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The Einsteins and Turings In My Childhood
Growing up, we admire all kinds of people. Being a toddler, I admired the Monkey King. Then the army men, the astronauts, and the political figures. I still remember I was so obsessed with the smart kids in my middle school.
It still baffles me today how they bore the two titles at the same time, the smart and poor kids. By saying “poor”, I mean their poor grades in school. Deep in my heart, I had a hidden admiration for them. Meanwhile, their existence only increased the misery of my life. Because I knew no matter how hard I studied, how hard I pushed towards the good kids defined by the school system, I would never take the title, “smart”, from them.
And today, my heart hurts knowing that most of these smart kids are working in the field, where they don’t necessarily like, nor do they have any talent.
Yes, I was one of the good, and……huh, hard-studying kids in school. We followed the rules, desperately raced for high test scores, though not knowing what to do with them. For a full score of 100%, I had test scores in the range of 80–95%. The lower ends were the classes like mathematics and physics, the higher ones were literature and English. We were the standard good kids in the classroom.
