Drop back, re-tool and have another run at it

I started back to school in January all note-booky and studious with an intense flourish.  Then the grind of it all set in about week number 5.  Sometime in Early February I got really depressed.  But I pressed on.

I got through midterms, papers and finals.  I aced both classes, in one of them (the most creep-inducing one) Psych of Sex, I got the highest grade out of a class of over 100 people.  I know, I know, it doesn't really count since the median age of the students was about 20.5 years.  The majority of the class thought that twins were the result of having sex two times in a row. Yeah. Scary.  Life experience and a regular dose of Cosmopolitan magazine will actually garner you AP credits in anything related to sex ed.

Unfortunately, that same concept doesn't apply to math.  You can't learn math by accident or People (the magazine, not the noun).

I hate math.  I have always hated it.  I'm not even that bad at it.  I'm reasonably logical and analytical.  But math is not language.  It's got formulas and one right answer and usually the "right way" to do things.  And you can't be sloppy or slapdash; which I have a major and a minor in, respectively.  Oh don't go getting all smug, men.  Mothers know just what I mean. If you go for perfect in everything you end up friendless, eating your hair, rocking back and forth in the corner.  Math (and its inherent perfectionism) is so unlike real life that I have nothing to compare it to except to say that if it were a person, more specifically a woman, it would be my neighbor Gladys Kravitz and the Church Lady rolled into one.

I'm going to drop my stats class.  I'm not sure I'm going to continue with the psych course of study.  I mean I did great in my first 2 classes but I absolutely hated. every. stinking. minute. 

I liked studying, I liked getting up and planning to go to school and seeing my classmates.  But I felt sick inside studying that sh*t. Hearing about child abuse, STIs.  Ugh. Sleep would sometimes elude me and be replaced by garish visions of slides--they weren't gardening slides, either.  

I just kept thinking, THIS IS NOT ENJOYABLE.  NOT IN THE LEAST. When is this going to become interesting or fun? I'll even settle for maybe tolerable?

Aren't I supposed to be fired up about my second course of study? Aren't I supposed to have passion or, crap, at the very least interest in what I'm studying? About the only thing that the classes provided was a competitive outlet.  I should take up jousting instead.  More speed, more fun, less pain. I bet Mr. T would be game! He usually doesn't get any outside help knocking me on my ass.

I wanted to do statistically based research involving qualitative data derived from peoples' stories.   People and their stories are what I love.  I love people. They bug the living shit out of me sometimes but I really love them. All of them. I love them and their struggles and their grit and their rawness and their beauty and their challenges and their weaknesses and their indomitable strength. I want to take their stories and turn their stories into usable data for scientific research.  I need to be good at math and in particular stats in order to achieve this goal.  I can't just phone it in or fake it.

Look, I got an override for this stats class. I charmed the professor.  However, even he couldn't make something appear out of thin air, namely knowledge, and put it into my head.  After all, this is a class for which one normally has at least 2-3 years of algebra under their belt.  Me, well, I thought I might be entitled to know something I actually never took the time to learn. Entitlement is a problem. It is generally, in good time, met with reality.  Today was no exception.  So, I'm going to take my humbled ass back to the algebraic drawing board and re-tool.  Drop back, re-tool and make another run at it with (not just a lance) but a shield and armor next time.   I kind of feel like that guy in the operating room in that hotel commercial. Narrator:  "Do you have 3 years of algebra to prepare yourself for this statistics class?"  Me: "No but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night and I have great muscle definition in my upper body."

It's funny (sad funny, not ha ha funny) but I'm just now getting that I can't yeehaw my way through an entire life, all biceps, balls and no brains. 

Girlfriend just got taken to school and unhorsed.   OUCH!
 
Time to drop back, re-tool and have another run at it.