precious gems. you just don't SEE them as much as kids media leads you to expect. and they're never as big or as cool as you want them to be. the value of them shouldn't be "ah yes, a bunch of people died to pull this tiny crumb of rock out of the ground and that's why it costs eight zillion dollars", it should be Look At This Big Shiny Thing Wow So Cool I Love It. also they should be edible
Learning that you can buy raw blocks of synthetic gemstones on Alibaba for a fucking song. Like, yeah, you've got to learn how to cut gemstones yourself, but after that the world is your oyster.
I'd love to be able to do this sort of thing myself someday
I've had some experience with lapidary (stone-shaping) work, but only for making cabachons out of various stones that're either on the edge of semi-precious (jasper, agate, obsidian, etc) or not precious at all >.>
