doing or reading

The thing about bieng in a school setting again after about 18 years is that at now I understand the mechanics of my personal learning style much better then I did way . . . WAY back when.
I know now that I learn things 100 times faster if I get to DO something, screw it up a few times and finally get it right on my own, rather then read about it, be told about it and then be expected to have it perfect first try. I've gained this insight from experience and a vacuum cleaner commercial. The vacuum cleaner was a Dyson and what the commercial said was that they screwed up about 500 times before they got it right. This made me think about the things I did well and I realized that the stuff I was good at, I mean REALLY good at, I had spent alot of time doing, and mostly doing poorly before I got good at it.
Getting back to the Schooling part, today was the first day in the shop. All we did was light a torch, but we had to prove we could do it using proper as tought procedures. I realized that the first try is always going to be flawed somehow, and I mean the first try of anything simply because it's new and foriegn (The quote " the best teacher is experience" holds true, no matter what the new thing is.) but I now like screwing stuff up a bit when something's new, it means I'm human and can develop my own way of doing things. I appreciate the fact that there's less waste in the world if people screw up less stuff, but that's the end result. Not the first try. I've come to enjoy the process of learning instead of hating being tought stuff. Being tought never worked on me because deep down I wanted to mess things up a bit and see what happened, learn from my mistakes.
I really apprecite the opertunity I have right now to grow in who I am and get rid of some of the crap I've been carrying around since high school. honestly I didn't know I was carrying it until I went back to school but now I'm quite glad to lay that bag of bull$#!% down and light it on fire on the principals doorstep.

P.S. have I mentioned how much I love my wife for putting up with me, and the fact that she's HOT