#precalc example

[er-cryptid]

Synthetic Division [Ex. 2]

Patreon

[shoechoe]

this precalculus review should not be kicking my ass as much as it is

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Heyo! Lovely commentary as always :D. Yea no, i didn't mean to criticise when comparing the difference in effort between the science stuff and military stuff. I love this series, and the way I show my love is by picking through all my favourite aspects with a fine tooth comb and seeing how everything ticks, but that's a me problem lmao. The enemy of good is perfect, and this is a good series to me. For example, if Xeno really did go to college at 10, then that explains literally everything about him. Of course his ego is like that, and his ideals got shaped in that way. There is no way to come out of that well-adjusted and unentitled. It also makes his childhood friendship with Stanley even funnier. Poor kid was out here learning about fractions while his best friend was midway through a PhD. Though maybe, following the logic, that means Stanley was doing his first tour around that time. Maybe that was when he put in his Air Force shift. Also, I completely didn't realise that, but yea poor Ukyo! I like to think maybe he and Stan bonded a little bit, after the whole war crimes debacle. Crazy how quick everyone moved past that little detail. Thank you for humouring my ranting btw :)

Hello! Thank you.

Anyway, I am also often (usually) poking at things I like, because I love writing and writing craft so much that picking at how it works and why is almost a default part of my process when liking something. I want to know how they incorporated those themes and made things work! For Dr. STONE particularly, I find the character personalities and themes most interesting; the story structure and plot are functional but not the main draws for me to the series, and also honestly kind of the wonkier bits anyway. Compared to YuuMori, where the structure has me starry-eyed and breathless.

But like, I'm also fascinated in Dr. STONE about how static most of the characters are. A few characters have some arcs (Xeno, for one), but Senku? Not even kind of. He's the protagonist, but he is the same person on the last page as he was on the first without even filing down the edges. And he started as a teenager! And yet!

Which is how I ended up with what is like at least a good 30-50% a meta blog. It's basically story vivisection on display for people. There's some older Dr. STONE stuff around here from before I read the manga this spring, most of which holds up but one of which is now very funny and deeply inaccurate because it asked about Senku having a mentor and I was at the time unaware Xeno existed.

Stan's not stupid, either, though, and when Xeno was probably in PhD land, Stan was probably in Precalc or Calc. Like Stan is legitimately brilliant, just not. Whatever Xeno's doing. I think a lot of characterization of those two gets fucky fast because they're so gay and people want to shove them into their pre-determined fun ship roles. It happens a lot with popular shippable characters.

I did actually make a very short post on here about Ukyo and Stan needing to be friends because of being Marine/Navy vets of roughly the same age. They would have a lot to talk about.

But Stan and Xeno fascinate me in a special way because I was born a queer emo goth nerd too smart for hir classes in America the same year they were, and I'm going to be fully honest, my high school friends would dress exactly the same way those two losers do. Like oh, hi, I could have been friends with these two! Which means that I like their characters, but all the unexplained bits are really easy for me to fill in on a cultural level, because, well, I was there.

Frankly, learning that he was born in '93 made me realize "Oh, suddenly everything about him makes. Sense. He hit emo culture and MySpace full in the face."

Also they have probably seen Shrek. Which means nothing but is really weird to think about.

[guiltiest-gear]

I've decided to change my class to something called quantitative reasoning, basically just real world examples the class from what I heard.-The idiot who formally was in precalculus

I mean hey, anything is a lot better than precalc tbh

[lowestechelonabomination]

echie please save me i got shoved into precalc and now im lost

How do you do this😭😭🙏

uhhhh iirc odd functions are symmetrical about the origin (let me look this up) okay yeah they are. a function is odd if for any x, f(-x) = -f(x). so, for example, g(x) = x^3 is an odd function. for x = 2, g(-2) = -8, and -g(2) = -8 too. so for this table, you just have to figure the pattern out I guess? I don't remember if I ever solved a problem like this (but it has also been a while since precal), but uh. okay so negative values of x seem to correspond to positive values of h(x) and the graph seems to cross the x-axis at wait nevermind you don't even need to know that. take the point (3, -4). h(-3) must equal -h(3). -h(3) = 4, so your new point is (-3, 4). now I basically gave you the answer to the whole question you're welcome :)

[er-cryptid]

Matrix Multiplication - Ex. 2

Patreon

[lesbianjackies]

Haii! Can I request a fan fic where Eddie has a crush on Y/n, (like head over heals in love) and he over hears her singing along to a song by one of his favorite bands (example: Black Sabbath), and it just makes him fall harder? It’s perfectly okay if you can’t write it!!!

oh this is cute

💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗👛💗

Eddie needed to smoke. Precalc was kicking his ass and he needed out before it killed him. So he left.

He lit a cigarette and sucked it as he made his way down to the football field, the stoners' favorite place to skip school. He froze. Someone was singing. Not only that, someone was singing Zeitgeist by Black Sabbath.

Eddie dropped his cigarette, stamped it out, and ran toward the sound. Damn, whoever it was had some pipes. He squinted, on his tiptoes to get a better look and- oh, shit. It was you.

You, the girl he'd had a crush on since freshman year. Singing Zeitgeist and fucking killing it. Eddie was whipped.

"Holy shit, (Y/L/N), you can sing!" he appraised, walking over to you.

You jumped, eyes wide. "Munson!" You laughed nervously. "Sorry, I... didn't see you there."

"I didn't know you liked Black Sabbath," he said, climbing up to sit next to you.

You shrugged. "I like a lot of things."

Eddie grinned. "That makes one of us."

You laughed. "I really didn't think anyone would hear me. Sometimes I'll subconsciously sing while I'm writing."

"I'm glad I heard you," said Eddie honestly. "You're like, really really good."

You smiled shyly. "Thanks."

"Hey, uh." He shifted. "Do you wanna join my band or something? We don't have a good singer. Or we could just... I dunno, get dinner or something. If you don't wanna join the band." He slapped himself internally.

"Are you... asking me out?" you asked, tilting your head.

"Yes? No? Maybe?" Eddie bit his lip. "Depends on whether or not you want me to be."

You laughed. "I'll go out with you. And I'll join your band."

"Really?" Eddie said, a little too enthusiastically.

You nodded, smiling. "Yeah."

"Great! Great, great, yeah. Cool."

"You're such a dork." You kissed his cheek.

"Yeah," he squeaked.

"See you tonight." You winked, packed up your notebook, and walked away.

"Holy shit," Eddie whispered to himself. "Holy fucking shit."

[renew-world]

The importance of a growth mindset! Like, of course everyone is going to have differently levels of enjoyment when practicing math (I think it's fun so that makes it easier to motivate myself to put in practice than someone who dislikes it), and not everyone is going to improve at the same rate, and not everyone is going to want to/be able to prioritize it (thinking of, say, students in one math class who also enrolled in several other classes).

BUT I think that everyone *is* able to get better with practice if you are able to put in the time. So that said, below the cut is some general advice on how to get better at math that's a little more specific than just "practice" (I'm picturing a student enrolled in a calculus class because that's who I usually work with but I hope these will help for other situations as well!):

What topics are you trying to improve? Can you break these down into sub-skills? This will help you target your learning more later (don't need to spend time working on every single skill it its only the quotient rule you're having problems with!)

+ Computing derivatives: Subskills are both knowing/memorizing all the specific rules (power rule, product rule, chain rule, etc) AND recognizing which rule to apply

+ Solving equations: Some subskills are knowing what operations are allowed, remembering to do everything to both sides, AND recognizing which is more likely to be useful to do 1st

Practice skills separately: Khan academy is especially great for this! First get the power rule, then the trig rules, etc.

Learn to combine skills: Even if you can do stuff separately, it can be surprisingly tricky to do things in context. Basically, this is working towards skills like "recognize what rule to apply" or "recognize which algebraic manipulation is most useful". Even if you have the skills mastered separately, learning to break a complex problem into pieces is it's own skill. Khan academy I think also works on this? But if you are studying for a class and have access to textbook problems or old exam problems sometimes those are a better resource, YMMV. If not part of a class, some universities post resources online. For example, here's a page with University of Michigan's old precalc and calc 1-3 exams (with solutions!).

Interleaving: Studies show that you can "fool" yourself into thinking you've mastered a skill, when really it's just that you're on a roll because you did 20 log rule problems in a row. It's a good idea to practice "interleaving", or mixing together different problem types, in order to get stuff to stick in your long term memory. So, a couple chain rule, then a couple product rule, then maybe computing some tangent lines, then go back to the chain rule. This also works on the meta-skill of recognizing what skill to apply! (Esp. useful if you are studying towards a big exam that covers many topics). Bonus: If you have a friend who can pick a bunch of questions from a textbook/database, then mix up the order so you don't know which came from which section, that's even better for the meta-skill of recognizing what skill to apply!

Forwards & Backwards: This is not a real name but is still a useful strategy. Basically, given an answer, could you design your own question that has this as an answer? Like, if you were to write a question about "solve this quadratic" and the answer is supposed to be x=1,3... could you write a formula for a quadratic that would have these solutions? Could you write an optimization question where the answer is "The fenced-in area should be 10ft long and 8ft wide"? I feel like it helps you to get a different perspective on the topics to approach them this way as well as the usual. Bonus: find a friend, each design a question aiming for a specific (different) answer, then swap and solve!

Connect topics: So many things in math are connected. I find it easier to remember new things if I connect them to ones I already know. Maybe I'm learning about arcsin. If I already know about logarithms, a connection is they BOTH involve inverting a function. Or, if I'm learning about global extrema, how are they similar to local extrema? How are they different? What are similarities/differences in how I find them?

(Answer for this example: Global I'm looking at the whole domain [including endpts!]; local I'm just looking nearby. So the methods are similar because for both I need to find critical points [and endpts for global!]; but then they go in different directions because to compare across the whole domain for global, I need to plug into my original f(x) but for local info, well that's what the derivative (and 1st/2nd derivative tests) are good for!).

Organize Knowledge: If you're a visual learner, can you collect things into charts? Write down the numbered steps of a method? For example, a table of f, f', and f'' that compares info about when things are +/-, increasing/decreasing, and concave up/concave down? [If you actually do this example, your column for f' should have ALL of these options, but you will not have enough info for every single corresponding slot for both f AND f'']

"Translate" to different perspectives: The textbook I use has a "rule of 4", this isn't a real name but its handy. The idea is that most things in math can be represented four ways:

+ Formulaically: y = x^2

+ Visually/graphically: a graph of a parabola

+ Numerically: A data table of values like x=1,y=1, then x=2,y=4, etc

+ Verbally: "Quadratic growth with a double root at the origin"

When you learn a new concept, see if you can figure out what it looks like from all these different perspectives. For derivatives, you might say:

+ Formulaically: [pretend I wrote out all those derivative rules haha]

+ Visually: Draw a tangent line, and look at the slope

+ Numerically: Compute the slope over successively smaller intervals and estimate what it approaches (so, (f(2)-f(0))/2, then (f(1)-f(0))/1, then (f(0.1)-f(0))/0.1, and similarly on the negative side with (f(0)-f(-2))/2 etc)

+ Verbally: "The (slope of the) best linear approximation to our original function f(x) at x=0"

This is useful because a) maybe you're better at one perspective, so you can translate to your preferred perspective! And b) sometimes with your given info you CAN'T translate (numerical data collected by scientists can be hard to model without enough data points; a graph may have unlabelled axes so you can't find any data points but the origin), and you want to see what you can do with the perspective you're stuck with.

Go back to foundations if you need to: It can be frustrating, but sometimes we all realize we've forgetten something we used to know, or that we didn't understand something earlier as well as we need to. If that "something" is a side topic maybe that's okay, but some things get built on a lot. E.g., after you've learned derivative rules, next topics are usually some kind of applications, for example local/global extrema. But to do problems involving finding local extrema, you need to compute derivatives! So if you're not rock-solid at derivatives, you spend either longer than you want on computing the derivatives, or you make some errors and then can't finish the actual local extrema problem, EVEN IF you totally understand the method to find local extrema. So that's an example of a skill that you might need to go back to. Similarly, algebra skills show up ALLLL the time in further math classes, so you might need to go back and review your log rules.

Topics can be easier the 2nd time: Kind of the dual to the one above? I swear the first time I REALLY understood integration was when I was prepping to teach Calc 2. All the intervening years and higher math added up to this instant magical moment of "oh... EVERYthing is slicing! Solids of revolution, arc length... it's all slicing!" But highschool me would simply never have had the same level of "ah-ha!" because I hadn't seen enough other examples of how integrals got used, and other topics that weren't even calc but still contributed to my understanding. So if something is not foundational, or it's good enough but you wish it was better... sometimes it really is better to give a few weeks/months/years of break and come back to it later.

Explain to a friend: Your friend will probably have different questions than you did. It forces you to come at things from a new angle.

What went wrong?: So you got back your quiz/exam/homework and it didn't go as well as you wanted. Try and diagnose what went wrong and WHY. Not just "I needed to study more". Be specific! This will help you improve next time (growth mindset, remember!). I like this exam autopsy worksheet from Fresno State, you can tweak the categories as needed. Warning: "careless mistake" and "insufficient info/understanding" can be hard to differentiate from a student perspective. It's only a careless mistake if, upon seeing the problem again right now (but NOT looking at the solution) you would definitely know how to do it. The problem is when looking at the answer key it can be easy to say "oh yeah, I just do that", but what's hard is in the moment figuring out the correct steps to apply!

TBH, it's the same reason why practice is better than just re-reading your notes---of course the prof/textbook writer is good at it (and if they're a good prof, they're GOOD at explaining). But somehow it's much easier, for me at least, to nod along step by step; but much harder to do it again on your own. And it's because figuring out the steps can be just as hard as DOING the steps.

Math is no different from music or art. You practice and you get good at it. That’s all there is to it. You go to Khan academy you do problems over and over and you grow to more difficult topics.

If you don’t grow in abilities that are foundational to our society maybe you shouldn’t be disgusted with people who don’t read.

You are them.

[strxnged]

trig identities are nefarious but also very fun. a very good example of how to apply "fuck around and find out" to precalc. its like you'll spend four minutes just trying shenanigans on a question and then you'll suddenly see the answer that was literally there the whole time and its suddenly easy

[zukossocialskills]

what's funny about being the autistic "gifted kid" is ur way of learning. (idk if this is a common experience but i was thinking about it the other that and thought it was funny.)

like, you never had to really put effort into learn things or study bc it just gets in your head, but learning how to do something?? my brain says "absolutely not".

and it's the really random things that i decide to learn the most difficult ones. i have an above average iq and a special interest in math, but watch me trying to play sudoku or solve a rubix cube by myself bc i swear i'll get it NO I WON'T LOOK IT UP I CAN DO IT.

and people think i'm like an expert on things but it's just like:

x: hey, what are you doing?

me: just taking a break from pre calculus, i'm playing sudoku.

x: oh, i had no idea you studied precalc and played sudoku

me: i don't. i'm absolutely failing trying to solve this and i refuse to ask my math teacher to teach me calculus.

ofc that dialogue hasn't happened. it's just an example of how my brain works.

i remember wanting to learn quadratic functions by myself and just googling "quadratic functions worksheet" and said to myself "i'll figure this out eventually".

learning something the right way, asking someone who knows about it to teach me?? absolutely not. learning it my way, throwing myself at whatever i want to learn, and probably not learning it properly? YES

[rhodesmusic]

Even though I don't understand it completely, right now I am absolutely in love with the idea of Dehn surgery. The fact that crazy manifolds like, for example, the Poincaré homology sphere (or dodecahedral space) can be obtained by taking a solid torus that's knotted like a trefoil knot out of the 3-sphere and gluing it back in with a twist is just insane to me.

Like doing that gives you this picture, for some reason:

What in the math do dodecahedrons have to do with trefoils, and in this manner? Too crazy if you ask me.

Related to that example, I'm similarly interested with hyperbolic 3-manifolds, and hyperbolic knots, which are knots whose complements in the 3-sphere are hyperbolic manifolds. I think it's that I find it so nice that, as I'm learning more about algebraic and geometric topology, knots pop up more and more. When I first learned about them I thought they were cool just because of how tangible they were to work with as objects of topology, but seeing them pop up in many of the more involved parts of low-dimensional topology is a welcome surprise.

A (seemingly) unrelated subject that I'm also excited about is matroid theory, the study of certain combinatorial objects called matroids. I'm interested in it because it shows up in many unrelated-seeming problems. For example, classifying all the ways to arrange some lines in the plane turns out to be a matroid problem. Like, for 3 lines either they can all be parallel, two can be parallel and one can cross, all three can cross in a triangle, or all three can intersect at a point like an asterisk. I was introduced to this line arrangement problem in precalc and when I went to see how you could do it for more lines, I found out it was about matroids and it piqued my interest, but I never really got into it because high school. But ohohO now I caN!

rb this with your favorite math concepts/books/videos... things u enjoy and that make you excited! (or reply but i want to hear about it and if you rb it then i hear more cool stuff from more people)

my favorite books are the grapes of math and things to make and do in the fourth dimension. i'm also reallyyyy wanting to read number freak and godel, escher, bach. concepts i love are chaos theory, non-euclidean geometry, and dimensions beyond 3rd!

[crankgameplaysgifs1]

Forensics babbbyyy

Okay so I’m gonna nerd out here so keep scrolling if you don’t want to read this lol

So I asked if you guys would be interested in me talking about my major, and a couple of you did! @drowninginsideofmymind​ and @staffyouresobadatrunningawebsite (I cannot tag you for some reason)

I’m now a junior in college working towards my bachelor of science in forensic science. I chose this path because A) yes, I do love all the crime shows and have watched most of them, but B) I just think it’s really cool and really fun! 

This major is really tough, I’m not going to lie. BUT IT’S GOING TO BE SO WORTH IT!!! If you guys are interested in forensics these are some of the classes you may be taking---

Some more forensic-heavy classes I’ve taken so far include crime scene processing, forensic photography and reconstruction, and physical evidence analysis. I’ll be taking toxicology, body fluid and DNA analysis, and more in the future. 

Last year, I had a bunch of boring gen ed classes like university foundation, english 1 and 2 (even though I had taken AP englishes in high school already, smh), precalc and calculus (already took those in high school) and a general science course. I also took advanced biology (again basically just a repeat of the AP bio I had taken in HS, but whatever). This year, however, was entirely different and seriously challenging. 

First semester, I had general chemistry 1 and its corequisite lab. I also had crime scene processing and the corequisite lab for that, and anatomy & physiology and the coreq A&P lab as well. I took a communications course as well, but only to fill the gen ed communication credit lol. 

This semester, I had general chemistry 2 and the lab, statistics, forensic photography and reconstruction (a lecture/lab combo class) and physical evidence analysis and the coreq lab for that class. 

Next year, I’m going to be taking Organic chemistry and lab (level 1 first sem, level 2 in the spring), Molecular and cellular biology, and physics and its lab (again, level 1 physics in the fall, level 2 in the spring). I’ll also be taking biochemistry and its lab in the spring. 

Senior year, hopefully, will be much easier! I only have a few classes: Instrumental analysis and lab, genetics, toxicology, body fluid & DNA analysis, a couple electives, and my senior capstone (BIG senior project basically). 

My eventual goal is to become a CSI, a crime scene investigator/processor. I’ll be the person that rolls up in the crime scene van, searches the scene for evidence, packages it, and documents the scene. I’m so excited for the future. 

For now, I’m in Phoenix, AZ. The summer RIGHT after graduation (class of 2022 anyone?), I’m going to move across the country to the east coast-to the beach. I love the beach, and there’s a TON of CSI positions open on the East coast. Man I cannot STAND this freaking desert haha. I’m a beach person, and I’m stuck in the hottest state in the country. YUCK. 

Each of the classes in my major are vital to the world of forensics and will prepare me in different ways: 

-Any of the biologies: forensic biologists collect and analyze biological evidence found on clothing, weapons and other surfaces to determine the time and cause of death.

-Any of the chemistries: Chemistry is used in forensic science to uncover information from physical evidence. In criminal cases, chemists analyze substances such as blood, DNA and gunpowder residue to attempt to determine when and by whom the crime was committed. In civil cases, chemists analyze DNA to authenticate valuable products and to identify fraudulent activity. Chemists also determine information from unsolved crimes and mysteries of long ago through other means of DNA analysis.

-Physics: Important, for example, when analyzing movement through crime scenes. Shootings, blood spatter, and more are common applications of physics in forensics.

-Forensic photography/reconstruction: I learned how to photograph crime scenes and how forensic units (in coordination with detectives) recreate the scene through theory and science. 

-Physical evidence analysis: This is the other side of forensics-the job that I want only involves collecting the evidence. This class is about how different types of evidence are tested in the lab after I collect it. For example, how we can piece back together broken glass, and how arson evidence, body fluid evidence, and more are examined. 

-Crime scene processing: EASILY my favorite class. I learned how to walk through crime scenes and identify evidence, take notes, collect evidence, and document the scene. So much fun!! My final in this class was a mock homicide scene where we had to walk through and mark and find the evidence, collect it, and photograph the scene. 

-Others: Genetics (typing DNA in the lab, etc), instrumental analysis will help with how to work in a lab, and body fluid&DNA analysis is crucial in biological evidence. 

Here’s a fun vlog that really shows what my day to day life will be like in the future, if you wanna watch it: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3HW4m2KQV8

This major is putting me through a lot, to be honest. However, I love forensics, so I’m going to put myself through this degree-even if it kills me lol. 

If you guys love forensics or are interested, DON’T be discouraged! It is tough, but you learn so much and it’s so worth it. STUDY STUDY STUDY!! It kind of is a niche major, but it feels like a family to me. At my college, we all know each other because there are so few of us. There are a ton of resources out there for you. Please feel free to message me, even! (Message me on my main blog, @bossninja1 I can’t message people on here).

There are so many different jobs you could get with this degree: CSI, lab analysts, detectives, criminalists, and more. (And they pay really well too hehe 😉) 

I graduate in the spring of 2022 and I’m so excited for my future. I can’t wait to be a CSI and to finally be independent and move to my first apartment. I’m going beachfront babyyy! I don’t have a lot of money but I’m saving up and I know where I want to live already and I can’t wait. 

Here’s to the future, and here’s to the nerds!

[groundberry]

wed may 10 2017

!!!! in psych we have to diagnose a fictional character with a disroder using the DSM5 and I'm choosing morty from rnm. I love this show so much I'm so glad I get to think about / analyze it for school

[gonnabewell]

when i think about the roots of my perfectionism... part of it is paying intense attention to detail as a way of avoiding the mistakes that come with inattention (this is most obvious in the way i take tests, or do math problems, basically the areas i used to make frequent “lazy” mistakes as a kid. i’d go over every math problem 3x before turning a test in, checking for not dropping signs, writing out every step fully to make it clear and easy to check and re-check, etc.) this is how i see it most often explained as to why adhd leads to perfectionism. other parts of my perfectionism, when it comes to things like music and art... i’d say are the usual amounts of perfectionism you’d see in an artist, nothing to pathologize.

but the most debilitating way my perfectionism manifests is when i pour way too much into assignments and projects that should be easy/that everyone tells me to “bullshit.” usually things in the humanities, like writing assignments, film assignments, outlining/other facilitated reading assignments, worksheets with short answer questions, presentations or projects with art components that are meant to be easy and boost your grade/look good... and i realized that the motivation behind it isn’t necessarily achieving perfection, but achieving a level of depth that makes the assignment/project actually worth doing to me—essentially, triggering hyperfocus by making it something genuinely intellectually engaging. for example, in gov last year, i couldn’t make myself do the short daily assignments where you’d simply read an article and write a surface level, short, informal response. i just couldn’t make myself. it was intended to be busy/easy work, and in class i just...wouldn’t do it. it was only when i went home, and took a good hour to actually engage with the article and write an in-depth response that i could even make myself begin the task. otherwise, it was impossible. (and then of course id fall behind and it would pile up, etc.)

and this was how i approached nearly every assignment. i physically could not do it if it didn’t interest me, so i had to go to extremes on my own to shift the goal posts and make it into a task that would spark that genuine interest, and then i would have fewer problems sustaining the effort unless it was just, unavoidably repetitive or something like that. in fact, i’d often get super super into it, to the point of totall overkill. and it worked for a while!

in middle school, when i had literally no homework, i could spend hours outlining my entire science textbook in-depth and following whatever tangents of interest would arise until i’d learned the material to the point of overkill (which id then be bullied for lmao). but in high school, the more work that piled up the less sustainable this approach became. and as i started missing more and more deadlines and giving up on timeliness entirely, eventually deadlines couldn’t trigger hyperfocus either. it’s really interesting to me when i analyze these behaviors through a lens of what i now believe to be adhd, because it explains so much why my efforts in school were always so inconsistent. why i could dedicate sooo much time to things that genuinely interested me to the point of being labeled an overachiever (even though that didn’t feel accurate to my motivations), but i never was able to just sit down and memorize my times tables. (like, literally, i memorized my multiplication tables by accident eventually. i didnt know my 7 times tables until like sophomore year.)

and the reason why my struggles with attention were never obvious at all? because for the longest time (until high school broke me entirely lol), i was just genuinely interested in most things, and most (not all) teachers would let me draw or read to stay focused because i was a good student. god i just think about how different pre-calculus and physics were in junior year. i loved physics and it was intellectually rigorous and my teacher loved me, and didn’t mind my zoning out or doodling (or even straight up sleeping) in class because i was smart and got good grades. but my precalc teacher hated me, because everything in that class was rote memorization and repetition, and i just couldn’t do it. not for lack of trying! i told her: “point me to the proofs, and i’ll go home and be able to learn it! i just can’t memorize it, i can’t stay focused”...but then it turned out we were learning things that, although super easy and boring to execute, the proofs for were incredibly complex and would often require calculus to comrehend. and here i was, frustrated, because WHY THE FUCK THEN ARE WE LEARNING ALL THIS BEFORE TAKING CALCULUS IF YOU NEED CALCULUS TO ACTUALLY FUCKIN UNDERSTAND IT?? anyways, that was the first class i ever got a b in because i just couldn’t. and my teacher ended up thinking my inattention was contempt when really i just could barely keep it together. i’d never before had a class, believe it or not, where i couldn’t use my normal “perfectionistic” coping mechanisms to trigger hyperfocus. ever. at all. the class wasn’t demanding and it was an “easy a” and i felt so stupid for not being able to just do what everyone else was doing! and, to make matters worse, almost every day for months she’d call me out for drawing or not having homework in front of the whole class (rsd hell), until eventually she gave up on me.

i could probably go on and on about how these behaviors made school impossible for me by my senior year. but what matters is that now i understand it differently through an adhd lense... and i think it makes much more sense? the way i would explain it concisely would be: in school i relied on raising my personal standards to make boring assignments more intellectually rigorous and trigger hyperfocus. of course this method eventually failed and then i was left paralyzed unable to do anything, yet still with the same perfectionistic mindset. my standards are all or nothing at all, because my attention is all or nothing. at least, that’s my current theory lmao. this might all sound like deranged ramblings to anyone else... originally this post was not supposed to be long but it’s mostly just a way for me to document myself so? yeahh lol

[jazzybot4]

As a Dyscalculic mess, the one Algebra-through-precalc study guide I recommend to everyone is still Coolmath.com. Just don't get distracted by the games. The examples are in an easy to read font, the explanations are very clear and color coded, and it's easy to follow along. I just have no head for remembering any of it, because of the way my dyscalculia works.

I plan to go back to school next fall, so I have a little ovet fourteen months to master all seven subjects. I won't need two full months for algebra 1; cracking open the first chapter, it's all stuff like "here's what a plus sign means" and "variables look like letters, but they really stand for numbers!"

It won't hurt to brush up on factorization, but I think I can bang this one out in a week or two. All the better, because calculus kicked my ass in high school and it's not gonna be any easier now that I'm my own teacher. I passed it once (by the skin of my teeth), but have forgotten almost everything about it in the last decade, so I'll need the extra time to really get it down pat. I have to be able to derive and integrate in my sleep if I'm to stand half a chance at earning an astrophysics major. Astronomy would be slightly easier, but not by much, so I may as well go for gusto. The very first class astrophysics requires is calc 2, so I can't enroll until I'm 100% sure I know calc 1 forwards and backwards. Physics too, but physics and calc feel like two sides of the same coin, so I'll try to work on them at the same time (again, I managed to pull it off once, I'm sure I can do it again).

Chances are these Dummies books will be insufficient for me to grok all this math in one year, so I'll end up buying more textbooks, workbooks, study guides, SAT and AP prep, etc. I had plenty of cram sessions in my first go around at college, but nothing quite like this. This will be a herculean undertaking compared to the easy-A humanities program I coasted through originally. I had no motivation back then, no drive, no goal for "the real world" upon graduating. I went to college because it was expected of me, and I was told I needed it to get a good job. What I wasn't told is that not all majors are created equal; there's not a lot you can do with an English degree besides, well, teaching English. I just hope 14 months is enough time, because I would really prefer not to take another year off; 2024 is the ten year anniversary of when I started college the first time, so it would mean so much more to me if I started again that August rather than put it off until 2025.

I guess it doesn't matter in the end. If I'm not ready, I'm not ready. I can't force myself to start an extremely advanced program before I've mastered the pre-reqs. If I need to start later, so be it. As long as I'm consistently working towards my goal, it shouldn't matter how long it takes.