Still no painting, still more studying. I have an astronomy homework due the same day that I have two papers due. Then two days later I have another test to fulfill a health class requirement so I can get my AA this semester. The test doesn’t sound hard but I need to review an entire thick textbook between now and next friday, all while writing these papers which I haven’t started and getting this crazy astronomy math stuff done. Are you dizzy listening to me? Good, I was dizzy writing it down.
So I go see the astronomy/math tutor today. I always seem to get the same guy. He’s helpful but he’s always stopping in the middle of explaining one thing to teach me all these math tips. He does everything in his head, not helpful to me. He always ends every statement with something like “See, once you figure that out, it’s simple really,” Honest? Because I couldn’t understand a word you just said, math guy, nor do I want to. I’m sorry, I don’t want to become a math wizard right now. I want the straight and narrow path. I want to take more time than I need to, I want to have ten times more steps than is necessary. It’s just how I learn, tricks come later. So every time I go see him, I leave feeling like my head is going to burst open and green goo is going to ooze out all over the place.
All I can really do is take in my completed work to have him check over. If an answer is wrong, I’m usually in more trouble than when I started out because now on top of figuring out which formula to use, how to convert units and how to do the mathy part, I am supposed to take on this extra burden of weird math tricks about figuring out the frequency of a square meter of light or performing multiple calculations in my head while balancing a banana on my nose. And he talks 5 million miles an hour so even if I wanted to remember what he’s saying, my brain is still trying to chew on 2 minutes ago, which in his world is many many moons away. He talks so fast that sometimes he asked me questions but my brain never catches up enough to realise it. Then he just sits there and stares at me blankly. Fun! Like today, there was a very long pause where he was looking down at my book. I thought maybe he was communing with the mothership. But no, he was waiting for me to calculate something that I don’t even remember him asking me to.
So after he confuses me to the point where I’m sure the green goo is imminent, he says something to the effect of “see, once you master these tricks, you’ll be doing math all over the place.” To which, in my confusion and frustration I reply: “Oh no, I’m going to Art School and I’m leaving this math stuff behind.” Which I’m sure either hurt his feelings (unlikely) or he just decided I was an inferior human because math geeks don’t understand that they use different parts of their brains than I do. So gimme a break, math dude, I’m riding with training wheels, and after this, I’m hopping back on my surfboard where I belong.