I was thinking about this earlier...and through my life, I've done some things kind of backwards.

I'm on Youtube as I type this, I'm watching those Christian Rapture/Tribulation movies from the 70's, A Thief in the Night, A Distant Thunder...and I'm thinking, I wish we could have seen these as kids...I think I would've loved them as a kid...I sure as hell would've found them more entertaining to watch than those Bible cartoon tapes our parents got us. I could never get into those, I remember watching the first few minutes and then...it's all blank. And as a kid, we had the Little Golden books with the Bible stories in them, Jonah and the Wale and that kind of stuff, and I was never interested in reading them as a kid. I wasn't interested in those...as a kid, where I was concerned, that stuff was for Sunday school, and only Sunday school, not stuff for your spare time. Today it's obviously quite different.

And I'm thinking now, I was pretty much the same way during school. I wasn't a particularly good student, I didn't like having to pay attention and read and memorize everything, I slacked off from it as much as I could. And now that I'm OUT of school, I read all the time, I want to learn and know so much NOW, but I never did in school. Now, the way it usually works, that's the opposite of how it goes...a lot of people start out big on stuff in the beginning, and then years later they're burnt out and want as little to do with it as possible. That said, I'm actually kind of glad that if I didn't have an interest in stuff as a kid, I'm interested now that I'm older and can appreciate stuff more. Is anybody else like that?

I wasn't a particularly good student either but I think it had more to do with my maturity (or lack there of) than my intelligence. Especially in math. I got a 4 year degree with mediocre grades. The only time I ever made it to breakfast were the mornings after I had stayed up all night finishing a paper or cramming for finals. In my later 20s I took some other college level courses with a heavy emphasis on math and I did pretty well. I don’t think I got smarter, just more mature. And I was the one paying the tuition in both cases. I've always loved to read though. Don't think I'll ever get burned out on that.

As far as schooling, I think it is very normal to have a better understanding when one is older about how important it is to learn what is being taught to us.

There is a lot in between the stage where we think, "Why do I have to learn this...I will never use it" to the stage of "Damn, wish I had paid better attention..."