Fucking fucking dumb fucking shit idiot... I fucked up today, hard. Something so retardedly stupid it shouldn't even... I don't even know how to finish that sentence.
I had a meeting with my current job/career counselor today, where we rehashed a few of the things we go over every time... What am I interested in (don't know, don't have any experience to formulate an opinion from), what am I cut out for, what can be reasonable to expect, that sort of thing.
There was a job listing for a substitute teacher of some kind, no specialization necessary, only real requirement was "some higher education", which is a vague enough statement to potentially be fudged.
This led to him asking some random questions with regards to basic competence and education, for the potential application of teaching young kids.
Started with a little chat about how I could probably teach English due to my command of the language (something I'm historically good at, but I can't substantiate. I know the right things, but I don't know how I know it's right), and after that was a quick question of my experience with math. I basically never got into any level of algebra (effectively just the concept of letters as unknowns/variables), but I at least knew the four most basic operations. "So you know your multiplication tables?" "Sure. Some better than others, obviously, but..." "So, like, 8x7?"
And I fucked up. I tried working it out, 3x7=21, 21+21=42... And I felt I was taking too long, which fucked up my organization of values, and I ended up answering "50" (forgetting which "side" of the equation I was working from).
"Fifty-...?"
Wait, shit, I goofed. Of course there were two eights left over, not just one (I'm not even going to try and show how I reached that conclusion, I don't know and don't really want to).
"58"
This was after he'd gone on kind of a ramble about how it's entirely possible to find something for me, because while I may not have the work experience or certificates of formal education, but if he may be so bold as to make such a statement; he could tell that I was a rather intelligent individual, and that my IQ likely was up there with the best of them.
So, yeah. Showed him, didn't I? Christ... I'm 28 goddamn years old, and I took way too long being way too wrong with 1st grade math. Nearly as humiliating as that time when I was a teenager and my dad pulled a pop quiz to prove that I was still at least partially competent at anything, and I ended up writing a 3 backwards.
The upside to this is that I'll probably remember what 8x7 is for the next couple days... Gotta look at the positives, yeah?