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Daniel Nest's avatar

"Even when I was drinking, I was trying to understand how the pressure inside me built up."

I usually drink to forget the pressures of life, but you do you, man. You do you.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I'm at least partially Irish. That may explain things.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

I owe failing physics—nearly, and in college, and not for lack of trying—to finding Computer Science.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

You know what they say: if it's not sniffing glue, it's a passion for computer science that drags kids down into that F range.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

Forget passion! I was just happy to find some classes I could pass

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I have to make glue-sniffing jokes because I was as straight-edge as you could get. No drugs, no booze, no nuthin'! At least until after high school.

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hexheadtn's avatar

Nice article that sounds very familiar. I barely made it out English literature my final semester of high school. Mainly because I refused to recite in front of the class. The teacher said I would not graduate and have to go to summer school. ANGRY is not adequate enough a word for how I felt. So much different today. After working in a factory for over 3 years after high school, I started to appreciate other subjects and education as a whole, not something to just get through. I never looked back!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Like the funny thing is: I knew full well that Spangler was teaching good physics. I was just kind of a dick who thought something else was more important! Honestly? I think I was right.

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𝐂𝐁 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧's avatar

My youngest was hyper focused on his grades. I often reminded him that he was not going to remember any one particular class session, so “go make a memory” instead when the opportunity presented itself. By mid-high school, he’d figured that out. He had a school uni (khakis and a school polo) that if he wasn’t wearing he’d have to wear a “flight jumper” which all the kids hated. So when he and a few friends “altered” their polos to be muscle-crop tops, he had to wear the dreaded jumper (not a sweater, you British types, but a zip up overalls that jet pilots wear). He did wait until the last day of school to do this.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Nice. I remember getting very bold during my entire senior year, really testing those boundaries. I kind of stopped thinking I couldn't get away with things, I think.

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hexheadtn's avatar

My English teach was a brute, but she was always right of course. One thing I will never forget: Substantiate, Substantiate, Substantiate!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I would love to travel back in time and get to know these teachers now, as an adult with a few decades of perspective, you know?

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