Motivation... bleh

Motivation is one thing that I've never had.  In fact, quite a few teachers have told me that: "I'm not lazy, I'm just very unmotivated." Which translates to: "Stop procrastinating till the last minute and do the damn assignment!!!"  Alas, this response is, unmotivated and frankly, played out.  But it's always been this way; I never had to struggle in any of my classes (except math, but we'll get to that), and despite sometimes going out of my way to NOT learn (more on this too), I've got by with mostly A's and B's in high school.  After football/tennis/skiing, I would go home, hang out with my friends until late, then played video games, watched tv and read until way later.  Then I would wake up late, get to school late, do my English homework in math class, do my History homework in English, do my Biology homework in History, and never do my math homework.  And this is how I sluffed by.  And no one called me out on it besides the math teachers, and who cares about them? (Again, math people, don't worry I'll address this momentarily)  I don't think I wrote a "second draft" until a few years into my college career.  As soon as the test was over, I forgot all the names of cellular construction.  Once the names and dates were memorized and linked together with very specific word clues, they were stored for emergency pop-quiz retrieval only.  I never once analyzed all this data that was coming at me, being processed by me and finally regurgitated back out.  I never once thought about two hydrogen molecules, somehow, miraculously colliding with an oxygen molecule to create water! How did I never ponder that scenario!?

I was always the kid getting into trouble.  Literally, always.  Even if it wasn't me! (though to be fair, more often than not, it was).  What can I say, I'm a "[social] peacock, captain! You gotta let me fly!"  I blame it on the ability to make friends with anyone that was sitting next to me, and I wouldn't let a little something like having my desk be at least 10 feet away from all my neighbors stop me, I'd just get louder.  This is all true.  I once had a science teacher first, switch my groups on a bi-weekly basis, then he moved my desk away from all the other students, and finally, in an act of desperation, he put me in his office where he kept storage and gave me the lecture notes.  If only that had worked.  One day he caught me after I had set up an elaborate slinky staircase with the many boxes he kept in the in the room.  In my defense, it was HIS slinky, how could I not play with that?  Anyway, long story short when he queried: "What the hell are you doing!?!", I was all but forced to respond by pointing at a few other nick knacks I had found in the room, including a small propane tank and a grill lighter, and ask a question in return: "Should you really keep those two things in the same room?"  Well, apparently that was the last straw since I spent the rest of the year in the hall outside his door.  Well, technically wandering the hall or playing outside.  I think what really destroyed him though was that I got an A- in the class.  All of that is true, and looking back from where I am now, I honestly feel sorry for him.  As far as I know he either transferred school or retired after that year.

Ok so math.  When I moved from Ohio to Utah, somewhere along the way I missed a step in mathematics that has forever marred the subject in my eyes.  And I think I've finally narrowed that step down to fractions.  Fractions are my bane, fractions if used with wanton abandon from a teacher, will leave me in a crumpled, weeping mess of self despair.  Fractions suck.  We were going along fine, doing stuff that I was just breezing through: Decimals, no problem.  Negative numbers, give me a break.  Long division, Kachow! Gonzo.  And then suddenly we were dividing, but not really, because the numbers didn't evenly distribute into each other.  And then we were adding the divisions to each other, and at one point the second was flipped and now inexplicably we're timesing! Wait, what!?  And then, as quick as they had come, those devil numbers were gone and we were on to something else.  But I was never as confident about my math skills as I was from that point... and then they added letters.  Now by this point, I'd become pretty comfortable with letters.  They created words, which in turn created books, which in turn created movies like Jurassic Park.  But now it was like I was at a party with letters, but letters didn't tell me they had also invited numbers over, and it became a "Hey dude, I'm friends with you, and I'm also friends with these guys, so we should all be friends together" situation.  But the thing is, I didn't want more friends.  I can break my math classes down into a timeline, starting with 7th grade: Pre-Algebra :: Algebra :: Geometry :: Algebra 2, but then got kicked down to Algebra :: Math 1010 (or the equivilent of another college Algebra class I took senior year) :: COLLEGE :: Stats 1040 X 5.  Seriously.  It took me 5, FIVE, tries to pass Stats 1040 in college.  The second Algebra made math a curse word in my books, so that 5th Stats attempt was literally, the worst thing I've ever gone through.  Math was the one subject I actually had motivation in, because I wasn't good at it.  Well, that's how my attitude in higher math began, anyway.

Now you're thinking, but Brian, what does this have to do with motivation?  Well, If I had ever been motivated, like, actually motivated, not by grades or threats, but by the pursuit of my own knowledge and self satisfaction, I would have cared more.  Instead, I'm virtually useless when it comes to the curriculum of the hard sciences.  And not only that, I now have zero motivation to learn any kind of math.  I hope I marry a gal that's good at it, or at least knows how to use a calculator.  Because sometimes educational motivation is like a pair of skis.  You can use 'em year after year, on fresh powder and on crude, and never worry about maintenance. And you can love 'em.  But one day that base is going to be chewed up beyond repair, and no amount of waxing can bring it back.  That base is gone forever.  I know what it feels like to be giving something your best effort and always coming up short, and a teacher that doesn't know anything about motivation, or how to motivate on an individual level is a teacher that probably shouldn't have a job.