My days at Khan Academy
Even today when I open the browse projects page on Khan Academy, there’s something different that I feel, different from the usual life that I live. It fills my mind with happiness and creativity. Those programs which instill a sense of laughter and belonging helped me extensively in the dark days of my senior years at high school.
I had no one to talk to - no one. No friends at all. There was something which kept me from interacting with them. I used to think, and it was extremely wrong on my part to think so, that they are super busy with managing their lives and if I try to talk to them, then they may not be responsive enough. My speculations used to advance by instances where I used to call some of my friends and they usually didn’t pick up the call. One of my friends even blocked me on WhatsApp as he implicitly said that I was a big distraction to him. I don’t think I sent anything more than a meme to him occasionally.
There was absolutely nothing I could resort to. My family members were extremely busy with their lives and I wasn’t able to have lively conversations with them, no matter how hard I tried. School was extremely terrible and teachers had no sympathy for students who didn’t show-off. Most teachers and the entire system seemed really rude to me.
A few months later, I found something which decreased my utter dejection to some extent. No matter how tired I was, I still had the energy to open Khan Academy. I used to code for hours, read interesting and funny conversations that the beautiful community of Khan Academy kept on having and used to have years ago. If I was lucky, then I got the chance to interact with some of the community members myself. I was much happier for the rest of the day even if I had a single conversation with someone on the website.
That excitement of getting a blue dot on my username on the top left is something which I usually don’t get even after getting the tastiest thing to eat on an empty stomach. Before posting a reply to the message I received, I used to read it at least thrice and then draft a reply.
I found it hard to talk to people as nobody really saw my programs as often as was the case with others. I used to think (and still think) that some of my projects for which I have spent hours coding were better than those with a higher number of votes. Even some of my own programs which got attention were nowhere close to those which I remark as masterpieces of that time.
Regardless of this Khan Academy gave me much moral support which humans around me couldn’t. If I had some happiness in 11th and 12th grade, then that was because of Khan Academy and perhaps nothing else.
Shoutout to @dev21262, @leafkn, @voldemort271 who I considered the best of my friends at KA.