Driving Sitting Backwards, One Handed
December 14, 2006: Driving Sitting Backwards, One Handed
Maybe I suffer from some sort of disorder, or this is just what people like me tend to think, but my life always feels like its heading into a death spiral. This feeling of being completely out of control has made for some very interesting dreams that my incredibly active imagination create.
In these dreams I am sitting backwards in the back seat of a car. I am usually steering the car with one arm, reaching over the front seats to grab the wheel. The accelerator is set by a brick, and I am usually heading down some unbelievably busy street with no brakes. The best I am able to do is try to minimize the damage I create as I fly down the street. Bouncing off of one parked car, avoiding another moving car coming in the other direction; I just jerk the wheel from one side to the other afraid to crash and afraid to continue on down the street at full speed.
This is a dream of my life. For the most part my life is out of my control except for a few basic side to side movements.
Now let me be clear, this is not a plea for advice, I know exactly what I should do, and like the good marching lemming that I seem to be of late, I will do it. So, you wonder, what the fuck is he talking about?
I am talking about school.
When you're a kid everyone tells you that going to college is the greatest achievement. At least they tell you this when you are born in a working class neighborhood in Buffalo. They tell you this because the people who go to college are so much more successful than the people in your neighborhood.
What the people in your neighborhood have no idea about when they tell you this is, that if you are smart in anyway at all, you will eventually run into teachers who will waste your life. You will want to explore the topic in one direction, and those bastards will tell you that that is not what they are going to teach. You will know that they are wrong, and you will have to reproduce their wrong work back at them so you can get a nice shiny A to keep your GPA up.
What they don't tell you is that you'll reach a point when everything you do in college will no longer feel like instruction, it will feel like obstruction. And oh! Oh, everyone back in your neighborhood, and your friends, they will tell you to just do the work and get out. But what they don't know is that every single assignment you complete for these obstructer's feels like treason to your own intelligence.
What they don't tell you is that every time you push up against these obstructer's they will have that much more capacity to make your life a living hell. Educational institutions are a joke and a half more than half the time, everyone whose ever been in them has seen it. You are expected to march where they make you march, open your mouth when they tell you, try to chew the sized bits they break off for you, and swallow. Always swallow what and when they tell you to, and you'll always get an A.
(Thats all that matters anyways right? Just the A.)
I don't work this way!
I work best in a situation where all the information is put in front of me, and no one demands that I memorize terms. Application of concepts is something that I excel at, but remembering the terms this particular text book writer decides to call that concept is a waste, and I suck at it.
If you gave me a text, a problem, and two hour period. I could probably figure out what I needed to know to solve the problem, and whats more I would be able to present an impromptu speech on it when I was done. And I would not forget it.
But they give me: In marketing, what is a _______ ?
and they ask me: To choose - A, B, C, D, or E.
I want to blow their useless brains out. If anyone ever wants to know why critical thinking is not a skill that our graduates possess, this is why.
Thats all for now. Thanks for you interest,
~EJTower
Maybe I suffer from some sort of disorder, or this is just what people like me tend to think, but my life always feels like its heading into a death spiral. This feeling of being completely out of control has made for some very interesting dreams that my incredibly active imagination create.
In these dreams I am sitting backwards in the back seat of a car. I am usually steering the car with one arm, reaching over the front seats to grab the wheel. The accelerator is set by a brick, and I am usually heading down some unbelievably busy street with no brakes. The best I am able to do is try to minimize the damage I create as I fly down the street. Bouncing off of one parked car, avoiding another moving car coming in the other direction; I just jerk the wheel from one side to the other afraid to crash and afraid to continue on down the street at full speed.
This is a dream of my life. For the most part my life is out of my control except for a few basic side to side movements.
Now let me be clear, this is not a plea for advice, I know exactly what I should do, and like the good marching lemming that I seem to be of late, I will do it. So, you wonder, what the fuck is he talking about?
I am talking about school.
When you're a kid everyone tells you that going to college is the greatest achievement. At least they tell you this when you are born in a working class neighborhood in Buffalo. They tell you this because the people who go to college are so much more successful than the people in your neighborhood.
What the people in your neighborhood have no idea about when they tell you this is, that if you are smart in anyway at all, you will eventually run into teachers who will waste your life. You will want to explore the topic in one direction, and those bastards will tell you that that is not what they are going to teach. You will know that they are wrong, and you will have to reproduce their wrong work back at them so you can get a nice shiny A to keep your GPA up.
What they don't tell you is that you'll reach a point when everything you do in college will no longer feel like instruction, it will feel like obstruction. And oh! Oh, everyone back in your neighborhood, and your friends, they will tell you to just do the work and get out. But what they don't know is that every single assignment you complete for these obstructer's feels like treason to your own intelligence.
What they don't tell you is that every time you push up against these obstructer's they will have that much more capacity to make your life a living hell. Educational institutions are a joke and a half more than half the time, everyone whose ever been in them has seen it. You are expected to march where they make you march, open your mouth when they tell you, try to chew the sized bits they break off for you, and swallow. Always swallow what and when they tell you to, and you'll always get an A.
(Thats all that matters anyways right? Just the A.)
I don't work this way!
I work best in a situation where all the information is put in front of me, and no one demands that I memorize terms. Application of concepts is something that I excel at, but remembering the terms this particular text book writer decides to call that concept is a waste, and I suck at it.
If you gave me a text, a problem, and two hour period. I could probably figure out what I needed to know to solve the problem, and whats more I would be able to present an impromptu speech on it when I was done. And I would not forget it.
But they give me: In marketing, what is a _______ ?
and they ask me: To choose - A, B, C, D, or E.
I want to blow their useless brains out. If anyone ever wants to know why critical thinking is not a skill that our graduates possess, this is why.
Thats all for now. Thanks for you interest,
~EJTower