So- Here I am deciding that it is time to go back to school. Get some higher learning. I love this, and one needs to understand why.

I love to learn. Straight up, no BS. If there were a way to feed my family AND be a lifetime student, I would do it. Unfortunately those pell grants and student loans dont quite add up to being "income", so that wont work. But, I would do it if I could.

Heres one though: I know Im going to end up in a math class. I know that I will HATE that class. Heres why:

I cannot stay awake looking at math problems. I cannot stay awake reading the text that explains what to do to solve the math problems. I have always been this way with this one subject, and it doesnt take a genius to point out "Yeah, She REALLY sucks at math". So I called Mrs. Perpetual student- Ma, In the flesh.

"Its because you get bored by it."

Ya think? I love you, Ma, but instead of the obvious, I need IDEAS.

"I didnt have this problem in school. I loved math and science."

Ok. How did you deal with the classes you hated and staying awake?

"I didnt have any classes I didnt like, so it wasnt a problem."

GAAG! How does someone like EVERY class? Yes. I now know, for a fact, that you are an alien. Or I am. Maybe I was switched at birth. I have no idea how a family of math and science heads created a reading, writing, and history head.

Yes. There was bloodshed during homework growing up. MAJOR bloodshed. My brother had to come in and separate my mother and I many times during school. I didnt understand how parenthesis made math rules change completely. Who figured out that you can get a positive from multiplying two negatives? And if thats wrong, that just goes to show you that my algebra is bad a day after brushing up on it. Thats how terrible it is for me. You know how a dyslexic person changes the letters, and reads them completely backwards? Yeah. I look at a math problem and I could just be reading Chinese. I realized that I still start sweating, feel closed in, and ready to pass out.

Over PRE ALGEBRA! Really? Come on. I am a 30 year old WOMAN! Why am I going to have to have my 11 year old help me with my homework? And yes- He is the only one that was ever able to get me to understand angles and shapes just by looking at them.

I know that I am not dumb. I can handle addition, multiplication, subtraction, division. I was even really good at long division at one time.

I get dollar amounts. I understand how to add them, subtract, multiply, and divide them.

I even get fractions. REALLY GOOD LIKE. I can usually come up with "what is 25% of such and such" easily, and without use of a calculator. I even managed to pass a few math classes once.

What is up with that jump from those to using a little number I cant figure out how to put on the screen next to a bigger size number?

Heres one- What do you think the instructor is going to think when I tell him "I really have learned all of this once, I promise. I just cant remember it from day to day."

I really am a smart girl. I can fix many things around the house just by looking things up. I fixed my dryer by looking it up. I learned how to replace a cd rom drive just by reading about it online. I learned what defrag on a computer is just by looking online. I learned how to do many things on the computer from you guys, lol. Just by READING. I even taught a doctor about "febral seizures" by looking it up online, preparing an information packet, and taking it with me on the ambulance when she had one after 4 times of doctors telling me they didnt know what it was, and refusing to listen to ME, who obviously handled it better than the "educated" ones. It wasnt a guess, guys. She had them starting at a year old, and I went to a specialist at the urging of an ER doc. They knew what it was. So, I knew what it was. The doc hit the floor when he read it, and actually realized I wasnt pulling his leg. Yeah, it was a TEENY hospital. The ER doubled as a clinic.

You shoulda seen the look on his face when I showed him the tube of rectal valium a neurologist prescribed for her for when they went longer than 3 minutes. Thats right. Ever tried to time a seizure, and THEN try to inject something into an area of teeny little girl that is very not cool, when she is SEIZING? Did I mention she wasnt even 2? Talk about feeling like a terrible person. Especially after the look the ambulance guy gives you when he walks in to almost needing to use it. I can imagine what he was thinking, too, though. Could you imagine walking into a house, you dont know the people, and you see some chic with a huge syringe of something clear, hovering over a baby she is trying to get the diaper off of, while that child is seizing? Weirded out may have been an understatement on that guys part.

-Side note-

You find out how good your local fire department and EMS are when you have 15 of them in your living room drawing straws to see which one is gonna babysit so you can go up to the hospital. "Just go!" is not what they expected, but they took it. Getting into the ER after the sitter gets there is another story.

See- I am not dumb. I can handle some things very well. I have a brain that functions pretty good on most things. I can even think quickly in some extreme situations. I multitask! I can walk and chew bubblegum, talk to 3 kids, catch the one running, and do all of this with a dog twisting me up in the leash. Without falling!

But you throw an integer in there, and Im done.

Its not like I just really dont get it either. I do, as long as I am doing it right when I learn it. But the next day- Empty. No idea what the hell is going on. Back at square one. Its like I have a damaged section of brain that refuses to retain that specific part of it.

Here is the big question- How do I manage to do this AGAIN? Its even worse than it was last time. This time, I want to just run away from the problems, and I havent even gotten all of my admissions completed.

OH! You know that kid during the summer when you were 10 that you had the biggest crush on? Yeah, the one you and your bestie fought over.

Well, you know how that kid got real ugly between jr high and high school? And you ignored them when they moved back?

Well- That kid is now the admissions councelor I talked to yesterday. Yeah. I could see him behind his desk cracking up at the fact that he knows I suck at math. He was in that class with me. And I could see the gratification he had at that thought.

Well, maybe not, but still! Its that bad! I think I even had a nightmare about it last night!

And yes. I am freaking out over NUMBERS (and parenthesis)!