I'll believe in you if you believe in me
My favorite of all lines from Alice Through the Looking Glass...
And the most forgettable of all mythological creatures is the statistics nursing student. And in a college with a a history between the dean of chemistry, where I lived, and the dean of psychology, where I had to travel, it was a journey laden with peril and little reward.
I failed statistics. Yep. I am brilliant and I completely failed a college class. 80% of the grade was based on being able to enter and run computer programs. Dead dog done. While reaching out to the computer guru in my dorm gained me some of the best friendships of my college days, it was not enough to get me through. I ended up in a summer course for statistics.
At the same time, I had learned my true love and passion, and was working as a nursing assistant in Pullman. I admitted in my first class session that being there in the morning was brutal,and gave full permission to be prodded as needed to wake me up. I was working the 10P- 6A shift.
I gimped through. I showed up sporadically, full of guilt, with handfuls of overdue assignments.
Did I mention I should be forgettable? I showed up one week, propping my head off the desk, wishing for sleep or death. Another student after roll call whispered over to me, "Do you know he has a name for you?" Envy tinged every syllable. I was sleep deprived and bewildered. "He calls you the 'mystery woman' because it's a mystery if you'll show up or not."
Can I say I walk away from that class with a strong grasp of statistics? No,I can't. But I did walk away with an idea of how to read a chi square and compare a research paper for significance, which as a nurse was what I needed.
I do remember that the instructor, Jay, was a psych student interning at Western State. And he had the most instructive stories about what we would be USING this class for. Stories that made me re-look how to question what to ask a patient.
He told about a patient he had who had an involved fantasy of killing his mother. What hammer he would use to smash her head in while she lay on the couch, smoking and watching tv. How he would grind her skull and brains in the blender and make pancakes out of them, and put smiley faces on each pancake.
"So I asked the obvious question. ... (waited for us to provide the question, sighed) who is going to eat the pancakes?"
I think the man cooked the books to pass me when I was the only student not gagging.
And the most forgettable of all mythological creatures is the statistics nursing student. And in a college with a a history between the dean of chemistry, where I lived, and the dean of psychology, where I had to travel, it was a journey laden with peril and little reward.
I failed statistics. Yep. I am brilliant and I completely failed a college class. 80% of the grade was based on being able to enter and run computer programs. Dead dog done. While reaching out to the computer guru in my dorm gained me some of the best friendships of my college days, it was not enough to get me through. I ended up in a summer course for statistics.
At the same time, I had learned my true love and passion, and was working as a nursing assistant in Pullman. I admitted in my first class session that being there in the morning was brutal,and gave full permission to be prodded as needed to wake me up. I was working the 10P- 6A shift.
I gimped through. I showed up sporadically, full of guilt, with handfuls of overdue assignments.
Did I mention I should be forgettable? I showed up one week, propping my head off the desk, wishing for sleep or death. Another student after roll call whispered over to me, "Do you know he has a name for you?" Envy tinged every syllable. I was sleep deprived and bewildered. "He calls you the 'mystery woman' because it's a mystery if you'll show up or not."
Can I say I walk away from that class with a strong grasp of statistics? No,I can't. But I did walk away with an idea of how to read a chi square and compare a research paper for significance, which as a nurse was what I needed.
I do remember that the instructor, Jay, was a psych student interning at Western State. And he had the most instructive stories about what we would be USING this class for. Stories that made me re-look how to question what to ask a patient.
He told about a patient he had who had an involved fantasy of killing his mother. What hammer he would use to smash her head in while she lay on the couch, smoking and watching tv. How he would grind her skull and brains in the blender and make pancakes out of them, and put smiley faces on each pancake.
"So I asked the obvious question. ... (waited for us to provide the question, sighed) who is going to eat the pancakes?"
I think the man cooked the books to pass me when I was the only student not gagging.