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As a preamble to this blog entry, little has changed since my last WITPOL; everything that I complained about in that entry is still something to complain about, except that I finished my bullshit volunteering and have started school.
This next part is going to sound extremely boastful and petty, but since I was about six, I have been taking math classes 2-3 years higher than those that the people in my grade take and I have been at the top (or top 2) of every single class. Even in high school when I was freshman/sophomore, I was consistently beating the juniors/seniors; these juniors/seniors include people who are now going to Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, [insert top college here].
However, I am now taking an online math course that I am about to fail because my instructor penalizes me for every small mistake. The questions are often phrases ambiguously and not in accordance with idiomatic english, and the answer choices are different for the different meanings of the ambiguous question. I have tried contacting my instructor for help, but as of now, I have sent 11 unanswered messages that pertain to the ambiguity in the questions (or something else relevant to my success in the course). To make things worse, some of the questions are completely inconsistent because of a typo or plain bad question-writing.
In addition to the questions' terribleness, I have to do extremely useless projects. Essentially the projects are only another problem set, but I am forced to type it in LaTeX (in a specific format specified by my instructor). I solved the first project in about 10 minutes but (since I have never use LaTeX before) I spent more than 10 hours (60 fucking times the amount of time that I spent solving it) trying to type my solution in the specified format and am still not complete with the project (not only because some of the questions were ambiguous and I haven't received a reply from my instructor, but also because there are still errors in my LaTeX code).
Just to make things worse, the course is quite expensive and I have only 3 months to finish two courses that are supposed to take 6 months each.
And just in case you didn't glean it from my last blog, I have no friends.
So overall, fuck my life. I have no idea wtf i am going to do in my life.
  
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It's okay to not have a direction in life now. You are not supposed to. At at age of 17, people have not developed a desire for career and long term goals. Sure a lot of teenagers say what they want to be in the future, but it's not until your brain fully develops and you started living an adult life when you actually start to realize man, I really want to spend the next 40 years of my life doing this thing. It will come to you, don't worry. So you don't have much to look forward to in the future currently, and your present teenage life kinda blows, which obviously will result in you feeling very depressed. My advice to you is, one day you will find something worth living for, so right now, looking forward to that day is what makes life worth living.
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The point of living is to make objectives for yourself and then try to achieve them. Life is a sandbox game with no defined goals, you have to make fun for yourself. Come to terms with that and you will be able to enjoy yourself more.
And 17 is a notoriously difficult time for everyone especially nerds. Chairman Ray has it right, just hunker down and get through the shit, it gets better.
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On September 03 2013 20:27 Plexa wrote:LaTeX is super important in math. The journal I edit for will only accept papers written in LaTeX  you're learning an incredibly valuable skill that will save you a ton of time in the future (assuming you pursue a math degree  )
Not only math, also computer science and physics and probably pretty much all the other natural sciences as well.
Once you get the hang of it, LaTeX is actually a very quick way of writing stuff with professional layout.
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Dude, I was a 3rd year IT student and I quit because I finally realized that there is a fine line between enjoyable and rewarding hard work, and doing something hard because you think life has to be hard in order to get somewhere.
Quit math, listen to music, get some random day job you think is beneath you, and be humble. Then you'll find appreciation in the smallest of things, which will then spurn you towards your higher path.
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LaTeX is easy. It took me an hour to learn how to use it. Well, you can't remember every style, but thats why there are so many manuals out there. But it is easy to learn how to write math.
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United States16368 Posts
latex is the best thing ever, it's SUPER fast after you learn it and know some of the common symbols by heart.
My first assignment took me a while, but I got faster and faster, and I started taking notes with it, and it was amazing.
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The road to happiness is not in complaining on a forum, other people can you give you some advice and a pat on the back but in the end it's your problem to solve. It's a fucking road. You have to move to get somewhere.
Edit: like, right now, I find some happiness in the thought that I'd be an awesome offensive fortune cookie author.
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Corporate life is not for everyone. Even if you have all the money in the world, you still have a limited number of days to spend your money. Go make the most of it. Go for a walk. Talk to people on the bus.
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EPT
