(no subject)

[felicula]

I hit a breaking point in calculus this past week. Something's awfully wrong when I understand the mathematics of it, but just can't seem to come to the same answer as the solutions guide.

Or not.

Sometimes it's just the mess created when stress and hurrying homework means that I mix up numbers and operations on a problem I otherwise get. Just to make sure, I reviewed how to play around with exponents: fractional, negative, or otherwise, and revisited the trigonometric identities. I even touched base with the order of operations just in case my head was mixing that up.

The sick part is, when I analyze what I did wrong it is usually some nigglingly tiny detail I mixed up. A few times it was just a case of switching one sign by accident in the final copy-over. I'd had it right down to the last cosine until I copied it over. It's just no fun being a generalized, big-picture person when it comes down to little details that like to hide in a haystack of numbers, variables, and operations.

And it really isn't that I don't understand the formulae. It's just that I need to be in a fully-mindful, selfless, Zen-like mode of focused concentration as I go through the process in order to keep track of all that I need to keep track of. Even keeping it all on the paper doesn't help. One miscopy and *BOOM* my answer's wrong.

I feel so stupid when I do that. It's like I ought to know better. Yet, no matter how hard I try, these little details trip me up.

To make matters worse, it's an online class. Eduspace, the online tool through which we submit graded homework assignments, is algebraically inflexible. It's equasion palette is counterintuitive in many respects, but also the code that processes the information once you submit an assignment for grading often alters the equasion that was entered into a different form. It's annoying at best and mindbendingly frustrating at worst. In addition, having to work on my answers in a notebook then enter them into the computer is one more step where I can accidentally miscopy something. It pisses me off.

Other than that, my classes are going fine. What's not going fine is trying to make sure Aidan does his homework and trying to have enough of a head left on my shoulders to do my own. Some days it takes hours and hours and hours and hours to get him to take his assignments seriously. I fear that the grade skip may have been too late in that respect. On the other hand, he really could use more hands-on practice with neatness and caring about his work. I don't know a way to do that without boring him to tears or taking more time than we have in a day.

And to escape the stress that is my life: World of Warcraft. I know. It is more of an addiction-escape into virtual reality when I really ought to be cleaning things up in actual reality. But it feels good to kick ass and feel like I'm accomplishing things even though the world I'm achieving them in isn't real. I'm garumphy enough trying to deal with things. In WoW, Garumph becomes a power, a name, not just an icky mood. I've been pulling away from actual reality in my free time. I realize that's not a positive coping mechanism, but for now it helps bring me back to a state of level-headedness.

Anyhow, that's pretty much what's going on in the state of me.

Comments

[phoenixsong]

Some days it takes hours and hours and hours and hours to get him to take his assignments seriously. I fear that the grade skip may have been too late in that respect.

Sweetie, he's six, in second grade, and he's been there less than two months. Unless you'd put him straight into first grade last year -- before you even knew for certain he was TAG -- it's not too late for anything. I seem to recall, from what you've said, that it took him a while to get the hang of things last year, too, but once he caught on, VROOOOM! Maybe ask his teacher for ideas?

I'm curious what sorts of assignments he's getting, since the only homework I remember having until perhaps 4th or 5th grade was for math.