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[Gunner-Chan]

Aww. Your grandma too? I feel for you. My grandmother was the first person close to me I ever lost. And the only one for years that loved me unconditionally, no matter what I was doing or what people said about me. So I can really feel for you there Lysabild .s

[Aqizzar]

I think this is the usual cusp of the end of an easy life. The last week of summer. The day before your first day at work. The week before a wedding. The usual doubts and fears for such an occasion. Thinking about how little has been accomplished and how much more one would do if summer restarted.

Dude, you got to run around Europe for a month and had fun, there is nothing wrong with that.  I've spent that time doing essentially jack shit, same as I have the previous six months since graduating college.

...Goddamn.  Anyway, early welcome back.

[Euld]

My maternal grandmother was the first death in my family that really got to me too.  She didn't go well... she'd neglected her diabetes, heart disease, and who knows what else, and in the last few months, didn't even seem like herself anymore.  I guess it made it easier to cope, knowing she was probably "gone" before she was actually "gone."

[Lysabild]

Mine died of cancer, she had lived a really hard live, abused by former men and hardly having enough money to do anything of what she really wanted to, she had a schizo son and a daughter with a huge money problem, among her grandchildren there was yet another schizo, a majorly depressed kid in problems with the municipality and school(me) and a girl with a lot of physical problems from birth.

She was 64 I think, her economy was finally getting better, she had a lovely man who adored her, she was finally getting to the prime of her life, then cancer decides no more.

She should've had 10 more years, years I'd happily subtract from my own life for everything she did for me ;_;


I fucking hate cancer.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

I've never known my grandparents.
And knowing the way my parents turned out I'd probably rather not..

[freeformschooler]

I am feeling terrible about myself right now. I am feeling much more worthless than I have all summer. Those who see me around know I very rarely have things to be mopey about, but this is one of those things.

I've been going back and taking the extra exams that I didn't take for whatever reason at time (there were a few of these but not many) on my online math curriculum to wrap up everything I needed to do in math for my junior year (I should be finished in a few days). Tonight I finished up an exam about rational/radical equations, absolute value inequalities, compound inequalities and all of the previous items in conjuction, in addition to other associated rulesets. It was an open book test -- I had whatever old lesson was relevant's notes and sample problems open, in addition to a calculator and my notebook and graph paper.

Less than halfway through the test it dawned upon me, as I was reading sample problems from an old lesson: I don't understand any of this. My grades were good on the stuff at the time, but now, going back, all it is is an elaborate set of rules and abstractions that increases exponentially unto itself, and I had forgotten all of it. It didn't matter how well I understood it at the time. I realized all I was really doing was churning out the next correct answer. I didn't learn anything, and since I had literally no outlet to practice those things (which might I add were not touched upon for the rest of my curriculum), I just lost them over the rest of the schoolyear and the summer.

In the end, I got a 20%. Twenty percent on my test. I'm not afraid to admit it, I really did do my best. And I'm not worried about the spot on my imaginary high school report card, either, because the rest of my grades have been pretty good. What concerns me most is the fact that I really didn't learn anything much from those lessons. Is it supposed to be this way? Am I just stupid? Is there something I didn't do right? I really, really wanted to believe I was fit to be a mathematician. But if I can just lose a whole set of math concepts so easily, and then find them entirely incomprehensible when I go back and try to re-learn them quickly, maybe I'm not cut out for math in general. In fact, I'm not any better at geometry.

In the end, it's nobodies fault but my own. But I still feel like there was something else entirely I could have done better, I just don't know what.

[Dsarker]

From what I've been told, the higher level mathematics you do, the harder it is to do the simpler stuff. Don't worry. You will do better.

[kaijyuu]

Making mistakes and forgetting stuff is part of life. If you want to be a mathematician, then I don't see how this is somehow a negative foreshadowing of your future; it's just showing that you're human.

If you forgot something, re-learn it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off. You'll never do anything perfectly without error, after all.

[freeformschooler]

I guess so. I can always pick it up and learn it again, but I've never been good in general at math. It's what's kept me from being a really great programmer

[Vector]

From what I've been told, the higher level mathematics you do, the harder it is to do the simpler stuff. Don't worry. You will do better.

This is true.

I do not want to admit how many times I have gone back to remind myself that 2+2=4.

I guess so. I can always pick it up and learn it again, but I've never been good in general at math. It's what's kept me from being a really great programmer

Mathematics, as I am discovering this summer, needs to be constantly practiced to keep yourself in the zone.  So... if you had it once, go back and learn it until you have it again.  And then keep practicing it.

I thought you wanted to be a mathematician, though?

[freeformschooler]

Thanks for the advice guys, esp. Vector who is a in fact a real, living mathematician. In the future I'll probably have an easier time with math, including more outlets for regularly practicing it. I guess it's like anything that you have to "keep up".

I thought you wanted to be a mathematician, though?

No, I don't want to have mathematician as my job title, I want to be the other definition of mathematician so that I can be good at the things I want to do for my ideal career choice, which includes programming.

[Vector]

... So that's why people keep calling me a mathematician.  I thought that was weird.  Well, keep going, you'll get it eventually.


I am sad today because Nikov was b&.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I am also sad about Nikov's banning.

[Acanthus117]

Oh, really?

What did he do?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

According to Toady, his posts in and about the debt ceiling thread.