(That's not me, BTW.)
Unlike my Astronomy classmates, I'm not on summer vacation. I'm busy working and mooning people in Minnesota, instead of on the coast.
But I did it! I did it! I got through Astronomy and I didn't die!!!!
I thought I might. I really sucked at it at first. So much that I almost dropped the class after one fateful day in February.
(INSERT DREAM-LIKE HARP MUSIC HERE TO TAKE US BACK IN TIME)
I was sitting in my lab group with two kids whose combined ages still made them younger than me. They were whizzing through the mathy stuff (which is not my forte) and after a fun-filled week of taking on one too many boring writing gigs, (and having to say no to a super fun joke-writing gig) losing my cell phone, eradicating lice from my household, and trying to help my 5th grader with his math (in Spanish) and failing, I decided I didn't know shit about shit, I was huge screw up and I should just chuck it all and go work at Super America.
I didn't.
What I did do was start crying, right there, in front of my teenage lab partners on the fourth floor of the Physics building at the U of M. And because the Physics building is as old as dirt, there isn't a public restroom for a middle-aged freak show having a meltdown to go cry in. Which I learned after racing around both the fourth AND third floors in a desperate search for some privacy. I wound up bawling in a stall on the second floor, next to some other teenagers who were probably really good at math too. Assholes.
So, there I was. Devastated. Humiliated. And noticing how the graffiti in the bathroom stalls of higher learning institutions says stuff like "You are beautiful."instead of "Rachel is a whore." Interesting. Anyway. I had a decision to make. Either march back up there and show those brats who's boss, or write something more appropriately inappropriate on that bathroom stall wall.
I chose the former. I took the rickety elevator up those two flights of stairs back to Astrolab (because my f-ing back was killing me after playing goalie in a knee hockey game with my boys the night before). I bet those little math twats never have to do stuff like THAT. I put my reading glasses on to cover my red eyes, smiled and said, "Sorry. Cramps." Which grossed them out more than made them feel sorry for me, but I wouldn't actually know because this generation is a bunch of friggin' mutes. They don't speak. They don't even make eye contact. It's weird. (But that's another post.) Regardless. We got through the rest of the lab.
And I got a tutor.
He was an opinionated dude who hated God and had a penchant for tangents, (which is how I knew he hated God...and everyone else, but I was paying him so he pretend-liked me). He knew his Astronomy, though and helped me a crapload. It was just the thing to pry me out of my self-loathing slump and get my confidence back to it's fighting weight.
That's when I started kicking ass.
You wanna know what a comet is made of? BAM!
How about why the the moon is out during the day? BAM!
Is it time to have your mind blown by the enigma that is black holes and dark matter? BAM! BAM! BAM!
(I'm saying "BAM" because I don't actually know, but I faked it pretty damn well, bitches!)
Kidding. Some of it sunk in and most importantly, I really, really enjoyed the material. Like REALLY enjoyed it. I'm sad it's over.
What? Who?
I know.
Learning is fun!
And that's the moral, people.
Don't give up.
Get help.
Get your groove back.
This shit ain't that hard.
It's just logic and junk, and if a knuckle head like me (I) can do it, so can you.
Copyright © Lynda Crotty Radio, Inc
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