Roaming Towards Myself

Describe something you learned in high school.

High school taught me that there is a big difference between what you are good at, what you are expected to learn, and what actually stays with you for life.

For me, maths was the turning point. I used to enjoy it when it felt logical and manageable, but once it became a mixture of letters and numbers called algebra, everything changed. I remember sitting there thinking, very sincerely, that I was never going to use this in real life. That was probably the exact moment my relationship with maths began to fall apart. To this day, algebra still feels less like learning and more like a personal attack.

Physics was much the same. I studied it in high school, but as a teenager I struggled to connect with concepts like relativity, Newton’s laws, velocity, distance, mass, and space. I could understand that these things mattered, but they felt so removed from ordinary life that I found it hard to stay engaged. My brain was clearly not built to get excited about equations and forces when I was still trying to survive school in general.

What did stay with me, though, were the subjects that genuinely sparked something in me.
I developed my love of writing in high school, helped greatly by my English teacher, Sister Beryl. She was one of those teachers who leave a lasting mark without probably ever realising it. Writing gave me a way to think, to express myself, and to enjoy language in a way that felt natural to me.

I also discovered just how much I loved Ancient History. I studied the highest level available at my school and absolutely lapped it up. I loved learning about the ancient philosophers, especially Plato, whose ideas still feel strangely wise and relevant now. I was fascinated by the Acropolis, the Greek gods, the Colosseum, and Roman history. There was something about the ancient world that pulled me in completely, and that fascination with old things has never left me.

So I think one of the biggest things I learned in high school was this: not every subject is meant to become part of who you are, but the ones that truly connect with you can stay for a lifetime. For me, writing and history stayed. Algebra and physics, meanwhile, remain filed under things that still have the power to give me nightmares.