No Wonder

The internal home page here for Infamous Megamulti often includes an informal poll question submitted by an employee. Today's:

In your school days, what was your favorite subject?

• Mathematics
• Science
• Language
• Social Studies / History
• Music / Arts / Physical Education
• I had no favorite subject

After answering, I saw the results had Math and Science adding up to 63%. My choice, Music / PE, was at 11%. The other two, 6 and 10 resp.

I can't count the casual conversations that include tales of being a science geek in high school, of wanting to be an engineer since Day 0, of college life as an eighteen year old math whiz. My part was always the silent part. I hated that shit back then. I liked science, of course, but as a source of wonder, not as a set of tools. In high school it took two tries to get a passing D in geometry (I never, ever studied). Okay, that has more to do with parents than with me, but still. These conversations always leave me feeling like an outsider. So do conversations that are in any way about density of computational power or platform features or performance metrics because, chryst, I just haven't ever cared. It's a job. It is not a passion and you have to be some sort of alien if it is. Or a former high school math type. Just not me.

So, no wonder. On the plus side, I don't think anyone is ever really supposed to feel like they fit in at their job. That just wouldn't be natural. Would it?