365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

329. Trial and Error

329. Trial and Error: Write about something you learned the hard way.

There are so me acronyms made out of common words so apt and fitting that you wonder if they weren't thought of when the word first came into being. Such an acronym is for math -- or Mental Abuse To Humans.

Math is one of those finicky little subjects that you either are fond of or you hate with a fervent passion. I belong to the latter group. Something about the wiggly numbers doesn't make sense to me. Within a worksheet, I can determine arithmetic sequences fine, but put me out in the real world and I wouldn't recognize it or know to use it.

I took practice exams today for a test I need to take to get into college. I may have to take it in roughly a week's time and I only learned that the deadline for studying was so soon yesterday. Being homeschooled most of my schooling career, I always had plenty of time to learn whatever subject was given to me. Now, however, I am being rudely introduced to the method of "cramming." I'm feverishly flipping through four years worth of notes and opening so many tabs on Google I'm bound to hit the limit soon.

I do fine in the writing test. It’s not unlike critiquing for a Wattpad book club. Also, I am sure my recent foray into the world of editing my own story has had a large part to do with my heightened awareness for the "tone" of the story. I do a little less fine in the reading, but still passable. I'll study for the reading test by reading more... which I am only too happy to do!

But the math! Oh dear, the math... It will be the utter death of me. Actually, I may be dead already. The very first problem, I blanked, with my panic over my own stupidity setting in and my brother standing behind me watching. It was a simple enough problem involving fractions, but somewhere along the way I completely lost my reason.

It didn't go uphill from there. The only answers I got right were those involving decimals, linear equalitions and equalities, and algebraic functions. My score was 20 points below passing. I've gone into a minor mental freakout.

It's funny how stressed a subject math is. I've never been particularly adept at it, not like my brother. I was good at language, history, and writing. Yet -- yet -- somehow math was considered vitally important. It was more important than proper grammar, if the way people talk and write now is any consideration; it was more important than creativity and art. Math is hard and concrete, based in facts, theorems, principles, and laws. There's reason to it and rules. No such rigidity exists in the things I was good at, and I never have been good with such bare things as math. I liked colors, wind, and stories -- not algebra or triangles, and certainly not that monster you get when you combine algebra and triangles: trigonometry.

People who make good grades are inspiring, because you know there must be a subject that doesn't come naturally to them. Maybe it's chemistry, maybe it's Spanish. Yet they stretch their poor brains and put time and effort into studying to make those As and Bs.

I'm not very good at math. Actually, I'm horrible. But maybe if I dedicate myself enough to it, I'll be able to pass.

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^^Which is why I will be possibly MIA. But never fear! I'm looking into buying a laptop (and I believe I've found the one) so it should be much easier and quicker for me to update and such. :)