Gold Star

Welp, I got me an 'A' in my Algebra class. That's five tests, with scores (respectively) of 100, 100, 95, 86, and 99. In case you can't tell, the subject got progressively more difficult, then much easier. In fact, sections three and four I spent the most cumulative time on (about a month), and I still kind of blatzed the test for section four, which was all about adding and multiplying and dividing polynomial fractions. Lots of factoring of the kind where one accidentally reversed sign can give you an answer that would have your moon mission landing in Akron, if you were an orbital scientist employed by JPL.

Section five, on the other hand, was so easy that I almost lost all confidence, in that 'there's no way that I got that right with no effort' kind of way. Just square roots (radicals) and the quadratic formula. In fact, I took test four on Monday after ten really intensive days on the subject, and had intended to take all this week to really cram section five to make the noon Friday deadline to complete the course. Turns out I already knew it cold, and decided on a whim to scoot over to RCC and take the test after work on Wednesday. My best guess as to why I did so well with this part (apart from square roots just being rote memorization, rather than actual thinking) is that I must have also put in the effort to memorize the quadratic formula a couple of decades ago, and I found it easy enough to access that lost part of my brain and recall it with very little effort (which is the exact amount of effort I like to apply).

Now comes a brief pause in my mathing, just enough time to relax. Then it's back onto Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus and then Calculus. The deadline here is that my father is moving to Whitehorse, Yukon in August, and my Learning Annex Math Course goes with him. So I'll be relaxing the schedule just a little - but then it's on to math of the kind that made me stop taking math as soon as I was allowed in high school. Shudder for me, won't you?

D.