Math is hard
Today was both fun and very depressing. Allow me to elaborate.
I enjoyed being able to sleep in this morning, and thought that I'd come to enjoy afternoon and evening classes more than my morning classes. This could not be further from the truth. For some reason, I find getting out of class late at night to be depressing. o_o; I like my early-finish Tuesdays and Thursdays. We went a little bit earlier to purchase me a backpack. My parents kept insisting that I get one of those messenger bags, but I wanted a backpack. I'm pretty happy with the one I got--it's large and can hold all of my books quite well. Having a backpack helped so much with all of the walking I did today, so I'm really glad that we bought it.
I was dropped off in front of the Engineering Building to attend my first class, Calculus. The walking distance wasn't bad at all, though the class itself was. :\ I began to feel nervous before the class even began, and when I saw the practice handout, I knew I was in far too deep. This was only compounded when we split into groups of four to work on the problems. Everyone there so casually answered the questions, reciting formulas and following logic was far, far beyond me. I more or less just sat there and smiled, nodding and giggling as everyone else did the work. I understood some of what was being talked about, but most of it was either completely new to me, or long forgotten. Bare in mind that this handout was to review over skills that we already need to know and have mastered. I just..don't have them right now. ._. These kids were very experienced with math, and it showed. I know I can do it once I've had the practice and teaching, but I haven't yet. We just messed up my homeschooling too much. There had to be a point where I was yanked back into reality, and class this afternoon was most certainly that moment.
I walked out of there with homework in hand, fully aware of my inability to complete it. That's not a feeling I'm accustomed to, and it's a pretty crappy one. I wondered down to the first floor and sat there, pondering what I was going to do. I thought about calling home, about telling them what happened and asking what I should do. But then I decided...this is my life. This is my problem. I had to deal with it. So, remembering what I was told during orientation, I began the hike to meet with my advisor. The campus is huge, so I got lost for about half an hour. XD; That would have been fine--I had three hours before my next class--but it was bitterly cold today. It's one thing to be new on campus and learn your way around, but not when everything is frozen. o_o;
When I got there, I took the stairs up to the third floor, where I remembered speaking with him about a month ago. I didn't even know if he'd be in, but I just had to try. Luckily he was, even if he was on the phone for just about ever before we could speak. XD; I told him that I got out of calc overwhelmed, and he suggested that I drop the class before the end of the week and sign up for math 112. That'd set my graduation back quite a ways, but so would failing calc. :\ Even though math 112 wouldn't further me towards my degree, it's pretty obvious I need it to succeed. I only have two days to decide, but I'm pretty sure that it's what I'm going to do. So much of this is my fault, for squandering so much time. But I'm not going to pretend that there isn't a problem. I'm going to deal with it, one way or another.
When I left there, I still had over two hours before class started. I wanted time to think, and I needed to learn my way around campus, so...I walked. For nearly the whole two hours. I didn't really mind, except when the wind blew and made it so much colder. I ended up at just about every building several times, and I accidentally found where I needed to go to pick up my parking plaque, so that was cool. XD; I checked out the library when I stumbled upon it, and was pretty impressed. I'll definitely make use of it in the future. I used one of the Macs to check my email, which actually made me feel better. How much of a loser am I? Just playing with one brightened my spirits. :x I had an email from Financial Aid, which told me that I was approved for a $4000 grant, as well as a $2300 loan. I'm not sure for how long that's intended to cover, but that's some serious surplus cash. That was interesting. I then browsed up and down rows of books, before leaving and walking some more.
By the time my next class was to start, I had achieved a much better sense of where everything was. I'll still probably have to walk for a few more hours to master the layout, but it's certainly worth doing. Programming in C went a lot better, though we mostly talked about what we'd be covering during the semester. The instructor briefly touched upon machine and assembly languages, as well as what compilers are and how C and other high level languages work. I heard some familiar phrases--string copy, commenting code, signed and unsigned numbers, etc. No homework was given, except to install a C/++ compiler before next class. That means I will have to use Windows, but that won't be a big deal once I can run Parallels smoothly.
After all of my walking, I'm sad to say that I still got lost leaving my C class. XD; That was really awful, because it was dark and very cold. That's probably what depressed me the most. Anyways, I eventually found my grandfather and rode home, though we visited Subway on the way home. Of course.
As I said before, today was depressing and fun. I enjoyed taking charge of my life for once, by visiting my advisor and deciding what to do. That's not something I'm used to, and it feels good. Am I making a mistake? Maybe. But if it is one, I don't want to know. I want to learn, first-hand. It's still depressing to be inadequate--I've never been in a situation before where I felt quite that worthless--but I'll get over it. This is growing up, huh? I kind of like it, but I'd still take being a kid. Any day~
I really like the Apple keyboard
I enjoyed being able to sleep in this morning, and thought that I'd come to enjoy afternoon and evening classes more than my morning classes. This could not be further from the truth. For some reason, I find getting out of class late at night to be depressing. o_o; I like my early-finish Tuesdays and Thursdays. We went a little bit earlier to purchase me a backpack. My parents kept insisting that I get one of those messenger bags, but I wanted a backpack. I'm pretty happy with the one I got--it's large and can hold all of my books quite well. Having a backpack helped so much with all of the walking I did today, so I'm really glad that we bought it.
I was dropped off in front of the Engineering Building to attend my first class, Calculus. The walking distance wasn't bad at all, though the class itself was. :\ I began to feel nervous before the class even began, and when I saw the practice handout, I knew I was in far too deep. This was only compounded when we split into groups of four to work on the problems. Everyone there so casually answered the questions, reciting formulas and following logic was far, far beyond me. I more or less just sat there and smiled, nodding and giggling as everyone else did the work. I understood some of what was being talked about, but most of it was either completely new to me, or long forgotten. Bare in mind that this handout was to review over skills that we already need to know and have mastered. I just..don't have them right now. ._. These kids were very experienced with math, and it showed. I know I can do it once I've had the practice and teaching, but I haven't yet. We just messed up my homeschooling too much. There had to be a point where I was yanked back into reality, and class this afternoon was most certainly that moment.
I walked out of there with homework in hand, fully aware of my inability to complete it. That's not a feeling I'm accustomed to, and it's a pretty crappy one. I wondered down to the first floor and sat there, pondering what I was going to do. I thought about calling home, about telling them what happened and asking what I should do. But then I decided...this is my life. This is my problem. I had to deal with it. So, remembering what I was told during orientation, I began the hike to meet with my advisor. The campus is huge, so I got lost for about half an hour. XD; That would have been fine--I had three hours before my next class--but it was bitterly cold today. It's one thing to be new on campus and learn your way around, but not when everything is frozen. o_o;
When I got there, I took the stairs up to the third floor, where I remembered speaking with him about a month ago. I didn't even know if he'd be in, but I just had to try. Luckily he was, even if he was on the phone for just about ever before we could speak. XD; I told him that I got out of calc overwhelmed, and he suggested that I drop the class before the end of the week and sign up for math 112. That'd set my graduation back quite a ways, but so would failing calc. :\ Even though math 112 wouldn't further me towards my degree, it's pretty obvious I need it to succeed. I only have two days to decide, but I'm pretty sure that it's what I'm going to do. So much of this is my fault, for squandering so much time. But I'm not going to pretend that there isn't a problem. I'm going to deal with it, one way or another.
When I left there, I still had over two hours before class started. I wanted time to think, and I needed to learn my way around campus, so...I walked. For nearly the whole two hours. I didn't really mind, except when the wind blew and made it so much colder. I ended up at just about every building several times, and I accidentally found where I needed to go to pick up my parking plaque, so that was cool. XD; I checked out the library when I stumbled upon it, and was pretty impressed. I'll definitely make use of it in the future. I used one of the Macs to check my email, which actually made me feel better. How much of a loser am I? Just playing with one brightened my spirits. :x I had an email from Financial Aid, which told me that I was approved for a $4000 grant, as well as a $2300 loan. I'm not sure for how long that's intended to cover, but that's some serious surplus cash. That was interesting. I then browsed up and down rows of books, before leaving and walking some more.
By the time my next class was to start, I had achieved a much better sense of where everything was. I'll still probably have to walk for a few more hours to master the layout, but it's certainly worth doing. Programming in C went a lot better, though we mostly talked about what we'd be covering during the semester. The instructor briefly touched upon machine and assembly languages, as well as what compilers are and how C and other high level languages work. I heard some familiar phrases--string copy, commenting code, signed and unsigned numbers, etc. No homework was given, except to install a C/++ compiler before next class. That means I will have to use Windows, but that won't be a big deal once I can run Parallels smoothly.
After all of my walking, I'm sad to say that I still got lost leaving my C class. XD; That was really awful, because it was dark and very cold. That's probably what depressed me the most. Anyways, I eventually found my grandfather and rode home, though we visited Subway on the way home. Of course.
As I said before, today was depressing and fun. I enjoyed taking charge of my life for once, by visiting my advisor and deciding what to do. That's not something I'm used to, and it feels good. Am I making a mistake? Maybe. But if it is one, I don't want to know. I want to learn, first-hand. It's still depressing to be inadequate--I've never been in a situation before where I felt quite that worthless--but I'll get over it. This is growing up, huh? I kind of like it, but I'd still take being a kid. Any day~
I really like the Apple keyboard