i believe that that the mayan calendar simply end's a celestial year and after 12/21/2012 another will begin..and there's actually been proof that there calendar actually goes past "doomsday"..so yea, it's BS, but there have been like 6 extinction level events before humans crawled from the primordial goo so who knows? ;p
I educate myself everyday. I read about our nations events, politics, history, world politics, as well as world history. I have a library at home of hundreds of books on politics and history. I try to teach myself to make myself better.
I myself find it easier and more rewarding. If I don't understand something I look it up and see how people present what I don't understand. Though if there were no internet I don't know what I would do.
I educate myself quite often on a [s:1tap0dmi]**** load[/s:1tap0dmi] plethora of topics. I do it quite often when I am bored and my topics range from anywhere from normal every day things to higher level science and medicine. For example I have always been interested in the topics of terraforming planets cybernetics.