I didn't always go to the best schools. Sometimes I blessed enough to be in a really good school but not always. I moved around a fair bit and sometimes showing up in the middle of the academic year meant taking what you could get. Now don't get me wrong my schools weren't awful. I had fun and despite what I might say most days, I wouldn't take any of those years back.
However I was often in the school with people who were more interested in playground brawls than the library. Somehow I was always assigned to the class with the one kid who would rather ruin it for everyone than sit still and shut up for an hour. But those experiences taught me one thing and equipped me with some useful personal skills.
The truth is for anyone out there who has the opportunity to learn and is willing to make use of that opportunity, you can do it. I learnt to revise for exams or read past time literature surrounded by people who where unwilling or perhaps unable to shut up. I learnt to multi task, read or study while simultaneously listening which believe it or not can be quite handy. I learnt the meaning of the word pedantic which one of my many high school English teachers used to describe a boy in our class that would stop him every 5 minutes to correct some apparent mistake or the other, rectify some problem, make some comment or go on some incoherent tangent. Whilst all of that was going on and against what seemed like some insurmountable odds at the time, I graduated from that high school with and A in English. I realised that I might not be the best at practical, but I am pretty handy with theory, a fact proven by my C in Physical Education and B in Science. I don't mean to sound arrogant by the way. I'm just proving the simple point that if you are really willing to learn, especially if you have the opportunity to, the only thing stopping you is yourself.
Now think of all the people who do not have this opportunity. Think of the people in the past and present who were left to their own devices and still managed to do what you with all your opportunities disregard today.
Think hard.
However I was often in the school with people who were more interested in playground brawls than the library. Somehow I was always assigned to the class with the one kid who would rather ruin it for everyone than sit still and shut up for an hour. But those experiences taught me one thing and equipped me with some useful personal skills.
The truth is for anyone out there who has the opportunity to learn and is willing to make use of that opportunity, you can do it. I learnt to revise for exams or read past time literature surrounded by people who where unwilling or perhaps unable to shut up. I learnt to multi task, read or study while simultaneously listening which believe it or not can be quite handy. I learnt the meaning of the word pedantic which one of my many high school English teachers used to describe a boy in our class that would stop him every 5 minutes to correct some apparent mistake or the other, rectify some problem, make some comment or go on some incoherent tangent. Whilst all of that was going on and against what seemed like some insurmountable odds at the time, I graduated from that high school with and A in English. I realised that I might not be the best at practical, but I am pretty handy with theory, a fact proven by my C in Physical Education and B in Science. I don't mean to sound arrogant by the way. I'm just proving the simple point that if you are really willing to learn, especially if you have the opportunity to, the only thing stopping you is yourself.
Now think of all the people who do not have this opportunity. Think of the people in the past and present who were left to their own devices and still managed to do what you with all your opportunities disregard today.
Think hard.
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