Matt "the Pauper and Peasant" Canning`s Autobiography:
Taken from
www.MattCanning.comNote the Highlighted Parts.
Reeks of Cretin. The Mountebank in all his unadulterated glory.
Matt Canning -Auto Biography
Autobiography
I was born in St. John's Newfoundland on December 21, 1981. There are five children in my family and I currently reside in Thunder Bay, Ontario (I moved here from St. John's in July 1989).
I have attended public school my whole life, and since September of 2001, have been enrolled at Lakehead University, completing an H.BSc in Psychology, BA in Pure Mathematics, as well as a minor and environmental management certificate in Geography. I was on the honour roll throughout high school and received many academic achievement awards in my day and other honours in math quite frequently. It was customary for me to do extremely in every math course I took, and that continued up until the OAC level, but by the time of university I found other things more interesting (having a life, girls, etc.) and my grades dropped. I received marks of 100% in grade 11 and 12 math, as well as OAC Finite. I made 0 errors in grade 11 and Finite math, and three in grade 12 math. I received 101% in grade 11 math, although transcripts note grades over 100% as 100%. The only other course I received 100% in was grade nine Science. During my high school years, I was an active member of the school debating team during grades 9, 12, and OAC. During high school, I acted as a volunteer tutor, and to this day, still tutor students who have difficulty in mathematics. Then summer of 2001 hit me, where at age 19, I realized there were more important things to life - mostly women, but just having a life and having fun in general are far more important to me than looking over tests forever to eliminate every possible error. That having been said, I try not to take anything too seriously, and understand those who feel the need to, but in part, feel sorry for them. There is more to life than being passionate about things. I try not to as much as possible. In fact, you might say I'm passionate about not being passionate, so in some ways, I'm no better than those people I think are on route to an early heart attack.
Getting 100% in a course doesn't require any additional intelligence than getting, say, a 95%, but does require a certain skill that may not be present in those getting the 95s. It's almost like a game (one I now acknowledge as being kinda boring). Computational math is something I have mastered more than any person I have ever met, and any person I think I will ever meet, including world experts at math - it's kind of a Rain Man thing. I can solve any computational math problem at such a ferocious speed that my ability to solve problems is dependent on how fast I can write out the solution. I would generally finish my math exams in 15 minutes because it took me that long to write out the answers. If my hand could keep up with my brain, I would probably have finished all my exams in five minutes. It's probably the one and only skill I possess which sets me apart from the general populace in any meaningful way, and is the only thing I will ever admit to somebody that I'm probably better at than they are at. Impressed yet? Me neither. God or the universe or whatever you want to call it gave me one distinct skill and one that I consider very unimportant. I wish I was born with an uncanny ability to read and understand people beyond that of most. Now THAT would be a useful skill. Or I wish I was born with an ease of learning how to cook and improving upon those skills. Again, that is an important skill - math is not. Also, university math is more about thinking outside the box (e.g., proving theorems), and not about number crunching. True mathematicians prove theorems, and don't sit around adding X + X or differentiating equations all day. I number crunch, and I do it extremely well. But I highly doubt I would be anything special as a professional mathematician.
Will I do it? I doubt it, but who knows? My dad would like me to, since I'm the only child to have pursued university,[/color] and I think his reasoning is that if one child can get a Ph.D in Pure Mathematics, all of the rest could have (which is a pretty good thing to be able to claim), and the only reason they didn't was lack of effort.
I think it would comfort him to know that he passed on genes with a lot of potential (whether fulfilled or not). For the record, I do think that, despite my general lack of being able to think outside the box, that I could get a Ph.D in math, ignoring the algebra or analysis route and going the statistics or calculus route.
But as I said, I would be nothing special. I think that true mathematicians really should be gifted at thinking outside the box, and I absolutely am not. Since Lakehead doesn't offer a Ph.D program, the most I'll probably end up doing is an MA. Even then, I doubt it - as I said, math is (to me at least), an utterly useless skill. I say this because I will be the first to admit I am exceptionally good at it, and I still consider it less important than the ability to make a sandwich. I know it would be a fallacy for this to be worth anything - just because a Muslim converts to Christianity doesn't say anything about Christianity, and I don't expect my conversion to the social sciences to mean much either - but at the very least, let it be known that I personally don't feel that any amount of classical analysis has much value. I just felt as though I was wasting my time - whether I was successful or not, I realized that I wasn't developing skills I could apply in everyday life - so what was the point?
Before joining the military in 2000, my previous employers included Pizza Pizza, and Safeway Canada, Inc., as well as other work as a newspaper carrier for the Chronicle Journal and Flyer carrier for Admail. I did this all throughout my childhood between the ages of 9-15 (1991-1997). I was an active cross country runner when I was younger. I joined the Canadian Forces to master physical dicipline. My goal was to use what I learned to achieve balance in daily life. Nice idea - but if you want to achieve balance, let me warn you in advance that the army is not the way to go. It is a very unprofessional atmosphere and really barbaric in many ways (but it is the army after all, so what can you expect? They are supposed to be training us for war). I worked with a lot of good people who I admire, but the bad ones who I had to deal with made it less than worth it.
I have no major hobbies other than weight training and DVD collecting. I am generally a social person. I have no medical problems and am a generally healthy, happy person. So if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm just not into academics all that much. It's no wonder that so few of my relatives pursued post secondary education - I don't think it's in my blood. I would rather interact with other people, lift weights, watch creepy detective type shows (Cold Case Files, City Confidential, just about the only TV I watch), watch horror movies, meet women, read Archie comics and enjoy my life. Have I proven that I'm more than capable as an academic and can take it as far as I want, in any area of interest? Sure. Do I care? Absolutely not. Do I even have many or any areas of interest? Not really. At least nothing that would attract me to formal learning in a university setting. There is far more to life, and formal education is unimportant to me. I would rather read and learn on my own time, and just have fun.
I think I wanted to prove to the world that I was capable of a lot after being the class clown for too many years - but here's the thing, I still am the class clown.
The walls of academic awards and army achievements I have didn't change my heart. Now I'm slowly going back to becoming the person who I was, and I'm so grateful that this is happening, since it's exactly the place I want to be in.