Constant state of Gossip, and the qualification for life

[kepler94]

Constant state of Gossip, and the qualification for "life"

In my Physics class (I'm a junior in high school), my teacher was showing how you can go online and download worksheets to do on your own time, and he even said along with my classmates that "you'd really only do this if you had no life"
This pissed me off. I do things more nerdy than that. I'm currently watching a series of lectures on Thermodynamics on the MIT OpenCourse videos. I look at the pdf notes and google problems to do. I do this in my free time, because I like learning. I just do.

When did the qualification for "having a life" go from:
1. Taking a genuine interest in knowledge, and knowing the insignificance of the earth, while also being able to find joy in simple things.
TO:
2. Having a constant desire to either get ****-faced, laugh at the people around you, talk about mindless relationships, or want to **** every attractive person around you.

But I can't connect to anyone anymore. I feel smarter than everyone. Not in a superior way (if that makes sense?). I don't think I'm better, just smarter. Not just academically, but with my self-awareness and my recognition of our place in the universe. I'm always humbled. This is why I feel my priorities are more grounded, more real, more pragmatic, and more satisfying than everyone else, which leads to me feeling "smarter."

Just the other night, I was out with my friends, and the entire night, I had to pretend to enjoy the conversation. We're at Fazoli's and out of the corner of my eye, I see a couple walk in with what looks to be a somewhat newborn child. THAT seems SO much more interesting than what we were talking about. I wanted to walk over and sit down and just talk about that. I could just tell that things were going on in their lives. Half the time, I was either looking at them, or out the window at the nearby airport. Then every once in awhile I'd turn to my friends and pretend to comfort the guy that just went through a breakup.

I don't care about the drama and the drool, the gossip, the complaints, the insignificant, over-hyped things or events, the Superbowl, or garbagety dance songs by LMFAO, etc. etc. etc.

I no longer care as much what people think about me. But because I'm human, I know for a fact that I still try to impress the attractive girls at school, and gain approval from my peers. It's a biological impulse, or a human instinct. I know that nothing really matters, and I'm really laid back, but I also have the same desires as everyone else.
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Does anyone else have this problem ever?

 

[lisab]

Yes I most certainly did feel that way when I was your age. My daughter did too. I don't think it's particularly common. But the good news is, everyone around you will eventually grow up, stop being such goobs, and become much more pleasant to be around .

For me, my solution was to hang out with a group of older people (they were in their 20s). For my daughter, she found that the kids in the drama department were remarkably free of drama in their real lives, haha. They were generally more mature and nerdy, too - a big plus.

Also, she got into a program that allowed her to take courses at the local community college. That got her away from high school kids, which she needed, and gave her more of a challenge than high school classes.

Is there a program like that where you live?

 

[206PiruBlood]

It sounds like you are genuinely passionate person. I think you just need to find some people with common interests.

When I was in high school most of my friends dropped out. For the most part they sat around all day, played video games, watched television, smoked and drank, etc. In fact, years later they still do. For a while that was fun but it quickly became boring. I often found it difficult to enjoy our conversations since they so often revolved around popular culture or gossip. Topics I had no interest in.

Eventually I got a job at an Italian restaurant with some really cool people. Literally everyone but two of us came from either Italy, Mexico or Ethiopia! It was so easy to talk to these people; they all had interesting backgrounds and passions to share.

Similarly after starting university I started working in the school's math center and immediately started meeting great people. These have become my new closest friends and we never run out of things to talk about! Whats better still is that these new friends introduce me to all kinds of new experiences and new people.

My advice is to continue your passionate learning and don't worry about what other people consider "having a life." Enjoy your own life! Also try and get involved in some sort of club or just find a group of students with common interests, or any positive interests really. I can't stress how much easier and more enjoyable it is to converse with people about something you are remotely interested in, even if out of ignorance!

 

[sweetpotato]

In my Physics class (I'm a junior in high school), my teacher was showing how you can go online and download worksheets to do on your own time, and he even said along with my classmates that "you'd really only do this if you had no life"
This pissed me off.

This pisses me off, too. I kind of feel bad for your physics teacher, though. Maybe he just said that so that the kids liked him more? Or else his life really stinks, because he is teaching a subject he thinks is not worthy to be interesting or fun to anyone.

Here's my 2 cents: gossiping, drinking, girl chasing etc. can be fun in the short term but bring no deep, long-term, lasting satisfaction/reward... while building true friendships and relationships and learning about science/nature/how the world works do.

 

[kepler94]

This pisses me off, too. I kind of feel bad for your physics teacher, though. Maybe he just said that so that the kids liked him more? Or else his life really stinks, because he is teaching a subject he thinks is not worthy to be interesting or fun to anyone.

Here's my 2 cents: gossiping, drinking, girl chasing etc. can be fun in the short term but bring no deep, long-term, lasting satisfaction/reward... while building true friendships and relationships and learning about science/nature/how the world works do.

Yeah, I know for a fact that the teacher tries to fit in. It's kind of upsetting. He is very uptight, very conformist, wearing a tie and dress shirt everyday, etc. He makes modern pop culture references all the time. Like things he shouldn't know about because its mostly teenage stuff, but he knows it all.

If I want to learn science, I want to learn it from some wacky professor, or a genius that looks like a homeless man. Fortunately, I'm taking chemistry 2 my senior year, and I know I will have that type of teacher.

 

[cristo]

If I want to learn science, I want to learn it from some wacky professor, or a genius that looks like a homeless man. Fortunately, I'm taking chemistry 2 my senior year, and I know I will have that type of teacher.

So you're just going for stereotypes, and not someone who might actually be a good teacher. i hate to break it to you, but the majority of the top scientists do not look like homeless men or are wacky professors.

 

[causalset]

Yeah this is exactly my situaiton. I never really cared about socializing with people in high school and was instead all about learning. I took lots of college classes while still in high school, and some of them were upper division.

In my case, I have Asperger syndrome, so it is one of the symptoms. Probably for this reason my mom interpretted it as a bad thing and she kept trying to encourage me to study less and socialize more which never truly worked.

One common argument I had with my mom was the fact that back in high school she wanted me to take only one college level math/physics course, while I wanted to take 3 courses. For physics it was a bit easier since it was low division 3 semester sequence so it was 1 course per semester. But with math I was taking upper division courses which are in parallel. So that's where my mom kept trying to get me to take less. Now in reality I ended up taking 1 math course some of the semesters and 2 math courses other semesters. But during the semesters with 2 math courses it was always several day fight when my mom kept trying to get me to drop one of the courses and I wouldn't.

But here I am in this thread where I see the rest of you having the same exact attitude that I did, while none of you have Asperger. So it makes me think: what if I did exact same things without being diagnosed? Maybe then my mom would have been more helpful in helping me move forward even faster. I mean isn't what I am doing generally considered a good thing when it comes to parents? I mean usually its the peers who disapprove of someone liking to study, not parents. So it really seems that it is my diagnosis of Asperger that made my mom not like it which makes it so unfair.

 

[kepler94]

So you're just going for stereotypes, and not someone who might actually be a good teacher. i hate to break it to you, but the majority of the top scientists do not look like homeless men or are wacky professors.

I was joking...

I'm just saying that having a teacher that tries desperately to appeal to his students so that he can be considered funny is lame. He doesn't teach. We watch stupid youtube videos and talk about football or any type of pop culture. If he actually taught well and didn't say stuff like "you'd have no life if you took interest in science outside the regular coursework" then I wouldn't insult his boring conformist attitude/attire.