Unexpected

D’you know, I’m actually… well, “enjoying” would be too strong a word… relishing studying for the math portion of the GRE?  It’s not that I actually like math; I still don’t.  But math has always been something I’ve been afraid of.  Something I had to be forced to do.  Something that, despite my protestations that I can do anything I set my mind to, I couldn’t do.

I don’t like having fears, or, at least, leaving them untackled.  Particularly when it’s something as omnipresent as math.  I hate feeling sheepish/ashamed every time I get asked to do even the most basic math and either can’t do it or have to resort to a calculator or my fingers.  And I really hate feeling like I’ve left something unfinished, unresolved. 

I didn’t realize that I considered math unresolved.  As far as I’ve been concerned these last ten years, I had done my bit, managed to scrape through even BC Calculus, and that was that.  So what if I couldn’t really add or subtract and the sight of fractions and ratios sent chills down my spine?  Why should that matter - I got a history degree; I was going to do something firmly on the verbal side with my life.

But now that I’m working on math again, I’m discovering all sorts of things.  For one, it turns out that there are a lot of tricks to doing basic math that work better than trying to do it straight.  (Like figuring a 15% tip by moving the decimal place and adding half, or adding half again to figure VAT, etc.) For another, I’m discovering that I *can* do math.  I’ll still probably never be able to calculus (which is fine by me), and I’ll never be quick (which is more of a problem, given the timed nature of the GRE, but still something I can live with).  But I can do it.

And you know, that makes me very content.  I have chosen to challenge a fear that I have held for… oh, ever since starting math classes back twenty-odd years ago.  And I can do it.