My brain hates math.
I have not been posting, because I am home, and home is boring. I have been having a bit of fun seeing friends and hanging out (mostly Krystle and David - everyone else has been busybusy), and I have a few nice things coming up soon (Hershey Park with the college group, possible cross-country roadtrip with my grandfather?) but for the moment things are mostly blah.
Or they would be if I hadn't decided that I really want to try to apply to grad school for the semester starting in January. To which aim, I decided I should re-take the GRE (my first scores weren't terrible but also not nearly as good as my SATs). So I bought a book and told myself I should study. But that shit just was not getting done, so last night after coming home at 1 from watching TV with David and his girlfriend, and playing WoW till 3 (lol, my LIFE), I decided that the best way to motivate myself to study would be to register to take the test, so I have like, you know, a definitive deadline and shit.
So, guess who's taking the GREs on the 10th of August? Guess who volunteered (paid a shit ton, even) to take a long, boring, and incredibly difficult test that almost all grad schools require but that no one can tell you how much they actually affect getting in because opinion on how much they measure anything that matters is widely varied? (I mean, thank god they only test the same material as the SATs, that's hard enough, but what the fuck does testing on stuff I learned back in high school and haven't studied since have to do with how well I'll do in grad school?) And it's just like the SATs only hey, this time you're not allowed to use a calculator? (wtf?!?) Yeah. That would be this kid.
So now I need to slog through this stuff. It is amazing, absolutely amazing, to me, how easily my brain picks up certain pieces of information while completely rejecting others. Basically anything I can read about (facts, quotes, dates, themes) in any subject will pretty much stick and hang around for as long as I need it. Math, though... In high school, my father would sit down with me (or phone me) every single night, and go through my math homework, problem by problem, explaining the concept and the rules to every one. And the next night we would do it again, usually with the same type of problem. And it would be as totally new information to me. Like water off a duck's back, everything I had learned would be gone within the next 24 hours. And I seriously do not understand this. I want very badly to be good at math. I am very drawn to science, I love science, but one reason I could never achieve anything with it academically is that all science is based in math. I would, frankly, give up in a heartbeat any ability I might have with words for even just an equal facility with math, because it is so necessary for understanding things, and also seems like a much straighter path to changing the world for the better. It's nice to be able to communicate, but fuck, I mean, my own social awkardness gets in the way of that often enough. Math Is Power. The poster said it and I believe it and fuck, I just want IN on it so badly.
Also, whether reading words or numbers, all that information? Is coming in THROUGH MY EYES. Why is my brain so picky about accepting certain types of information that come in through the same source? How can it even differentiate between the two? I would love to do some sort of a study to try to find an answer, but I can't, because I'm not a scientist because my brain hates math. Argh.
Erin
Or they would be if I hadn't decided that I really want to try to apply to grad school for the semester starting in January. To which aim, I decided I should re-take the GRE (my first scores weren't terrible but also not nearly as good as my SATs). So I bought a book and told myself I should study. But that shit just was not getting done, so last night after coming home at 1 from watching TV with David and his girlfriend, and playing WoW till 3 (lol, my LIFE), I decided that the best way to motivate myself to study would be to register to take the test, so I have like, you know, a definitive deadline and shit.
So, guess who's taking the GREs on the 10th of August? Guess who volunteered (paid a shit ton, even) to take a long, boring, and incredibly difficult test that almost all grad schools require but that no one can tell you how much they actually affect getting in because opinion on how much they measure anything that matters is widely varied? (I mean, thank god they only test the same material as the SATs, that's hard enough, but what the fuck does testing on stuff I learned back in high school and haven't studied since have to do with how well I'll do in grad school?) And it's just like the SATs only hey, this time you're not allowed to use a calculator? (wtf?!?) Yeah. That would be this kid.
So now I need to slog through this stuff. It is amazing, absolutely amazing, to me, how easily my brain picks up certain pieces of information while completely rejecting others. Basically anything I can read about (facts, quotes, dates, themes) in any subject will pretty much stick and hang around for as long as I need it. Math, though... In high school, my father would sit down with me (or phone me) every single night, and go through my math homework, problem by problem, explaining the concept and the rules to every one. And the next night we would do it again, usually with the same type of problem. And it would be as totally new information to me. Like water off a duck's back, everything I had learned would be gone within the next 24 hours. And I seriously do not understand this. I want very badly to be good at math. I am very drawn to science, I love science, but one reason I could never achieve anything with it academically is that all science is based in math. I would, frankly, give up in a heartbeat any ability I might have with words for even just an equal facility with math, because it is so necessary for understanding things, and also seems like a much straighter path to changing the world for the better. It's nice to be able to communicate, but fuck, I mean, my own social awkardness gets in the way of that often enough. Math Is Power. The poster said it and I believe it and fuck, I just want IN on it so badly.
Also, whether reading words or numbers, all that information? Is coming in THROUGH MY EYES. Why is my brain so picky about accepting certain types of information that come in through the same source? How can it even differentiate between the two? I would love to do some sort of a study to try to find an answer, but I can't, because I'm not a scientist because my brain hates math. Argh.
Erin