11.11.06

sorry for the lack of posts in the past week. i've been recovering from a strained muscle, as well as having to get my power adapter for my macbook pro replaced (the old one melted!).

now, to the point of this post: since it's not been made obvious already, i'm an autodidact. if i want to learn something, i teach myself. normally, someone my age (nearly 20) wanting to learn things would go to college. i tried that route but i found it quite bothersome. i will admit, there are many things that have become much harder for me as a result. i've also gained a lot of freedom to pursue my interests as they are relevant to what i want to do. this is both a blessing and a curse. here's some positives and negatives:

positives:
  • i learn what i want to learn, as diverse as those things may be.
  • i learn a lot more about how to research, how to organize myself, how to be productive.
  • i get a lot more enjoyment out of learning.
  • i receive the benefits of being a generalist, able to bring knowledge from one discipline into my pursuit of another. this really makes things more interesting, and in my opinion, easier for me.
negatives:
  • it takes a lot more work to learn something.
  • to learn just the basics of a discipline can take far longer. i have to track down all the knowledge that is assumed (and not referenced) in the introductory material available on the net.
  • i suffer the possibility of over-diversifying. i get stretched so thin at times that i just forget what i'm even trying to do.
  • tangents. recently i was trying to find an easier way, one more suited to me, to learn declensions, as i'm trying to learn a few languages that have complicated declensions (latin, russian and german.), and in the process found myself attempting to learn phonology just so i could simplify the conjugation paradigms down to something i could get in one go. this was counter productive. in the end i've decided that i should just satisfice, and use rote memorization, even tho i originally intended not to take such a banal approach. banal as it may be, it works, and that seems to be more important than the inelegance.
  • introductory material isn't available for all disciplines online. sometimes it just isn't there. for hindi, for example, i've yet to find a good resource. same with phonology (which i've given up on for now, as it's not important to my current goals.). it took me a long time to find resources for cocoa development (admittedly because i didn't do a good job searching...).

the point is: even tho it's a harder path the personal growth is much greater. that's what's important to me, and so that's why i go for.

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