Date: October 31st, 2024
Since I was a fetus I enjoyed computers. I got quite interested in computer science by about 5th or 6th grade. I used to talk about the Fetch Decode Execute cycle in lunch which probably bored the hell out of my friends.
In 8th grade, I got pretty obsessed with designing a processor. Although I gave up eventually, it was a lot of fun. My first experience with programming was with C# and I wanted all my friends to help me make a game in Unity. Unfortunately, I knew not the first thing about programming and neither did they so it didn't go very far.
Around this time though I got interested in math. I kinda decided Unity was boring and thought making my own OpenGL/C Engine would be far more interesting, though I knew little math so I decided to hit the books. I self-learnt trignometry and linear algebra ( although later gave up on the latter. )
Unsurprisingly, I didn't get very far in this endeavor but it did end up getting me more interested in math.
Interestingly to some people that know me, I was actually a poor math student. I flunked math in 7th grade. But I studied very hard no doubt in 8th grade, I had to self-teach myself Geometry, Algebra, Trignometry, Calculus and so on.
It made the following years of math a breeze for me but my classmates probably didn't appreciate my arrogance too much when it came to the subject.
This unfolded into a love for pure math, but by any asian kid's standards I was pretty bad at it. I also didn't know Number Theory ( which is often the first thing any pure math student learns ). But I loved proving little arguments in various subjects that were easy to understand but hard to solve.
For example, I was very proud of myself when I proved the Pythagorean Theorem all by myself. The proof wasn't original. It worked by fitting the areas of the right triangle into a square and using algebra to derive the answer. But it was an elegant solution and it took me a while to figure out.
The last thing I did was in Sophomore year of high school before I gave up in-person classes and started online classes due to burnout, mental health issues which most likely stemmed from isolation, poor nutrition, poor exercise, low self-esteem and very little sleep coupled with an exhausting enviroment in the IB ( International Baccalaureate ) program, and tough after-school piano regime even though I loved the instrument. I was also always highly cynical of most of my peers and teachers (much like Holden from Catcher in the Rye).
Looking back, to be completely honest, I still am. I never understood why people were so obsessed with
having girlfriends, money, getting jobs, grades, and so on. For me, math and piano was my life. Now sure,
all those things are necessary for comfort in life. And you no doubt can't be happy without at least some of them. But also not having them didn't bother me. I was willing to sacrifice them.
Its hard to blame me. The ones who are interested in math are so serious they've been doing it their entire life and participate in competitions and probably grew up thinking they were geniuses and everyone else who didn't live and breathe math and basked in the glory of their own intelligence, otherwise hated math with passion and swore to never use it after school. It was extremely polarizing. I on the other hand got interested in math quite late comparatively and even though I studied it hard, I was not gifted in the subject and had no mentors. No one to relate to. This left me in serious isolation.
I was working on proving every theorem in Euclid's Elements. I think spatial reasoning ( like that found in Geometry ) was particularly interesting to me because almost any mathematical problem needs space to properly reason. Therefore, Geometry could theoretically represent ANY problem. And as a matter of fact, Geometry DOES often represent any problem in say Number Theory, Algebra, and Calculus.Unfortunately, to make matters worse. I picked two unique fields of interest where the same problem presented itself. Piano and math. Both the things I loved the most and things that hated me the most. Both only intensified my already bad isolation.
I stopped pursuing mathematics because at the time I was extremely busy with school and I had no time. It worked like this: I would go to school, then I would practice piano ( for which I was very serious for so I practiced maybe 4 hours ) then I would bike home, eat and whatever. By the time I was done maybe it was 9pm so very little time for math after that.
I tried to keep up with it by working on math in-classes but of course, sometimes that isn't possible and it did cost me grades in a few classes. But I was never a very good student anyway except for the times I cared. (At least math is proof I sometimes did care.)