Growing up, I was always in the smart groups.  I wasn’t the smart kid, but I was damn proud of my reading skills.  I attended a Montessori elementary school, and I was in the group of kids reading the more advanced books.  I remember there was few enough of us that we sat at a table rather than in the area where large groups gathered on the floor.  In middle school, I was in a group of four kids in my 6th grade block class that was supposed to read more advanced books.  One of them was The Hobbit, though as far as I remember, I never read it.  Man, those were the days.  My free time was spent reading and writing.  I miss reading like that.

In middle school, as a 6th grader, I also was allowed in the 7+ math class, which was literally an 8th grade math class.  I was so bored in my 6th grade math class.  If I remember correctly, I wasn’t doing so hot close to when I got moved up.  My parents will have to correct me, but I believe their reasoning was I was doing poorly, because of my boredom.

Maybe that’s true and obviously I handled the classes successfully enough to pass with good grades, but there are times where I think I was just…bored.  The way the classes were taught was uninteresting to me.  Once I hit calculus, my “ability” to do math was done.   I just didn’t get it.  In college, I flew by Computational Discrete Math course.  That’s all about following algorithms and patterns; it was a breeze.  Theory of Discrete Math?  Big fail on me.  And I took that f’ing class twice.

A week or so ago, someone tweeted a link to Millennial Marketing on whether or not Gen Y Suffers From Lack of Failure. (Are you sensing a theme here?  Just be glad I made these things separate posts.)

Phase 2 stuck to me.  “Kids that had been initially been praised for their smarts….were easily discouraged.”  Is that me?  This isn’t something I can cookie cutter fit myself into.  (Cue bringing my mother into the discussion as she generally already knows these answers.)

I ran into issues with math, and I gave up figuring it out.  That isn’t something I like.  At some point in my life, I will break down and buy the Head First Algebra book, so I can actually learn Algebra.  (My school system was silly and taught me “integrated math” where I had/have no clue specifically what algebra, geometry, etc were.)  In the mean time, I just don’t think about it.  I pursue what I’m “naturally” good at: programming.

Except there I can’t decide whether I’m moving away at a time I have experienced challenges or if I am exploring a new challenge.  Truthfully, it’s a little of both.  However, in accepting a job, I have accepted the new challenge for a long haul.  To be honest, I am excited about the prospect of focusing on one “challenge” for a longer than three months engagement.

So, verdict still out on whether the points in this article fit me.