School

[lydy]

It's official. I have straight As. Human Biology, Human Biology Lab, Psychology, and Intro to Algebra. I was really worried about the Human Biology Lab because it involved actual physical stuff. It wasn't enough to be able to name the muscles, I had to be able to identify them on a model. I just barely skidded to an A in that class. Algebra became surprisingly difficult towards the end. It started out easy and I became over-confident.

The thing about going back to school that continues to surprise me is how difficult it is. This is clearly age getting in the way. These are classes which are little more than glorified high school classes. Nice, easy freshman classes. But I have to struggle with the texts and take notes in lecture and generally actually work on getting an A. I didn't used to have to do that. I could read the book once, without taking notes or highlighting or anything like that, and do fine. I'm sure if I were 18, I'd nail all these courses without the work. But I'm 45, and you make do with what you've got.

It's Christmas break. One of the wonderful things about being a student are the chunks of time you get off. So I have been able to come to New York City and stay with Patrick and Teresa for a fortnight. And then I'll still have a week off when I get home. Being a student is luxurious when it comes to time. Even during classes, there's more free time than when I work. I don't study the recommended two hours per every hour of class time. I can't do it, and I obviously don't need to. But really, I can only stare at my books for as long as I'm accomplishing something.

Comments

[fgherman.livejournal.com]

Mazel tov on the grades!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You rock.

I'm very impressed.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Dancing rodents!

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Go straight A's! Go Lydy!

[pameladean]

Ha! That's excellent! You are mighty.

P.

Grades

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful. Keep up the good work.

Nate B.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your achievement; very cool.

[boxofdelights]

Brava!

[arkuat]

congrats!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

*LOVED* getting this good news! Hooray for you!

K.

[mom23cats.livejournal.com]

I had no doubts!!! great grades

[(Anonymous)]

Great! I hope the GPA will matter. It's interesting to see the correlation between age and difficulty, since I might like to go to grad school some day.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! That's a *great* achievement, especially during your first term, when you're still adjusting to being in school.

It was good to see you at P&T's, and to catch up a bit. Sorry I left this morning before saying goodbye. Having to move my car meant I was up and out much earlier than is ordinarily in my repertoire.

Have a great time during the rest of your visit there, and on the rest of your winter break, too.

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Good work.:)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Congrats! I have your return marked on my calendar so we can maybe do something fun before your classes start again.

[webbob.livejournal.com]

The worst thing with Algebra (and other mathematics courses) is that one can simultaneously lose traction from overconfidence (or underfocus) and hit the part of the learning curve that branch of math where it abruptly becomes much more difficult.

Where that part of the learning curve varies for individuals as well as for math subdisciplines, but almost everybody I know who's kept studying math has run into that sudden flattening of its slope at some point.

Remember, the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic: "al" -> "the" and "gebra" -> "gibberish."

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Brilliant work -- go you!

I dunno, these are not exactly high school classes. Remember, what's taught in one year in high school generally translates to half a year in college.