I forgot how I get when I’m in school

Today was a good day.  (I should grade every day.  Good or bad.  Today good, yesterday bad.  Me Tarzan, you Jane.)  Work was meh, but I came home early today to be here for our spring A/C maintenance, and I really liked the HVAC guy.  Chatting turned what probably would have been a 30-minute visit into an hour and a half, but who cares?  He’ll get overtime.  On top of that, I’m two-thirds of the way through my third quiz.  Unfortunately, I still have another quiz to complete before I can take the midterm, which has to be taken no later than June 19th, which happens to be a Sunday, which really means I have to take it by Friday, June 17th, so I’m aiming for Thursday, June 16th.  (And I’m a little nervous about it, which may explain the previous sentence.)  Let’s ignore that I used to be good at calculus.  My problem is that I don’t remember basic theorems and trig identities and tricks I used to have memorized.  Twelve years ago.  When I last took a calculus class.  Not remembering isn’t a problem when I’m doing homework and quizzes – I have the internet.  They’re open book.  My midterm?  Not so much.  No calculator, no computer, no help.  Just my memory.  My faulty, holey, Swiss cheese memory that’s full of gaps.

I just came off an online Q&A with the professor.  He’s not long-winded, really, but he spends so much time messing with the technology he’s using (some of which is very cool) that these things take forEVER.  But I feel a little better about the class.  For now.  Until panic sets in again.  Probably early to mid next week.

7 Comments

  1. IBCRandy

    I was working on writing a game recently and was very pleased with myself. I came across an issue that needed some trig, and while I didn’t remember the law of sines or law of cosines, I at least remembered enough about them to look them up on wikipedia and managed to get the issue solved. And then I felt the need to call Mrs. Higdon and apologize for saying I would never use that stuff in the real world. Not that I did.

  2. Zannah

    Wikipedia to the rescue! I have to memorize the unit circle (all the values as you rotate around), and I’m going to wikipedia for the image.

  3. IBCRandy

    I memorized the unit circle and then promptly forgot it after the test. It bit me in the ass all through college.

  4. Melvin?

    I was gonna say something about not being in school, but then you both confused me with that unit circle nonsense.
    Hm.

  5. Melvin?

    Who, me? You’re joking, right? I never took anything more advanced than algebra 2. Then I took a college algebra class as an undergrad and that statistics class a couple years ago for biomedical research. I wouldn’t even know how to define trigonometry.

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