Tag Archives: math

March 25

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I spent a lot of my free time today reviewing math problems for the GRE test I’m taking on Friday. While I feel like I am figuring out what I don’t know, I still can’t see how that knowledge is making a difference with my sample tests. I’m still not scoring very well. By the end of the day my eyes actually hurt. And my brain was mush. I’ve definitely been straining it by trying to learn all math from whole number basics to statistics in the last month. It’s starting to fight back.

I do think this math review has been interesting in a couple of ways. While I’m actually a logical thinker for the most part, I am not naturally gifted in “math” logic. I don’t automatically understand how to set up equations. I don’t automatically see how many cubes with sides of 2 can come from a larger cube with sides of 6. And yet, I’m confident that I can figure out a real-life problem by breaking it down and working through it systematically or logically. And I can visualize my space at home and know how furniture can fit. And I am a savvy shopper who understands how to compare sales and the return on investments. Therefore, I honestly think I understand the conceptual thinking that it takes to do math. That must mean I simply don’t always understand the language, so with enough time and practice, that’s learnable. And I do like language. That I enjoy. However, I have to admit that all this math review has confirmed how much I enjoy working with words instead of numbers.The competitive side of me says that maybe I should work on this even after the test and prove that I can do it. While I believe in being well-rounded and strive to have a better grasp of math, it’s not where my heart lies. I don’t need to become a mathematician. I think that’s important to embrace. And if words and writing is where my joy comes from, then it’s also something I need to cultivate. I’ve been blogging, but I haven’t been doing much other writing. I need to find the time for that. I’m glad today for that reminder.

March 12

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I’m planning to go to graduate school to get a degree in Speech Communications. Going back to school is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now and I debated on what field to pursue. Speech is actually what I intended to major in the first time around in college, but as fate would have it, it didn’t work that way. I majored in English instead. However, I’ve always enjoyed communications in both writing and public speaking. Ultimately it seemed a natural fit to pursue an advanced degree in that field now.  My goal is to one day teach classes in speech.

So I found a program that met my criteria of excellence, affordability, and accessibility and submitted all the necessary paperwork a couple of months ago. Everything that is, except a GRE test score. The GRE (Graduate Record Exam) is the standardized test necessary for most graduate schools programs. It’s like high school seniors taking the SATs or ACTs. There’s a writing portion, a vocabulary/reading comprehension portion, and a math portion. I’m not too worried about the writing and vocabulary sections. The math portion has been freaking me out a little. I hang around a lot of math folks. I don’t always follow the conversation when it turns to numbers. I know that my fear is based mostly on the fact that I have forgotten so much of the terminology associated with math. Prime numbers and exponents and factorization are not part of my daily vocabulary. So I’ve been doing some studying. And complaining. And fretting all over again. The strange part is that I was actually fairly competent in math all through school. I always got As or Bs. But I didn’t need to go any further than trigonometry in college. And I didn’t like geometry. I’m finding now that I’ve been reviewing, that those are the areas still causing me the most grief. I definitely need to study a little longer with those sections.

Today, however, I had a little victory.  I went back through a series of problems I had worked on and gotten wrong the first time. And I figured them out. So I continued into a new section of problems, and I figured them out too! I think my dormant math brain is starting to revive, and it’s encouraging. I’m actually looking forward to working on more problems tomorrow.  I’m sure I won’t relearn enough in the next couple of weeks to ace the GRE math portion, but I’m on my way to feeling more confident. That feels good, and that I’m thankful for.

Day 9: Math Dinner

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Every Thursday night I have a standing dinner date with a group of friends. We try out different restaurants in the area, each week picked by a different member of the group. The idea is to try as many different places as possible, although we do have favorites we recycle often: a Japanese restaurant for their amazing gyoza, a couple of taverns for the crazy selection of craft beer, and a downtown “lounge” for the wonderful food and martinis. Last year the group tried over 25 different places, which is not bad considering fast food restaurants don’t make the cut and our city is not that big.

This group was started by several math faculty where I work and expanded to include a few others invited in over time. There are only eight of us at the moment, although usually one or two can’t make it any given week, so it’s rare lately that the entire group actually shows up. I was invited last year right around the time I broke things off with my ex-boyfriend. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. After all, I was in a position of leaving not only my ex, but most of my friends. He was an extremely social person and had a huge network of friends that got together often. And while I would still consider most of them my friends and still see them periodically, I’m not an idiot. They were his first, so he would always have first dibs on invites. When I moved out, I knew I was leaving behind my current life and would need to move on and find my own.

Having a standing social event every Thursday night became a lifeline for me in those months following my break up. I’m not sure the group really knows that since I’m not one to do a lot of self-disclosing in a crowd. I looked forward to math dinner like someone who’s reading a novel she can’t put down. I enjoyed the quirky conversations that centered around inside jokes (a lot), work (sometimes) and math problems (often). The person who had invited me was a fairly new friend, and one other I knew previously, but the rest, while familiar faces, were new people to me. The becoming in a new friendship is like a flower slowly opening. Lovely at every point, yet the final outcome is uncertain. Will the entire flower emerge? Will it be what you expected? Will it last or wither and fade quickly?

They will laugh at my metaphor, but I’m an English major so they will have to forgive me. In their language, I’m an outlier. But they didn’t cross me off, and for that I’m thankful. I’m still enjoying the becoming…I hope it lasts a very long time.