- #1
Const@ntine
- 285
- 18
Well, hello there! As soon as I had finished signing up, a message in my inbox showed up and encouraged me to introduce myself to the board. So, here I am! And, seeing as I'm a fan of backstories and origins, let's get on with it, shall we?
I'm from Greece and I'm currently taking my final exams once more in order to gain admission to a prestigious University. Why "once again" you may ask? Well, last year was a real, ahem, "trainwreck", due to health issues, family issues and all that fun stuff. I spent 1 month in the hospital, then I had to take care of my mum who had surgery done in her lungs to remove a huge cyst, then my uncle "visited" us for another month, etc, etc. Things were bad, so I didn't hit exactly the mark I wanted. I scored about 16.500, with the max being 20.000. Not bad considering that about 80% of all students scored around 10.000-15.000.
See, exams in Greece are funny. Each year, they're trying to top the previous, and so they put in those damn papers the most difficult, brain-twisting and absurd exercises. Plus, the curriculum/syllabus is laughably huge, and that goes for all 5 subjects that are tested during the Finals. Meanwhile, schools here are a joke, so everyone is forced to either attend extra classes at certain centres after school not free, of course), or get tutors at home. Some even do both, in order to be one step ahead. Personally I went with just tutors, but due to my father's "code of honour" I was stuck with a clown of a physicist who couldn't teach, missed hours and was all around a bad teacher. This went on for 3 years, until we finally kicked him out this year, and got a brand new, normal person. Same goes for my maths tutor.
All that coupled with my awful year and the Greek exam system being one of the worst in the world left me with not many choices. Well, compared to the others I was king, but based on my track record, my results were for the gutter. I got accepted in one of the 3 best Engineering schools in the country, but the University is far too distant, and considering I'm mainly interested in Physics and Genetics, I decided to try my luck one more time.
Which brings me to my current predicament. Personally, I'm really interested in Physics, and especially Astrophysics and Cosmology. Black Holes, Spacetime, Branes, all that. When I find some free time, I try to catch up on theories and all that, but considering I don't recognize half the terms or don't even know where to start from, I usually just try to put together the pieces. Meanwhile, I'm also fascinated by the Evolutionary process and gentics itself, and I would like to pursue a career path in that are. Problem is, there are only 2 good types of schools here. Engineering and Medical, the rest are, for the most part, finished or garbage. I can head to Quantum Physics from Engineering and to Genetics from Medicine, but it'll be a long road, filled with subjects I don't really care about. And that's my dillema.
See, I'm a really indecisive person. Heck, I can't even keep my monthly comic book list intact for more than a month. I'm always adding or removing books. Oh, I'm a big comic book fan, I think that needs a mention, because that's what's driving me. I want to more or less follow the paths of my "heroes", like Doom, Sinister or Magneto. Yes, their ideals are less than... "ideal", but their accomplisments in the fields of science are the stuff of legends. Comic book wise that is. And, since I'm really indecisive, my wants change with my moods. In the morning I want to unlock the human mystery like Sinister, and during the night I want to explore the cosmos like Blue Marvel.
See, my family is a bit disfunctional, and these being hard times, especially here, make want to take the best path towards, well, selfish as it may sound, control. Control of my fate and my life. I don't want to be just another medical doctor in a village or a broke physicist tutoring for 10 euros per hour. I want to try and do something actually important. I may fail, but I want to try, I want to "escape" from the misery of this place...
Anyway, woo, that's a lot. Hope I didn't lose you somewhere there. I don't have a lot of people to talk to, and I do get lots of mood swings, so I tend to write a lot on the boards I frequent. I'm also a bit of an art and philosophy lover (I've not read much yet, some Plato and Aristoteles when I was about 10 and I'm looking into Nietzsche and Kafka now), so I enjoy the writting. Either way, thanks for reading.
With regards,
Constantine
I'm from Greece and I'm currently taking my final exams once more in order to gain admission to a prestigious University. Why "once again" you may ask? Well, last year was a real, ahem, "trainwreck", due to health issues, family issues and all that fun stuff. I spent 1 month in the hospital, then I had to take care of my mum who had surgery done in her lungs to remove a huge cyst, then my uncle "visited" us for another month, etc, etc. Things were bad, so I didn't hit exactly the mark I wanted. I scored about 16.500, with the max being 20.000. Not bad considering that about 80% of all students scored around 10.000-15.000.
See, exams in Greece are funny. Each year, they're trying to top the previous, and so they put in those damn papers the most difficult, brain-twisting and absurd exercises. Plus, the curriculum/syllabus is laughably huge, and that goes for all 5 subjects that are tested during the Finals. Meanwhile, schools here are a joke, so everyone is forced to either attend extra classes at certain centres after school not free, of course), or get tutors at home. Some even do both, in order to be one step ahead. Personally I went with just tutors, but due to my father's "code of honour" I was stuck with a clown of a physicist who couldn't teach, missed hours and was all around a bad teacher. This went on for 3 years, until we finally kicked him out this year, and got a brand new, normal person. Same goes for my maths tutor.
All that coupled with my awful year and the Greek exam system being one of the worst in the world left me with not many choices. Well, compared to the others I was king, but based on my track record, my results were for the gutter. I got accepted in one of the 3 best Engineering schools in the country, but the University is far too distant, and considering I'm mainly interested in Physics and Genetics, I decided to try my luck one more time.
Which brings me to my current predicament. Personally, I'm really interested in Physics, and especially Astrophysics and Cosmology. Black Holes, Spacetime, Branes, all that. When I find some free time, I try to catch up on theories and all that, but considering I don't recognize half the terms or don't even know where to start from, I usually just try to put together the pieces. Meanwhile, I'm also fascinated by the Evolutionary process and gentics itself, and I would like to pursue a career path in that are. Problem is, there are only 2 good types of schools here. Engineering and Medical, the rest are, for the most part, finished or garbage. I can head to Quantum Physics from Engineering and to Genetics from Medicine, but it'll be a long road, filled with subjects I don't really care about. And that's my dillema.
See, I'm a really indecisive person. Heck, I can't even keep my monthly comic book list intact for more than a month. I'm always adding or removing books. Oh, I'm a big comic book fan, I think that needs a mention, because that's what's driving me. I want to more or less follow the paths of my "heroes", like Doom, Sinister or Magneto. Yes, their ideals are less than... "ideal", but their accomplisments in the fields of science are the stuff of legends. Comic book wise that is. And, since I'm really indecisive, my wants change with my moods. In the morning I want to unlock the human mystery like Sinister, and during the night I want to explore the cosmos like Blue Marvel.
See, my family is a bit disfunctional, and these being hard times, especially here, make want to take the best path towards, well, selfish as it may sound, control. Control of my fate and my life. I don't want to be just another medical doctor in a village or a broke physicist tutoring for 10 euros per hour. I want to try and do something actually important. I may fail, but I want to try, I want to "escape" from the misery of this place...
Anyway, woo, that's a lot. Hope I didn't lose you somewhere there. I don't have a lot of people to talk to, and I do get lots of mood swings, so I tend to write a lot on the boards I frequent. I'm also a bit of an art and philosophy lover (I've not read much yet, some Plato and Aristoteles when I was about 10 and I'm looking into Nietzsche and Kafka now), so I enjoy the writting. Either way, thanks for reading.
With regards,
Constantine
