A little help?

[luco]

I have a question for you guys.

As most of you know, I never finished High School. I got to the middle of Grade 10 and then everything else became too overwhelming. And, even though I've gone to College, an Animation course is NOT your typical College experience.

Add that all to the fact that I've been lost in my own world for most of my life and well, I'm more then a little out of touch. It hadn't bothered me before, but lately, it has. There are books and plays and writers and musicians that I don't recognize. There are historical facts and events that are common to everyone else that I have no clue about. There are shows and myths and trends that escape me and don't even get me started in maths and sciences!

I've recently been wanting to basically teach myself all that I missed out on, but I don't even know where to begin! So, that's where you guys come in. Because all of you are intelligent, talented and thoughtful people. All of you have such strong opinions and you can't even begin to know how much I admire you for that. How young and childish I often feel...

So, I was wondering if you guys could help give me a direction. Can you name books you think should be read, or were asked to read. Plays and poetry, writers, history, myths, sciences, just ANYTHING! What were you guys taught? What would you consider common knowledge? And not just school-wise, but world-wise as well! I don't even know how to properly describe what I'm asking, but hopefully you guys can figure it out. I just need a good starting place. A list of something to work from because I'm tired of my own little world, but am not quite sure how to step outside.

And even if you're still in High School, please don't hesitate to add your own input. I wasn't able to be where you are now.

Thanks.

Comments

[white_aster]

<3 You're awesome for wanting to learn. Period. Too many people forget that there's ALWAYS things to learn.

I'll second what others have said about you not really "missing" much. You have a very specialized skill set, just like everyone else. I have forgotten most of what I learned in high school and college, particularly the math. But we all take away what we need and leave the rest. Nothing wrong with that.

That said, here's some suggestions:

Check out TED.com. They have lots of short videos of experts giving talks on...god, just about anything. They're usually not geared towards a specialized audience, so they should be interesting to people without any specialized knowledge. They won't teach you like a course will, but they will totally give you bits of info and be entertaining at the same time.

Also, Google Books and The Gutenberg Project have just about any classic you might want, for free. I'd check them first.

I'll also speak up for science. Science is nothing short of observing earth and life and how things work. Why do different things freeze at different temperatures? Why do drugs work? How do our bodies work? How do animals behave, and how does that help them survive? How was our planet and solar system formed? etc etc etc. This is all science. Personally I think that everyone should have enough biology to know what DNA, proteins, and cells are, and why they're important. Also to know what evolution is and how it works, because it's the basis of understanding a lot of how every life form got to where it is. Also enough ecology/environmental science to know things like the water cycle and what an ecosystem is and how everything in it is interconnected.

Also important is the scientific method and an idea of how science is done (that entire little astronomy 101 site looks promising).

For non-science things, folks have mostly hit you with suggestions for classics reading. I hated most classics...found them boring as snot. One exception was Jack London, who wrote about the gold-rush era in...Alaska? I'd suggest reading Call of the Wild, which is the shorter of his novels but quite good. Both it and White Fang were about dogs, and showed some of the cruelty (both dog on dog and man on dog cruelty) of a dog's life, so keep that in mind.

For history...god, I'd hit up Wikipedia. Try "history", and then just pick up on an area or period you're interested in, and start link surfing. I've learned more in an afternoon on Wikipedia than I ever did in History class. Same with geography: check out some maps and have an idea of where things are and what kind of people live there.

Politics is also important. Know what the main political parties stand for, what types of laws they like and dislike, that kind of thing.

That'll keep you busy for awhile, I imagine. :D Just have fun with the learning.