I was just thinking about a few things, and while there is a lot going in my life that I love and I am very fortunate regarding many things.. there are always things missing. Part of my complaining is probably rooted in the fact that I am single. Now, it happens to be Valentines Day (or Valentines Weekend I'm told it was this year), and so assume what you want there, but it really is coincidental because it's definitely not in the front of my mind at the moment since it's something I am not seeking just yet since there are a few things I want to straighten out with myself first. Increasing my financial stability being the biggest priority, and getting in better shape physically is another. For the latter, I definitely feel a crunch there because part of me feels that if I don't get my body in better shape before my late 20s or early 30s I will never be able to. Not because I fear my health is in jeopardy due to my lack of exercise yet, but as people age it's harder to improve your body and you have less drive to do it too.

Anyway, regarding what I originally came to rant about. Stone actually sparked the following thought, which he can explain himself if he likes.

I went to school and got my bachelors degree. I attended from fall 1998 until graduation in spring 2002. I don't exactly feel proud about it, mainly because when it comes down to it, I really put in very little effort. I had a few hard classes that kept me up through the night a bunch of times, and pretty much always did what was necessary. But that is where I stopped. I did just what was necessary. I gave far less than 100%, and in some classes I don't think I gave much above 0% and still managed to not fail a single course (although I nearly managed to fail the HTML class I took senior year because I did zero homework during the semester and did every assignment for the semester in one night including the final project and handed it in all at once, fortunately they let me by with a C or a CD or maybe even a D.. I can't remember).

Anyway, I have been out of school for nearly 3 years.. and in many respects more than that. See, my final semester I usually took 6 day weekends. The only thing I never skipped was my physics lab which was big on attendance and required for graduation.

Being out, there are things I miss about school. The student life and being in the mix with so many other people that I automatically had things in common with being at the same school. I even miss some of the class work. See, a lot of what I did take was somewhat interesting.. but the presentation of the material caused me to shut down. Being a lowly undergrad means you are learning subjects from the ground up, and within the CS program I already had much real world experience (not that I already knew the theories and real info behind a lot of it) so that caused me to lose some interest too.

At some point I do want to go back to school and actually learn things to actually learn them. Not just to pass the next test, but to actually gain real knowledge. I can do that on my own to some extent by simply reading, but it lacks the feedback system in schools... you get to bounce ideas around at a school.

I guess my point is that it sucks to actually feel the desire to learn now that I've completed all the schooling I really need to have taken in my life. I don't think I wasted my time, and if I went back in time I probably couldnt talk myself into doing it any differently. It's also one of those things that you hear about freshman year.. parents and other older folks saying similar things that most people just brush off because it's a total buzzkill attitude to try to force on a kid.

Anyway, I'll stop here since this post is fairly pointless and is starting to sound preachy like I want people to put their heads into their book. I am not trying to say that since like I said, I don't believe I could convince myself if given the chance. It's just ironic I guess.