something i notice is i never have trust in myself to get anything done. i always feel like i did something wrong and i have to scrutinize my actions. for example, a lot of the times i put something into my backpack and throughout the day i'm always asking myself whether i actually remembered to put it into my backpack.

this happens really often, and it often results in me taking of my backpack and checking all the pockets, just to find it there.

i think this leads to myself also not trusting my own coding abilities and not wanting to program to avoid making bugs. even though i know bugs are inevitable and i'll be able to solve them, i often go days without programming because i'm scared that i'll make some bug that i won't be able to solve.

it also leads to myself not trusting myself to be able to solve a challenge and me giving up too early. for example i do capture the flag competitions with les amateurs often, and while i'm generally the web main, sometimes i just give up on the question because i believe i'm not capable of solving it.

yet again, i think school is at somewhat fault (surprise). a lot of my distrust for myself stem from taking tests. i kinda suck at taking tests, and i always make small tiny mistakes that cause me to believe that i'm no good. tests are time trials, you need to make sure that you are certain for each question in a tight 60 minute window.

i think this excerpt from the amazing book math with bad drawings speaks volumes about test taking.

A few years ago, when I lived in England. I taught a boy named Corey. He reminded me of a soft-spoken 12-year-old Benjamin Franklin: quiet and insightful, with long ginger hair and round spectacles. I can totally picture him inventing bifocals.

Corey poured his heart into every homework assignment, drew lucid connections across topics, and packed up his papers at the period's end with such care and patience that I always fretted he'd be late for his next lesson. So it's no surprise that on the first big test in November, Corey nailed every question.

Well... every question that he'd had time to answer.

The bell rang with the last quarter of his test still blank. He scored in the low 70s and came to me the next day with a furrowed brow. "Sir," he said, because England is an amazing land where clumsy 29-year-old teachers get fancy honorifics, "why are the tests timed?" I figured honesty is the best policy. "It's not because speed is so important. We just want to see what students can do by themselves, without anyone's help."

"So why not let us keep working?"

"Well, if I held the class hostage for a whole day, it might annoy your other teachers. They want you to know about science and geography, because of their nostalgic attachment to reality."

I realized that I had never seen Corey like this: jaw clenched, eyes dark. He was radiating frustration. "I could have answered more," he said. "I just ran out of time."

I nodded. "I know."

There wasn't much else to say.

Intentionally or not, school mathematics sends a loud, clear message: Speed is everything. Tests are timed. Early finishers get to start their homework. Just look how periods end: with a ringing bell, as if you've just finished a round in a perverse, compulsory, logarithm-themed game show. Math comes to feel like a race, and success becomes synonymous with quickness.

All of which is supremely silly.

Speed has one fabulous advantage: It saves time. Beyond that, mathematics is about deep insight, real understanding, and elegant approaches, none of which you're likely to find when moving at 600 miles per hour. You learn mathematics by thinking carefully than by thinking fast, just as you learn more botany by studying a blade of grass than by sprinting like the dickens through a wheat field.

test taking fundamentally needs to change, to a way that tests for understanding and not who is fast, and understands it, and is good at not making mistakes.

while school might be contributing to my distrust of myself, it is still fundamentally my problem to fix, and i really have no idea how to resolve this, i'm so averse from doing difficulty since i'm so scared of failing.

that being said, it doesn't mean i won't try to resolve it. i think the best thing to do is to force myself to do harder things, that i'm excited to do, but to scared to start. this won't be the first time i'll be talking about this on this blog.

in other news, i added an email to this blog so you can contact me if you'd like.

thanks for reading my incoherent rambling. i need to go study for my final exam tomorrow now.