I feel like my maths background is still sorely lacking. When I started going down the autodidactic road and got myself a proper calculus book, I envisioned that I would be able to jump from subject to subject building a huge tower of mathematics in my head. Then I got to the really messy bits of Spivak and quit.

I was a naive young'un back then, thinking a couple of hours here and there was enough to go through all the problems. I was unsatisfied with the way I was being schooled in algebra so I asked around for advice on the net and found out about autodidactic communities. Also I was very interested in physics at the time so I googled some terms and this page came up: http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html. And so like any kid with more than half a brain I imagined myself just toiling away, going through all the things on that page and sketched a kiddie schedule. Needless to say I quit very early on.

Come picking majors time, I got hit by a renewed interest in physics and so I picked it. Now I don't know whether to kick myself in the shins for having picked this subject or just suck it up.

Anyway, so after I do my bachelor's I'm planning to go on a two year break from all the social stresses in the world and relearn everything while working odd jobs. I don't know if my plan will be economically feasible or if my motivation's going to leave me again but I have a feeling that going through with this hiatus will scratch this itch I've been trying to get rid of ever since that semestre when I didn't learn anything because my school kept switching the algebra teachers.