Here's how it went down:
So you had read that Labor Day Monday I yarfed from starting to do my homework and stressing so hard it got me sick. Unfortunatley, I've also come to realize that when stress hits me, it hits me harder than it used to and sadly more physically. So Thursday class rolled around (This would have been Day 4 if I continued). The teacher started her usual teachings with me sitting there completely lost and trying to ignore the annoying children around me. She then said we were doing an assignment in class. She passed out something from our workbooks and we were to do all the problems. I have never in my entire life had this happen to me - but I froze. I stared down at my worksheet and didn’t know shit. One of the problems could have been what's 2 + 2 and I don’t think I would have known the answer. I have heard about people freezing up when taking tests and always thought, well that's silly. Just relax and get through it. Well I had my first experience. The numbers blurred and my mouth started to water with that familiar feeling meaning I'm going to throw up. I started to break out into a cold sweat and my head start splitting. "SERIOUSLY!!!" I thought to myself. "This is ridiculous, calm down. Get a fucking hold of yourself". I took deep breaths and tried to focus. It wasn’t working. The teacher came over and tried to help me. She might as well have been talking in Russian. I had no idea. She came back and wrote down a tutors name for me. I stared at the problems and seriously could not do 1 fucking problem. I just stared down at my blank answers and fought off the tears and nausea and humiliation. I wanted to die. She came back and knelt by me. "I've been watching you, and I see you not getting it. You’re not going to pass this class. (She knew my situation). These kids just came out of pre-algebra, so they understand but it's been too long for you". I just silently nodded praying to anyone that I would not have an Exorcist moment with this woman and yarf in her face. "I think you should drop the class and take a pre-algebra somewhere. Then come back and I promise this will be a breeze!". She was very sweet, and very right. I nodded numbly and stumbled out of the class my face red with embarrassment as I felt the eyes of all the kids wondering what the hell just happened and the few within earshot who knew.
I got back to the office, tried to get it together, failed and promptly ran to the restroom and lost my breakfast. I came back to my desk trying to pull it together, but I couldn’t. After 2 more trips to the bathroom, my sweaty pale dumbass slinked into my boss’s office and thru tears of humiliation and embarrassment told her a very short version of what happened and could I go home.
I love this woman so much. She's extremely understanding, and sent me off, me promising to see an internist. (Which I have an appt. October 3rd, because I have had some tummy issues going beyond this stress situation, but more on that later).
I came home, slept for 4 hours, woke up and cried for 2.
The next day after getting myself together, I dropped the class, returned my books (which was a feat in itself, but we won’t get into that) and told my co-horts the news.
I've never felt like that. I've never reacted like that. I know the world is full of so many worse things and this is probably petty to most people, but I've learned over the years not to discount my drama because it's important to me. Yes I'm aware of all the worse things, but right now this for some reason completely fucked me up. I really don’t know why. I guess my angst for math was way deeper than I thought.
But - not all is totally lost.
I still haven’t made up my mind what I want to do yet, but I had lunch with the gal in admissions who helped me out and she told me about a self-paced math class at OCC. She also said, if I get through that (It would cover the 2 elementary classes I would have taken at Chapman), I could go straight to statistics and knock out my math completely. So we'll see. I plan on looking into it for sure, but will make a decision when this awful experience isn’t so fresh on my mind.
The positives are the admissions gal seems pretty cool, she's my age and single so I may have made a new single friend since all mine seem to be dwindling at a very rapid rate. Don’t get me wrong - I'm super happy for my friends who are moving in with significant others, having families, getting married. It's just starting to get a little lonely.
The other positive is I did actually survive, and realize how bad off I really am when it comes to math. So if I decide to tackle it again, I need to do it a different way.
I can focus more on the sketch comedy I have coming up next weekend which I'm super excited about and I still have 2 more races coming up that I'm ultra-excited about. My boxing burn classes have started up again, and it looks like I've joined a bowling league!
So thank you all for the support and I still may be calling on you math whizzes next semester!
No comments:
Post a Comment