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The day before…

A significant aspect of college is learning how to learn and figuring out what the professor or coursework is asking of you. (Or, in the case of online software, getting acquainted with the strict rules of the software.)

My first major test for Math class is due tomorrow at midnight. It has a time limit of one hour and has a total of 210 points. My assumption based on how the homework in the class has been so far is that this means this is about that many questions. While I have breezed through the homework and only had issues with about 10% of the total problems, I’m stressed about this test. I forgot to ask questions when the professor opened up questions about the first exam in class last Wednesday. It wasn’t a priority at the time since I still had four homework assignments to do, and I was focused on getting help from him with one particular homework question about finding the area of finding the area of a square with odd dimensions.

The homework had a simple layout with 3 squares together. Pretty simple to figure out and do length times width.

Of course, one of the homework examples was blueprints for a house with multiple squares, which wasn’t in any of the video examples and, I assume, added by the publisher. I asked my professor how to solve the problem, but even after his explanation and doing it, it didn’t make sense. Eventually, I figured it out. (I can already feel the knowledge dissolving in my head. Thanks ADD!)

Which was a perfect example of why math frustrates me. In most classes, it goes like this: You are given the information with definitions and examples of how to work out the problem.

The test

Well, that was anticlimactic. The test was 21 questions total and only a small selection of everything we studied for homework. I aced the test. I honestly expected a lot more content to be covered, but… It’s done and I got 💯.

Thanks anxiety…

I overhyped up the test and expected way more out of it than what was. Now, I’m sitting in frustration because the experience didn’t match up. I think the limited information I had before going completely triggered me because A) it had a high score compared to homework assignments. High enough to be about 10 percent of the total points for all homework so far. B) had an hour time limit. No homework assignments have time limits, and while I could see how long it took me to complete part of all the homework that has been graded, I didn’t have the complete picture. C) from the information I had, I assumed that the test was similar to the homework points, or close to it, so I assumed about 100 questions to cover everything with multiple questions for concepts. D) I assumed that the software was clever or masochistic to put questions that you struggled with in homework.

All a big:

Not even that one question I struggled with above wasn’t on it.

I think I need to restart therapy

Why? Because this situation shows that I still have trauma from the past about ambiguous situations. Because relationships and jobs can be like that.

That is to say that you do everything you think another person wants and then get a completely different result.

Though a fraction (I hate fractions, and it’s the next subject) of this current equation of feelings is primarily anxiety, another variable is disappointment.

Disappointed because the test wasn’t more of a challenge. It wasn’t harder. I wanted it to be, and also not to be hard.

This past week as the days moved to day zero of the test

Until the time expired to the day of…

I was struggling with what the point of doing this is—going through these classes again. Other than the base answer, which is because my degree requires it. How will I, as a potential therapist, use math in my work or in life?

Sure, this prerequisite-prerequisite class content I will use, though I know it well. PEMDAS and pre-algebra stuff.

The work is shown here in the writing of this post. That is, if you’ve paid attention. 😉

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I feel the next post will be about English class. Obviously I’ve been writing there, but I can’t post what I wrote there until it’s over. Gotta follow the rules in the syllabus. So that should be interesting.

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