Drop-Out

"Wow! ... and with all that you are a drop-out too. How cliched! What's up with people being college drop-outs and then doing so well?"

"It's not that. I wasn't doing great in school. So the choice was kinda simpler. Either do well or stay in the school."

"No. No. No. The choice is never that simple!"

"See. I had low grades. I was consistently below par. My teachers were screwing my happiness. And if even by mistake if I looked happy to anyone in the class, they'd make sure to remind me how poor I was in studies as if it was everybody's mission to keep me from being happy."

"I've heard that before. The curriculum being far from being connected to the real world, and then children feel ..."

"I had no problem with the curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I loved many things from it. Who doesn't like playing with numbers and then unfolding the universe on the fingertips. You just said, how much you loved fourier transform. Didn't you?"

"...well. You don't say that loud. It becomes contravercial."

"I disliked the pace that was forced upon me. I was a bit of slow learner. And I didn't know yet how to be okay with thay. So, I struggled with it, for a long time. Until one day, when I decided to refuse to remain unhappy just because I was not great at cracking exams. That was a lightbulb moment for me. Yes, you are terrible on one side, but no one can deny happiness to you at that expense. Can they?

"Je baat!"

"Then I simply started being happy, even though I continued to perform poorly in the exams."

"And that screwed the happiness of your teachers?"

"Some of them definitely didn't understand what was happening to me. Some felt it's because I was hitting puberty! And some just went ballistic!"

"...I am listening. go on."

"no. that's it. I dropped out of the school. My pace, my way, my subjects. I kinda liked your idea of going out on road with your own curriculum. Do that. And then we will talk again.

"I'll be a corporate drop out then."

"Best part of signing up for your own pace is... Well, let me not spell out everything. You'll figure it out."

"Remember, I told you, the choice is never that simple."

"You're telling someone who did it?"

"Yes. Of course. Because that's exactly why you can appreciate it more."

"Here is one advice to you. There are plenty of stories around you, only if you stop being all ears only when you hear them tagged with drop-out."

"That is not true. I was not all ears for your story because I heard drop-out."

"Come on!"

"Not lying."

"...I am listening. go on."

"I was all ears because I don't see many girls around me appreciating fourier transform as much as I do."