I had been wanting to get my college degree for some time now, but there always seemed to be something more important or demanding of my time and energy. 22 months ago, I finally embarked on the path to a lifelong dream: A college degree. Now, at 48 years of age, I completed my Associate program and plunged right into my bachelor program. My goal is a bachelor's degree by the time I reach my 50th birthday. So far, I’m on track.
May 2008 - Posts
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It was a big day.
I went because I felt it was important. Even though my presence may have been less important than his would have been, I felt that someone needed to ‘represent.’ The emotional turmoil for me, however, must have been nothing compared to hers when I introduced her brother and myself to her.
I tried to capture as much of her as I could on video; as she walked on stage to accept her diploma and then return to her seat, and then again at the end as she walked down the aisle with her classmates—all smiles and without her mortarboard since it had been ceremoniously tossed into the air. She was so happy—why wouldn’t she be…it was her high-school graduation…a day of joyous celebration, a day of bittersweet nostalgia, an afternoon of family and friends and a grad-night to wrap up a well-spent adolescence.
I had not intended to speak to her or even let her know we were there. Causing her any pain or grief was never my intention. Her high-school graduation, however, would likely be the last time any of us would know when and where she might be if she continues to be unable to or unwilling to contact us. It is not as though we had not tried over the years; it had been ten since we had last seen her…7 years old and happily contesting her dad’s and my mini-golf skills. For whatever reason, her mother disallowed any further contact ever since. Their phone and their door were never answered and cards, letters, and packages went unanswered as well, and for reasons I won’t go into here, forcing the issue through the courts was not an avenue we would pursue.
Through school newsletters and websites, we kept track of her and once came very close to reestablishing contact through her older sister. An answered email through MySpace briefly opened a window that was very abruptly shut with no explanation. That was two years ago.
She is a beautiful 17-year-old now…her whole life ahead of her and unless she wants it we may never see her again. Did she know before today that she had a brother? Does she know that she has yet another sister? Does she want to know?
I wish I had been able to say more to her in that one sentence before she backed away. Was she angry? Was she hurt? Was she scared? I wonder: did my approaching and speaking to her ruin our chances? Or did it reaffirm to her that we are ready when she is to reconnect? I am glad I did it—I would have regretted it had I not.
I went because it was important.
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Week 4 starts on Monday and mid-way through week 4 marks mid-way through the last block of classes for my Associates Degree. It feels like a Tuesday…you know, the day before Wednesday, hump-day, of a work week—too far away from Friday, the end of the work week. Week 4 of a 9-week class is typically the final hurdle before the down-hill rush. Weeks 1-3 (for me) are spent procrastinating the final project—no research gets done and weekly DQs and assignments are finished last-minute and posted just in time.
Like today: It’s Friday and I haven’t even begun research on my PowerPoint presentation due Sunday. Can’t be too hard, really…I mean how difficult can it be to come up with 10-15 slides on carbohydrates? (All I have to do is look in my pantry for a plethora of sources of carbohydrates…ooo…that reminds me, I want a late snack.)
It seems that because I am so close to reaching one milestone in my 2-milestone journey toward my Bachelor degree that the typical down-hill rush remains uphill. Kind of like the last few pounds to lose in a diet…they never seem to come off, do they? Well, these last weeks (and the next 4-1/2 weeks) seem to be just dragging. I feel like I have been in these two classes forever…but, it’s only been three weeks. I seem to find any and everything to do other than homework—last Saturday, I tore apart the bedroom and cleaned everything. Tonight, I went to the movies with my friends instead of staying home and studying. Tomorrow I made plans for the morning.
I suppose I’ll just crank out that assignment at the last minute like I always do. One of these days, however, that approach is going to backfire and I will run out of time. Actually, that did happen before, now that I think about it…a checkpoint in my Algebra 1A class…I thought I had given myself enough time but ended up spending more than 7 hours on it before running out of time—I had to submit it incomplete.
Uh…ok…that was my reality check. Back to work.
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It’s not about the math.
Having run through many of the exercises given in the textbook, and after performing countless exercises in the online study plan, I am finding that the repetitive nature of simplifying rational expressions is as infuriating as ever. If one does not have strong arithmetic skills, an intuitive knowledge of basic powers and their roots, and a solid grasp of when and where the dreaded minus sign changes to a plus sign, one will repeatedly come up with the wrong answer.
I believe that Algebra and Calculus are not so much math but analyses and that math is basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Understanding how to simplify rational expressions is merely an exercise in paying close attention to minute details of a problem and finding the simplest solution.
The checkpoints, quizzes, and tests literally take me hours, if not days, to complete…not because I do not grasp the concepts, but because my ability to correctly manipulate the negative sign when necessary is sorely lacking.
So what I have learned through this whole Algebra 1A and Algebra 1B process (and I’m not finished, unfortunately), is that I am adept at understanding concepts which will never manifest themselves again in my life. I already knew that I am horrible at basic math.
Sigh.
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My public has wondered why I haven’t posted in my blog lately. My public! My public. I…have a public! Wow. Well, I do not want to disappoint my public, now do I? (And you know who you are…all one of you!!!)
What a busy month. May started out so innocent and is ending so quickly. I cannot believe the entire month has passed already. I cannot believe it has been more than a month since we were in Disneyland, and it has been nearly two weeks since Priscilla and Julie-Anne headed home after their more than three-week visit (how wonderful it was…maybe that is why the month flew by?). Their arrival coincided with the final weeks of previous block of classes, and their departure coincided with the beginning of my current block—my final two classes before my Associates degree. Already mid-week in week three of nine, the wrap-up of nearly two years of very hard work is in progress. So far, I have maintained my perfect GPA—barely squeaking by in Algebra 1A with an A-.
Algebra 1A was a difficult class for me…I’ve expounded on it enough so I’ll spare you the repeat…but hard work and late nights got me that A-. Tears, lots of scratch paper, and a few ill-chosen words about when will I EVER need this stuff helped me through it all too (not to mention the support of my family, friends, classmates and co-workers).
So with confidence boosted by that A-, I plowed right into Algebra 1B, determined to keep the grade up and determined to always start early and take my time on all of my assignments, quizzes and tests.
So far, so good. 100% on all of my assignments. 100% on participation. 100% on attendance. Then…the first quiz. I labored 5 hours and 11 minutes on the quiz, pouring over the textbook and double-checking examples in MyMathLab. I was so confident that I had done at least A- work, that when the results returned a B-…and a B- to darned close to a C+ I might add…my confidence collapsed.
Darn it. When I am so close to finishing up my 2-year degree, the perfect-grade-toppling class just might be Algebra. Ok, ok…I’ve said that before…but that was before I got an A in Algebra 1A. Now I want an A in Algebra 1B too. Is that asking too much?
What?
Oh. Ok…yeah, good idea. I’d better stop wanting and start studying.
I’ll catch you later.
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Ok…isn’t the ‘flu season’ sometime in the fall or winter? Aren’t people supposed to be able to ENJOY the spring and summer without investing hundreds of dollars in over-the-counter medicines, tissues, and medical co-pays? Isn’t there some rule of physics that states that the human body cannot possibly produce that much mucous overnight? And why is it that when you are already feeling miserable with a stuffy head that the laws of biology mandate that a cough produces a headache?
I believe I have my granddaughter to thank for my cold. No, she’s not sick. She’s five. But because she and her mother were here for the better part of a month, I got fewer hours of sleep than I normally do. (Now, my so-called ‘normal’ amount of sleep is already less than the average person my age, what with full-time work and full-time school, I’m lucky to get 5 hours a night as it is.) Ever since Priscilla and Julie-Anne arrived, however, I think I averaged about 3-1/2 or 4 hours a night.
Not that I’m complaining. I mean, last time I saw Julie-Anne she was just a little more than 3 years old. A lot changes in a child her age in 2 years. And, because they live in Hawaii (for now), the likelihood of me getting to see her again any time in the next year or so is pretty slim see as how it is so unaffordable to travel to Hawaii these days. I had hoped to go there this summer using my frequent flyer miles that I’ve diligently accumulated using grocery spending. However, as soon as I went to try to redeem them, it seems that redeeming award miles during the summer isn’t possible. (I have yet to inform Priscilla of this…she’s expecting me in July.)
I thoroughly enjoyed having Julie-Anne and Priscilla here for the past three-plus weeks. I’ve enjoyed having someone to shop with and compare homework with and watch silly movies with, none of these things are particularly interesting to my husband. The homework comparing was especially interesting because Priscilla is taking classes that are on my horizon. In fact, some of her classes are also some of my classes—we are going to try to take them together (even though she’s in another state…not even on the same continent!).
Since I work during the day and Priscilla and Julie-Anne sleep during the day, the evenings and nights are spent doing all of the things we can’t do during the day. Hence the lack of sleep. So, when Julie-Anne came down with a little sniffle, it was just what my already-immune-deficient-due-to-lack-of-sufficient-rest body needed to trigger a nasty head cold. It started the day before the day they were to leave to go back to Hawaii too.
I guess it could have been worse…
…right now, I’m going to drown my sorrows in NyQuil and head to bed.
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It is a whole ‘nother language, Algebra. Polynomials, monomials, binomials, exponents, dividend, base, quotient scientific notation – I mean, could it be any more complicated? It used to be that if you take a number away from zero, you get a negative of that number. With ‘nomials (be them poly, mono, bi or whatever) you aren’t taking the number away from zero, you are taking it away from one, but the one isn’t really there, it is just assumed because, well just because.
That’s how I feel. There seems to be no reason other than somewhere, someone back in the beginning of time decided to create this complicated way to figure out stuff and make it difficult to ‘get’ because they thought it would be funny to watch the simple folk tear their hair out trying to understand it.
When x is really x to the 1st power but is not written x1 (because that would make it too easy, right?), it is just merely written x and is subtracted from another x it should be zero, right? Wrong. Because x1 – x1, although it LOOKS like it equals x0 (since subtracting 1 from 1 is supposed to result in zero and which to logically thinking people means x times zero…just like x2 equals x times x… x0 should mean x times zero…and everyone knows that anything multiplied by zero equals zero), x to the zero power, or x0 doesn’t equal zero, it equals one.
And I thought that dividing by negative numbers in inequalities was going to give me trouble in Algebra 1A.
HA!
Algebra 1B is already kicking my (you know what) and it’s only week 1. My husband knows to stay away when I start talking back to the computer screen…
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My final nine weeks.
Ok, not my final final nine weeks, but my final nine weeks in my Associate Degree program. I started my last block of classes on Monday: Nutrition and Algebra 1B. I figured I’d better take something relatively easy along with the math class. I mean, how hard can a nutrition class be?
Right out of the gate, we immediately had to start tracking our food intake using a tool on a government website and then create an analysis by Day 5. The analysis needs to include information from a food label. I don’t think I have a single thing on my food intake list for the past 3 days that even HAD a food label. By Day 7, we have a 1700-word essay due. What the heck?? I thought the long-winded essays were for the final? This essay is to create a healthy eating plan based on recommendations from the website which takes information from the food intake date previously submitted.
E-gads.
Nutrition. I did not realize this class was going to force me to confront my bad eating habits. It is clear (to anyone with working eyes) that I have bad eating habits. Scanning ahead to week nine and the requirements for the class final, I discovered that the final project is to develop a personal, life-long nutrition and exercise program.
Yeah, right.
I never thought I would ever say that I am going to prefer an algebra class over another.
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Going into my Algebra 1A class, I experienced no small amount of anxiety. I certainly wrote enough about it in my earlier blogs and I am still convinced that my abilities in math of any kind are sorely lacking. Considering the extenuating circumstances of the past nine weeks, how I managed to eek out an A in both of my classes escapes me. Well, not really…midway through the block, my Algebra instructor informed us that we could retake any quiz or test as long as there was time so theoretically there is no excuse for anyone to do poorly in the class.
Still…I got an A on the final test. A 90.8% to be exact…so, yes, barely an A. but an A regardless. I hope it is an A. What if there is more to the test grade than just the percentage correct? I tend to fret some until I get confirmation from the instructor, but the grading scale in the syllabus shows that a grade above 90 is an A (an 89 is a B). There is, of course, the factoring in of all of the other elements of the nine-week course to consider and although I received full points for attendance and participation, my quizzes and checkpoints were not perfect…never less than a mid-B.
According to the MyMathLab site (where the study plans, quizzes, and tests are performed), my overall score for the class is 93.1%. That’s an A-. So, they way I figure it (and I hope I’m right), with full points for participation and attendance, that grade can only improve.
I hate waiting.
Post the grade already.
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Good thing I had finished a day early. Mother’s Day marked the final day of my History and Algebra 1A class. I had already planned to wrap up my classes early because one of my best friends was going to be visiting and I wanted to be able to spend time with her. Also, another of my best friends was celebrating her 50th birthday on Sunday and I wanted to be able to join the fun. And, it was Mother’s Day.
I worked hard and managed to complete my history paper and my Algebra final exam on Saturday night. Yea!! I had Sunday all to myself.
I woke early and escaped by 9:30 AM to spend the day with the birthday girl and friends. Because it was also Mother’s Day, the Bocce Ball place where her birthday party was held was also serving a special brunch so a wonderful time was had by all. Afterward I took a detour to my son’s work to give him a hug (I never see him any more!), and then headed home. Priscilla and Julie-Anne were up and we decided to go to the mall. While we were there, Priscilla began to experience severe pain in her abdomen. With a history of medical problems already, she knew what was wrong and because she is military and visiting from out of town her only possible course of action was to seek medical attention in a hospital emergency room.
So off to the emergency room we went. That was 7:00 PM on Sunday. At 4:30 AM Monday morning we managed to get home. I had taken Julie-Anne home and left her with Ted and then I went back to be with Priscilla. After several different injections of pain medicine (and Benadryl to counteract the allergic reaction to one of them), her pain came under control and Priscilla was allowed to go home. She is going to be ok, by the way. Needless to say, I was very tired by the end of it all. A quick note to my boss explaining why I was going to be absent on Monday and then off to bed.
Good thing I had already completed my finals in both classes.
Happy Mother’s Day!
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