One critical experience that defined the direction I was to go in as I entered university was my effort to grasp matriculation physics. From early September to some time in November 1962 I tried to disentangle the mysteries of physics and the difficulties associated with acceleration due to gravity, speeds of 32 feet per second per second, et cetera. I must have spent an average of an hour each night in my homework sessions for nearly three months doing physics 'problems.' But it was to no avail; I knew I was not going to pass physics if I stayed in that course, so I switched to history several weeks before the Christmas exam. Had I been able to work out the physics in my homeworkI might have become a doctor.
I got the highest mark in the class in history, an 80, and I never attended one class. This seemed to confirm to me that the arts and not the sciences was the direction of my career as I entered university in September of 1963. How accurate that confirmation was hardly mattered because without physics in my grade 13 marks the entire world of the sciences was just not available for me to pursue.
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I poured over my books four hours every night, doing the homework assignments, trying to understand nine different subjects so that, in the end, in May and June of 1963, I would be able to pass those examinations. And, in the end, I did. I got a seventy-three percent average. It was enough to enter university which I did in September of 1963. I was also able to direct my energies that year to the fast, the first I ever went on and it was a terribly difficult experience. My mother worried about my haggard appearance especially at 6:30 pm after a long day when it was time to eat and I wanted to wait 'til the sun went down at 6:45. Homework was difficult when fasting but the Baha'i Faith was critical to me as well.-Ron Price, Tasmania
