The Dumb Kid

It had been a while, but I recently found myself being the dumb kid again. This wasn't exactly a new feeling for me, but it had been a while, and I had lost the feeling. It was an edX class, and not a hard one either. For a variety of reasons, including health and other distractions, I found myself making all the dumb mistakes the that the weak students make. Forgetting when the assignments were due, and starting on them only to find that they were already due. Not quite understanding the technique, but jumping to a guess and coming up with the wrong answer as a result. Starting on the final with way too little time to complete it. Staring at a problem and seeing no magic insight come. Finding out that the BS that worked thirty years ago when my brain was more agile wouldn't cut it when crunch time came.

None of this will come as a surprise to some of my readers - Lubos, for example. Painful, but life has lots of such lessons.

Oh well.

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