Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Where have the words gone?

Lately I've been treading waters in algebra and recently barely keeping my head above water in geometry. I have two notebooks filled with my scribblings to solve equation after equation from my GRE manual. The last time I was in school, I had notebooks of page after page filled with words, glorious words. And now? Numbers and variables. Who am I and what happened to the life I knew before?

Along with the expanse of math filling my head, I've been weighed down with some hefty decisions and deadlines by which I had to make them. Decisions that don't only involve me but involve my parents' wishes and the children's futures and a lot of emotions and memories. That has been about as much fun for me as not only having to remember the Pythagorean theorem again but actually having to apply it to find the sum of the diagonals in the meaningless diagrams on pages 326 through 331 of my GRE manual.

Really? All squares are rectangles? And they contain distinct right angles?

Sometimes, I look in the mirror and wonder who it is staring back at me, wonder who this adult is that is making big decisions and has immersed herself in an eight-week course that involves an enormous amount of math so that she can take a big serious test so that she can spend the next two years in school. Voluntarily.

If it weren't for the consistency of my ever-present camera, I'm not sure that I'd be able to recognize myself these days.

This photo of a storm moving in from the west was taken just moments before I walked into my tutoring session Monday night.

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3 comments:

mccarthy281 said...

Don't give up...your true self WILL return...even better than before.

Anonymous said...

Keep plugging away Alison. If anyone has the fortitude to get through this difficult time (math and all), it is you. I actually miss math and am looking forward to the boys getting to some fun math courses in school around here. Good luck!
-sdhb

CreekHiker / HollysFolly said...

Alison, I so feel for you. The choices of this current economy has made so many rethink everything. I think you are one brave soul!