Where I Was (And Where I'll Be Going)

Well hello there!  I don't know if you remember me... I'm the dorky 20-something-year-old mom who used to post pretty regularly about her sassy pants little girls and equally dorky husband.  The one who seriously believes she can go to school and work full time and indulge in her many hobbies without the aid of uppers.  The one who has a hard time keeping her mouth shut about things and, as was told by her husband fairly recently, has no filter to speak of when spouting whatever it is she's thinking.

Now you're remembering.

I'll try not to let that happen again, but let's be honest...nursing school decision letters are about a month out, and depending on which way that lands, January could be my undoing as a social creature in every manner of speaking.  That's what tore me away, these past few weeks...months?  My bad.  There was this test you see...a math test...

These past few years I've been finding joy and excitement in subjects I'd previously (see: in highschool) loathed (see: failed).

Delicious Chemistry.

I'm running these days, but ten years ago I was wearing street clothes to gym class and acting as the teacher's assistant just to earn an F.  I divulge in science articles at least twice a week, but seven years ago I was skipping Intro to Biology more often than I was attending (but let's be fair, my scales tip in favor of Chemistry).  My first Home Economics class at age 12 involved sewing together what should've been a gym bag but ended up more resembling a pillow case.  A very thick pillow case.  But just a few years back I was doing this...

All of that, but I still had trouble with math.  Something in me believes it's my subconscious mind forming la resistance against that "evil non-creative entity" of arithmetic.  I'm a writer.  A creator of worlds.  Of emotions.  Of characters both despicable and admirable.  It's what I enjoy most of all: stories and the people who tell them.  And as long as I've lived I have pitted the two subjects against each other, creative and concrete.  Open for interpretation versus cold, constant formulas.  I believed you can't twist numbers and symbols into anything beautiful or profound.  I'm sure I was wrong; I'm sure many people could prove me wrong.  Over the past six months I've spent studying and absorbing the rules and the methods, I've caught glimpses of how it can be manipulated into some kind of strange art.  There's patterns, consistencies, intricacies...it's...complexly wonderful.

Fibonacci spiral for the Effing win.

Six months ago I was required to take a test to measure my abilities, see where I needed to start out.  I ended up one level above the worst, two levels below where I needed to stand to pass go and collect two hundred dollars (or a chance to even apply to nursing school.  same difference).  So, in true Samantha fashion I decided to buck the system, refuse to take math classes, and teach myself.  I enrolled in an online math tutor program and spent six grueling months of overnight shifts practicing my equations and exponents and percentages between call lights and bed alarms and blood sugars.  I had a few nurses behind me, rooting me on, helping me digest the foreign language of Algebra and spit back out my own dialect.  And little by little, it worked.  I inched ahead at a snail's pace and by the time the big test came, I was... ok, I was shaking like a brittle leaf in a hurricane, but I woke up early, medicated my cold, packed some kleenex and uplifting music and hauled myself up to school and into my little testing cubicle.

Last time I was in this cube, I answered five questions and was told to give up.  I'm not even being my typical hyperbolic self.  Five questions in and a screen pops up:

Ok, maybe it didn't say that.  But it did tell me to hand in my papers and pencil and receive my score.  So this time, when I plowed through twenty questions ("This is never going to end, is it?"), I had hope...it ignited something in me.  Suddenly there was an enjoyment, an Ah-ha! moment accompanying most of the next 45 question section that incited a new confidence in this long-buried ability.  Buried.  Encased in concrete.  Twenty feet under.  But I had found it.  Then the third section came and...well, let's just say I felt safe enough to decide that C is ALWAYS correct.

It wasn't, but I pulled through.  I was told to stop...at the end of the entire test.  Not in the middle.  I was allowed to go all three rounds, friends.  Not only did I survive, but when that test score printed out I stared at it for...a long time.  It was words.  My score was in words.  It made absolutely no sense.  Three or so minutes later I finally spoke up, asked what the hell "College math" meant... to be told a number (I mean come on, what the hell... I just took a math test, don't throw me a damn curve ball in the form of a test score that consists of only letters in a pattern any English-speaker could read off to me).  The number was the highest number I could get, in the realm of college algebra courses anyhow.  I'm not going to tell you I could jump into Trig or Calc tomorrow.  But I will definitely boast the achievement of scoring higher than needed to skip any math courses and...

And I went straight to go.  I collected my...application paperwork and turned it in.  On time.  Then I made phone calls and Facebook posts that rivaled my excitement after finding out I was pregnant with W.

So, there it is.  That's what has kept me off of Blogger, off of Facebook, off of the grid entirely.  It's over now.  And I've got big plans.  There's been so many annoying interesting subjects that have popped up in the past few months and damn if I don't have quite a lot to say on all of them.  The Great Birthday Party Debate (as it is executed in my house, particularly), hand-me-down clothes, body shaming in the mom realm, cosplaying and the issues of weight/appearance and balancing fun with being mom, and...oh, so much more.  I'll end on this note... I told myself if I made it through the months of math intact and still sane (or still in possession of at least 75% of my previous level of sanity) that I'd reward myself with a special tattoo.  Done, and done.

Such is my obsession for the ninth Doctor...