Life Lessons - Third Grade

I always considered myself a fairly intelligent kid, but I had my doubts until 3^rd grade.  Our school had what they called the “gifted program”.  Its members were children that demonstrated an aptitude to handle the regular school work with relative ease.  Accordingly, the school must have believed these kids were at heightened risk of being unchallenged and bored.  Those in the gifted program were taken away for an hour every day to do god knows what.  For all we knew, it could have been an extra hour of recess as reward for their exceptional talents.  I was acutely aware of this program’s existence and that I wasn’t a part of it while in 2^nd grade.  I even felt a little jealousy over my exclusion.  I got good grades and there were even times I couldn’t fathom why some of my fellow classmates were unable to solve the problems laid before us.  Really?  Do we have to go through this again?  What did these gifted kids have that I didn’t?  I reached the conclusion that I wasn’t really the genius I thought I was… Then one day the teacher pulled me aside and told me I was getting called up to the show.  Instant joy and excitement ensued.  I was going to the land of Oz to see the man behind the curtain.  The gifted program never did quite live up to my lofty expectations, but that’s not really important here.  However, one of the things we learned about during my 1^st year in the program was this ancient civilization called the Mayans.  They had this calendar that supposedly abruptly stopped in the year 2012, signaling an apocalyptic end to the world.  If the world was truly going to end in 2012, I didn’t see the need to make any major life decisions until I knew there would be an actual lifetime to see them through.  I can’t honestly sit here and tell you that my current 30/35/40 plan (which is worthy of a blog all on its own) resulted from my exposure to the Mayan calendar.  I’m also fully convinced that we’ll all still be here when the calendar flips to 2013.  Still, is it not somewhat curious that I turn, you guessed it, 30, in the year following 2012?  I guess you could say being “gifted” made me the great procrastinator I am today.  That reminds me, I should start working on my post-30 excuse to defer adulthood… Eh, there’s always tomorrow.