I was always jealous of artists that drew really well. I do many things: write stories, compose music, do math etc. etc. But I could never draw the way I wanted. Probably due to lack of practice as I would always be occupied. But there is always this desire to be able to draw well in the back of my mind.
A few months ago I sat down with a notebook and paper and began drawing. After 3 or 4 hours of trying I finally managed to draw a woman’s face JUST the way I wanted it to be. Like, straight out of my mind.
I get a lot of compliments. I am regarded as one of the smartest in the family and people regularly comment on my skillset. I do not enjoy getting compliments. They are background noise. Since I am used to getting compliments and the knowledge I have has been gained from reading and doing stuff for fun, I never ever really felt that “achievement” feeling. Like, shit just happened man I didn’t really work for it. Well I DID but guess not enough to register as something worthwhile I suppose.
So being able to draw a face was the first feeling of achieving something in my life. And my greatest so far. Will probably remain that way for a long time.
Going from arithmetic to multivariable calculus in the span of two years. It has always been a surreal achievement for me because the more that I reminisce it, I find it really isn’t a lot of math to begin with and my entire scale (what i considered advanced level math) is now broken.
Calculus 1, I thought was the benchmark that once passed you are in A-level math. Oh boy was I wrong, calculus 1 is like the baby step for any STEM major, then you do calculus 2, and then for EEs you do calculus 3. Then after that there’s diff eq, linear algebra, stats, and finally signals congrats you have finished the math for the EE major. now its time to apply it in your other EE courses.
The fact there was more math required for the EE degree starting with calculus 2, then there was the prerequisites for calculus shows how much fucking math we actually know. The “advanced math” title is so far skewed to the left by the illitiracy rate that calculus is considered advanced math, I wouldn’t even say calculus 3 is advanced level math.
I think math education sucks. I hated math in school. I would get 0s because I was sitting there figuring out easier ways to get the right answer. Literally making up my own equations. And they’d say I had to do it the normal way or I’d get a 0. And so much of it is just pointlessly slow and boring. As an adult I got some math textbooks based on Soviet Pedagogy and went through them a bit. It was so much nicer. I still haven’t bothered to learn as much math as you have though. I still have the books so maybe eventually i will. I just have no like intense need to know it so have been doing other things. It’s something I do on days I’m bored with nothing to do. I’ve found that for me to actually learn something I have to understand it down to the most fundamental levels. If I’m just memorizing some equation then I won’t learn it. I’ll struggle. I need to deconstruct everything and know conceptually why the equation works the way it does.