My sophomore year of college, I was forced to confront another fear, public speaking. I took a class called Introduction to Advanced Mathematics. This class wasn't taught in a lecture format, but rather in a slightly watered down Moore method. In Moore method teaching, the instructor lays out proofs that the students are to prove, and class time is spent with the students at the chalkboard presenting their proofs. My following math courses were all taught in this method. It was initially daunting, but I grew to absolutely love it. In fact, one of my chief complaints about grad school is that NONE of the classes were taught this way and I sorely missed it. Being lectured just isn't a good environment for me to learn.
Lastly, as a graduate student, I was require to teach two lower-level mathematics courses each semester. This wore off the rest of that public speaking fear to something that I can fully confront.
As I grew older and my shyness wore away, another flaw began to rear its ugly head, sloth. My lack of alacrity has posed many problems for me in my life. It's the reason, that I do poorly in language and history classes, despite the fact that I love language and history. It's the reason that I didn't go to as good of a graduate school as I could have. It's part of the reason that it took so long for me to get a full-time job. It's the reason that I'm so messy. It might be part of the reason that I keep this blog, I can both avoid work while convincing myself that I'm being productive.
Being in a relationship has helped to improve my sloth, since I have someone to be accountable to, but it's still pretty bad.
I'm afraid to go talk to this person that I need to talk to; I'll do it later.
