Best Response Ever, said The Grim Reaper

So here at work, my laptop crashed late yesterday. I let one of the partners know (as my boss is out for his mother's funeral today - to which our dept sent nice flowers. But I digress...) so this morning I told her I'd see what I could do with it. WELL the damn thing is dead. Thank baby jeebus someone here plays an IT person on tv, because he was able to recover the files from my hard drive using only a bottle opener. (yes, we employ Macgyver) I then tell the boss lady that my laptop is officially dead, and I head to the kitchen to toast my bagel.

And the toaster breaks.

The CEO walks in as I'm cursing the toaster, and I told him that everything I've broken everything I touch today.

Then I spread my arms and say, "Come gimme a hug!"

Drowning

Proverbially drowning, of course. Because I can swim pretty well actually. But what I can't do is math. I'm drowning in numbers and letters (which should never go together) and arbitrary rules and stupid tricks to solve problems which are asinine in the first place.

I've realized that my inability to even understand the directions given is surely hampering my ability to learn and apply the math lessons. It's even worse than I imagined it would be. Somehow I believed that attending a math class would mean someone would, you know, teach me math. No, that's not what is occurring here. What is occurring is that I sit in class and watch a few examples, and then I get shit loads of homework that I don't know how to do. It's frustrating, infuriating, and absolutely demoralizing. I'm left getting angry with myself for not inherently knowing these things, which is ludicrous.

Fuck yo' math! My anger at being forced to take this irrelevant shit is pushing into the red now, and the stress is physically making me sick.

The Safe Bet Award Goes to ...

Some people take chances. Big chances, like quitting their jobs to go back to school, opening non-conventional businesses, or moving to a new country.

That's not me. At all. Like, ever.

Chicago Fire (some show with the cute German looking kid from House, I'm told it's very popular but all I know for sure is that is ties up traffic all over my neighborhood. But I digress) has prompted some interesting talk from my kids. My little one asked me what if they asked me to be on the show. Immediately I said no. Of course not. I'd never do that.

But not for the reason he thinks.

Say you quit your day job for a tv show, and it doesn't get picked up next season? Then what?

Or, say you are forced to quit your job in order to become certified to teach, but then you don't find a teaching job?

That's exactly what's on my mind as I tell my little one that I have zero interest in being a tv star. After this stupid low level math class this summer, I have exactly 8 classes left to reach my goal of being a certified teacher. In order to finish the last one, I must spend 16 weeks as a student teacher, which means being on staff - unpaid - at a school. How does one spend 16 weeks in a classroom - UNPAID! - when she has children to take care of and a mortgage to be paid?

Well I haven't quite figured that part out yet.

The Ones We've Lost

My favorite uncle was Jewish, a fact completely lost on me until I was 16 or so. He was born 50 years before me, in Feb 1928. His parents came here from Russia in 1905. When I became Red Cross certified as a lifeguard, he gave me the engraved pocket knife he received as a lifeguard many years before. He's been gone for just over 10 years now, and I still miss him every day. Recently I found a stash of cards and postcards he sent to me over the years. None signed with his real name, of course. I looked back at the online funeral guestbook, and I can see that those who knew and loved him most, didn't sign with their real names, either. Most notably are the entries from Henrietta and Beulah Blackheart.

In 1991 I met my godfather's new girlfriend, and I shared the line my grandmother (the aforementioned Beulah Blackheart) had asked me to recite. "Oh, goody, you've brought me a playmate!" You see, she was young, maybe 25 or so. Thankfully she didn't hold it against me. I was a snotty know-it-all teenager, and they were dragging me out of town to a "rustic" weekend in the country. To say I was unhappy would be a grave understatement. She understood my tiny teen angst, and befriended me. She was funny, sweet, and her kid was adorable times a hundred. We lost her in 1992, and it still makes my heart hurt. This week I saw a picture of her son, all grown up, and couldn't help but see her in his eyes. I remember how she laughed when he dropped his first F bomb at 4. When his park outing was cut short and he said, "Ah shit, it's starting to fuckin' rain." She laughed and said, "Well at least he used it the right way!"

They say that time heals all wounds. They are wrong.

...And I'm not afraid to use it!

Someone thought it a fine idea to provide me with a button maker, and materials. Silly person. I've made a round of grumpy cat buttons for my co-workers, and taught others how to spend their office time making funny, irreverent buttons. Because caring is sharing!

Today I was feeling a bit like an intellectual snob, throwing around my $10 words and referring to some people as mouth breathers. (well, I think I actually said "knuckle dragging mouth breathers, but whatever) You know a good fix for that? My first scheduled math tutoring session this afternoon. Quite sure I'll leave there feeling chastened where my intellect is concerned.

Chapter 4, In Which I Learn Math

Math. I hate math. I mean, I really fucken hate math. And I realize how juvenile that sounds.

However, in order to graduate, I must take a certain math class. Which I can't get into, because, well, I can't math. According to the placement test, I need to take four classes just to learn enough to get into the class I need. In the words of one Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!"

My school - which is happy to charge me for pre-credit classes - told me that I could not receive math tutoring if I was not enrolled in a math class. And so, a very kind (and brilliant and patient) coworker has been helping me learn math from the proverbial ground up. Seriously, we started with the order of operations - and if one more person sings to me about their dear aunt Sally I will lose my shit. Order of operations, combining like terms, I honestly didn't remember any of it. So she has patiently walked me through it and encouraged me and tried to keep me from feeling stupid. Let's face it, you can't help but feel stupid when you can't do 6th grade math. I feel like my math incompetence is an unfair thing to put on a coworker though. There's so much I have to learn, and so little time to do it in.

Today I appealed to the head of the math center at school, and he was kind enough to give me his approval to get math help for the placement test, so long as I came in with work and questions ready to go. Another kind coworker* donated her College Algebra book to me, and I have a million worksheets printed and ready to go. And so, this week I will embark on a new journey, tentatively called Beg for Help and Hope to Place Higher.

It's ok to Laugh

Sometimes I do stupid things. Like, really stupid.

Life sometimes hands you shit situations to work through.

Parking tickets happen.

Cancer happens.

It's ok to laugh. In fact, it's more than ok, it's absolutely, positively recommended. (Here I could insert any number of old timey phrases about laugher and medicine, but I won't) Stress kills, people.*
When stress and worry get you nowhere, it's time to throw your hands up and say, "Fuck it!" and have a good laugh. Of course, in the case of cancer I wouldn't exactly recommend a good giggle over the more standard treatments. But in addition to? Oh hell yea.

*hey, that works even without the comma. Stress kills people. Just thought you should know.