spare as the stuff I grew up with. Sure, parents have told their kids to "thank the nice man" when I hold a door open, or people call me "sir" when they don't know my name. But I want to correct them sometimes, tell them "Oh, no. I'm not Sir or Man or whatever... I'm just a 'Guy' still. I don't even have my Grown-Up's License."

I still don't entirely feel the part.

[Vector]

Man... I feel like an adult.  A young adult, but an adult.  I know what I'm doing, I know where I'm going, and I know why I'm doing it.

It helps that I don't do most of the things that people consider childish/a sign of being college-aged (just due to disinterest, mostly), and I do a reasonably large number of adult-flavored thinguses.  People have thought I came off more like a 40-year-old than my own age since I turned 18.