Thaw

This entry would have been more apt yesterday, when it was sunny and 60 degrees and not cold and on the verge of snowing. But ah well, the “thawing” I’m referring to is more metaphorical anyways.

You know the saying, “starting off on the wrong foot”? This semester I started off on the wrong foot… and then fell down a flight of stairs. I don’t have two of the textbooks I need, I don’t have a folder for organizing my papers, and until today I didn’t even have a notebook to keep all my stuff together. Not only that, I got hit with two different sicknesses (the cold and some kind of 24-hour stomach flu) right in a row. This, combined with snow days, resulted in a net loss of about three weeks for some of my classes.

That’s bad.

What’s good is that I’m in the process of recovering from these missteps, and have been healthy for about a week now. That, combined with the sunny period, made me realize how much I’m anticipating Spring. And Summer. And the beach. Have I mentioned it yet? Last Summer was just magical. And now that I get out in May and don’t have the stress of graduation looming, the very beginning should actually be enjoyable as well.

Now, I still have not regained all my balance after toppling over. While I do have a notebook now (which I found out is almost as important to my studies as my eyeballs), I still don’t have either of those books, completely blocking me from doing homework or studying in those classes. I ordered one of the books off eBay, and even though it’s a slightly outdated edition, I’m sure it’s better than nothing. In the meantime I’m borrowing a book from a classmate to do the homework I need to make up.

It’s going to be another week or so before I get a wrangle on absolutely everything (at least), assuming I can somehow get the other book. But I’m confident I can do this. If there was doubt weighing me down before, the 92 I got on my first Precalculus test blew it away.

And it blew me away. Granted, as I was taking it I thought it was pretty easy. And she lets us use a sheet of notes. But… this is math! This is the same discipline as Algebra, which I struggled and fought against just last semester, less than two months ago! And this was coming off that sick period I just talked about. I should have been completely unprepared, I should have bombed.

But it must have been divine intervention, because I just so happened to sit next two of my classmates in that course that day during lunch, because they had sat down to also eat lunch with my father. If I hadn’t been running a little late that day, it would have just been the two of us. But I was running late, and I did have lunch with them. And it was them that informed me we could bring a sheet of notes.

Think about that situation for a moment. I really don’t see that as a series of coincidences. If one tiny thing had been different that day, I might be bragging about a 75 instead of a 92 right now.

That, to me, was a turning point. Now I’m getting my foothold back. Now I’m getting my balance. Now, I’m almost finally ready for this semester. And if I can do well in math easily, my hardest subject last semester, then I’m sure the rest of the pieces will fall into place, too.
-Andrew

PS- My “theme” for right now? Aww yeah: