-I wanted it to be _normal_ for boasts of acheivement to take the form of "I proved this theorem and thereby attained _deep insight into the true structure of mathematical reality_", rather than "I got an 'A' on the test."
+This was fine, for a while. I learned from my books, and—there was a _dignity_ to working at the supermarket. It was boring, to be sure, but at least I had some function other than simply to obey a designated authority. You can _tell_ when a customer's latte is too foamy, or the coinmag on checkstand 1 needs to be swapped out, on its own terms, and not because the teacher said so.
+
+But making $9.40 an hour at the supermarket indefinitely (and paying a nominal rent to live with my mom) didn't seem like an acceptable destiny for someone of my social class. It was assumed that at some point, I would have to figure out how to get a grown-up job (although my colleagues who had been at the supermarket for 30 years probably wouldn't approve of me calling it that).
+
+[TODO—
+A+ cert, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heald_College, diff eqs., ending up in community college/SFSU]
+
+I hated the social role of "student" and the whole diseased culture of institutional servitude. I despised the way everyone, including and especially the other "students", talked about their lives and the world in terms of classes and teachers and degrees and grades, rather than talking about the _subject matter_. I wanted it to be _normal_ for boasts of acheivement to take the form of "I proved this theorem and thereby attained _deep insight into the true structure of mathematical reality_", rather than "I got an 'A' on the test."