I think I have finally kicked the ass of my Inner Martha. I finally finished the cookies today, and I am happy to say that I have gotten that out of my system for a while. I think I may be good for another year, maybe two.
In addition to the cookies, I also crossed off another big, ugly to-do from the list today. I took my pre-college enrollment English and math assessments. I wasn’t looking forward to it, which turned out to be an absolutely correct intuition.
It took me two hours to take the assessments. I had no problems with the English tasks. In fact, they were tedious to the point of boring. I ended up scoring a 98 on that one, putting me in the highest placement category they have. That means if I have to take an English class, I am pre-qualified to take the Creative Writing class. Ooh, creative writing – now there’s an idea!
I didn’t go through the math evaluation with quite as much ease. The proctor set me up to take the Algebra Readiness evalution. At first I thought maybe that was dumbing it down a little. Afterall, I did take and pass Calculus. But that was 20 years ago and I would be hard pressed to articulate a single facet of Calculus to you today, so I went along.
Damned good thing I did too. Those questions kicked my ass. Since it was a multiple choice test, I was able to work backwards to some answers, but flat-out guessed on others. I still managed to score an 84 on the test, ranking me at a level high enough that I should be able to skip some (or all) math for my degree, but it was a struggle.
I was amazed at how many of those questions caused me great consternation. I know I’ve lost all my Calculus, but I didn’t know I’d lost that much algebra and geometry. From what I saw today, my math braincells have been slowly dripping away over the last 20 years, and have gone almost dry. I’m wondering how long it will take before they disappear altogether and I find myself counting my change on my fingers. At this rate, I’m thinking another five years.
But I did pass, and the horror of math is behind me. With any luck today will allow me to test out of some of the more tedious classes that are required for my degree. I still have to take some real brain-busters, like Introduction to Computers. The irony here is that I can take that class online. So I get to learn about how to use a computer on the computer? Talk about the chicken and the egg.
Oh well, if I pull this off, I’ll get my degree. Then no one will ever tell me I’m not qualified for a job because I don’t have a piece of paper that says I know what I know. That alone will be worth it.