I Love Them

So we know that I do not grok algebra (aka MATH 116). I've been trying and failing at it for three weeks, which in and of itself is frustrating enough, but it's starting to affect other things, like my other class (the way cool XCOM 200 - Interpersonal Communications) and my blog and so forth.

I want to keep that A- average I have going, thank you very much.

There was some indignation on my behalf on Google Plus yesterday, as my friends felt that it was unfair of the University of Phoenix to dump me into algebra without testing me. Today I found out why... they don't actually have a more basic math class.

What they do have is faculty that really wants to help me. So they have arranged for me to drop MATH 116 for now, and to take it again next session by itself so it does not affect other classes and then (Annnnnnnnnd THEN (1:30, trust me)...) they're getting me and the ADA people together because this is a documented disability (all I have to do is find the documentation, and my biggest support person always - my mom - is on top of that).

The only negative about this is that it pushes my graduation date out. Does not affect my student loans.

So yeah, loving the UofP today.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have a cathartic little crying jag. Of relief.

%#*& Algebra

Yeah, here it is, the beginning of Week 4, and I just completed the work for Week 1. I have that much trouble with algebra. We've known this since I was 13 (when we did extensive testing and discovered a learning disability or six, and got me through algebra then - barely - with the help of a tutor), and in the intervening 30 years I have not improved. I've had my spouse - who is trained as a math teacher - try to assist me, I've been to Khan Academy, and I've used the live tutors at the University of Phoenix.

I still do not grok.

This is not the fault of any of the above. It's not even my fault. It's faulty wiring in my brain.

I have mastered fractions (and I shocked the Hubs when I claimed to have 'made fractions my bitch').

I have sent an email to my academic adviser and my instructor and the MathLab people, asking if I can replace Algebra 1 with Bonehead Math Math 101, and then replace Algebra 2 with Algebra 1, and still get my degree (which is in Communications; it is unlikely that I will have to use algebra extensively there).

We all know I can communicate.

But I'm having trouble even doing that since starting this class; I'm down to one blog post a week here because my brain hurts.

I have not received a response to my email because I sent it at the beginning of a holiday weekend. I'm sure I'll hear back Tuesday.

I want to thank the denizens of Google Plus (and my spouse and everyone else mentioned in this post) for offering assistance (their own or that of their teenage children!), and I may take you up on it if the UofP won't allow this transfer.

But for the moment I'm saying %#*& algebra.

Wow - Growing Up

Brownie Abby and Leader

Abby isn't a Brownie Scout anymore.

Because she's a Junior Girl Scout.

Good god.

She was a little girl five minutes ago.

No, wait, that was from one of the episodes of Doctor Who we watched last week.

Junior Abby and Leader

She's going to be in fourth grade in less than four months.

She'll be ten years old in less than seven.

Holy crap.

Please excuse me while I have a minor mommy meltdown.

They were lovely, by the way... nearly a dozen little girls (yes, I said little girls) singing songs and reciting the Girl Scout Promise and displaying the Color Guard and earning badges (and new green sashes) and certificates for perfect attendance. In a dripping drizzle in Seattle, because that's how it works - delightful summery weather for the week before the outside event and then... Seattle. An ice-cream social and little (yes, little, dammit) girls running in wet grass.


Wow.

Sorry, Sorry

I know, I know, I haven't posted in over a week. And I know there are those among my readers (hi, Mom!)  who are always scared to pieces when this happens, because historically (wait, historically? I've only been blogging for a little over a year...) the large gaps between posts are indicative of seasonal depression.

Not the case here lately; you can practically smell the Vitamin D out there this past week.

No, the issue for the past week has been that which has been the bane of my existence since I was thirteen years old. Here I am, 43 (yes, that's thirty years) and I'm still completely stymied by algebra. "Wait," you say, "Why are you taking algebra? Isn't the degree you're going for in Communications?"

Yes. Yes it is.

But algebra, being one of those classes that everyone has to take and pass (and one that I did poorly enough in community college-  lo these many years ago - that the credits did not transfer) is required to get an AA is anything. So here I am taking it.

But I do not grok.

Now, I am not stupid. But I do seem to have this mental block where algebra is concerned. Geometry was never as much of a problem. I don't know if this was because my geometry teacher was cool - he owned a comic book shop and let us make our triangles out of string and paperclips in class - or what. But algebra is on the Grand List of Classes That Must Be Completed. And UofP has some fabulous resources, like online tutoring. And I have friends and family who actually like algebra (God only knows why). I can do it.  But I can't do it all.

So you're just going to have to be patient, Gentle Readers (yes, even you, Mom), and wait politely for the half-written posts on my love/hate relationship with the Bing Maps app on my phone, or the lovely and instructive time I had on the potential-parent tour of Seattle Girls' School, or the mixture of angst and pride I feel when I think that Abby will soon be graduating from Brownie Scout to Junior Girl Scout.

Because right now I'm still trying to wrap my mind around order of operations.

Hiatus to the Hiatus

I'm still officially on hiatus from my blog, because this is finals week at school. But my paper is almost done (tomorrow is revision and editing day, and Sunday is for finishing all the loose ends for this session) and the Hubs and I took a little break from the world at large to watch the world in a really big crisis instead. Movies in the Marvel Verse are usually pretty good, but this one... this one was directed by Joss Whedon. Thereby bringing the witty repartee level Up to Eleven in an already awesome series of movies.

However, a hiatus from blogging does not imply a hiatus to parenting, which is why I was at the walk-in-clinic with lil' Lizzy this morning at nine. She woke up with a sore leg, to the point of limping, and since Lizzy is the one of our three who cries for less than a minute when she has a dislocated elbow and then is on her way again, a limp - no matter how minor - is not to be ignored. (At this precise moment, she's asking me if I'm sending this message to the whole world. Um yes. Yes I am.) And she's limping a little, and whining and begging to be carried, and saying it hurts, so off we go.

Anyway, we're at the doctor, And this is a guy we haven't seen before and is not used to Lizzy's ways. Ans when he says she has a "groin pull or maybe a pulled hamstring" and I protest that she's only four (because to me a hamstring or groin pull is more of a football or hockey injury), he watches her slide off the exam table and then hop around in a circle on her uninjured leg, saying over and over that it hurts, and he says with an absolutely straight face, "yes, but she seems to be a fairly... active child."

Yeah, that.

So Grandma runs to the rescue, and the Hubs and I make it to the movies after all, albeit a later and more expensive (because it's 3D) showing than originally planned. I thought I couldn't see in 3D - never have been able to because my vision is not truly binocular (but ex-hubs reminded me that we saw Captain EO in 1992 with the polarized lenses) and this is my first 3D movie in twenty years.

I can see in 3D, as long as the lenses are the polarized type.

And it was beautiful. I spent the movie alternately cringing as things appeared too close to me, and squeeing (mostly quietly) over how the movie came together. I won't give spoilers here, but it was very very well done, a couple lines that literally had me laughing out loud, many references to Loki killing people For The Evuls, a couple parallels to my other favorite 'verse(s), because SHIELD and Torchwood... never mind... (that 9yo Abby will pick up on if her dad takes her to see it, as he may), and as mentioned before, the Jossiness of it all. (And the beefcake eye candy actors too!)

A good day. Lizzy is more-or-less back to normal, I've had my Mothers' Day Movie Fix, and the world is still turning, thanks to Nick Fury and his Avengers.