Christmas and Calculus

Okay, so it's New Year's Eve, but it's still the holidays -- which happen to be, in the section of my brain still heavily influenced by public-school education -- categorized under Christmas Break.

And yet hubby sits downstairs earnestly completing a calculus assignment. He's in the second half of a calculus I course that he's taking by correspondence through UT. This second half is actually his absolutely last month that he has to complete the class. He signed up in February, applied for and received an extension in October, took his midterm in December, and is now cramming the last half of the course into six weeks in order to meet a drop-deadline at the end of January.

This is why I'm not enrolled at University of Phoenix or any other online, self-paced school. Self-paced, for me, is a slow crawl, interrupted at regular intervals by domestic distractions and daydreaming. It's interrupted and slowed for him, too, but by professional concerns such as managing service engineers, travelling to visit clients all over the country, and wanting to spend time with our family. But one thing I know: his calculus experience is a perfect picture of why I attend traditional classes. My butt has to be in a seat in front of a lecturer, or else my self-pace will get me nowhere. And I have much further to go than hubby; at least he finished his undergrad -- I'm still slogging along in search of my degree. But I think it's good to know a thing or two about one's self, such as what kind of a student/learner you are: do you learn by traditional means (re: a teacher and deadlines) or can you teach yourself?

I have a friend, a former boss and mentor actually, that marvelled I was able to complete calculus with a passing grade at all, let alone a B. She was even more faint with unbelief when I told her this was calculus II -- and the course meant for engineers rather than biologists -- and I had aced calculus I. Which made me wonder how my former self-concept had been communicated to those around me.

Maybe what we know about ourselves is transient and subject to change. It would definitely seem to be the case when it comes to me, math and the sciences, and what I can and cannot do. I am discovering that my limits are there to be tested, pushed, and run over flat as I proceed past them, onward toward higher and greater goals.

So far this blog has seemed to be a chronicle of these self-concepts and the process of overcoming them. I'm a science geek, an eclectic art lover and amateur artist, a reader, a philosopher, a mother, a wife, a lover, a daughter, a gourmand... I am many things. And centered at my core is this insecurity to settle on one thing to be. Maybe that's good -- it keeps me from getting comfortable, keeps me reaching for more, keeps me from settling for second best.

Maybe putting my butt in a seat in front of a lecturer was key in discovering that I am yet to be fully discovered. And calculus was a big part of that, to which I am thankful.

I'm also thankful I don't have to cram in a half-semester of that crazy class over the holidays, and I can actually call this a break!

Merry Christmas to me!