College Life: Episode 4: Study Buddies

For the summer, once a week I'll be sharing a story from my college days at CSU, 1984-1988. I will leave links at the end of each post for previous episodes.

Since I was a math major, it meant that a lot of my required classes were taken with scientists and engineers.  For example, the required physics class was PH141, Physics for Scientists and Engineers.  It was held in a theater like setting. Sat about 300.  Five grueling credits.  Met three days a week, then a 2 hour lab.

It was brutal.  I could handle it fine once I got to the equation.  The problem was this was for engineers.  You know, those guys who build and design and invent things and work in the real world.

I guess you could call me Sheldon in that I'm a theoretical mathematician. I like the big ideas, the structure, the language, the possibilities.  I'm not Leonard, who uses all that theory to actually do something.  Just let me play with my numbers.  

Not so in this class.  I knew I was in trouble from the first assignment.  Luckily though, the two guys from my tiny high school who were also at CSU were in this class!  They were willing to tutor, along with their friend.

They were truly patient with me as I was over invading their space with some regularity.  I brought snacks, I attempted to be prepared with what I'd tried, so they'd see I wasn't just free-loading.  They literally dragged me through that class.

It wasn't them just handing me their meticulously completed homework.  No, they took turns sitting down with me and explaining.  There were even moments of joy when THEY were stuck on the equation part and I could help!

There was one more huge obstacle to overcome though.  The testing method.  Have you ever been subjected to the following atrocity?  You start the test with a 0.  You get four points for a correct answer.  You lose one point for a wrong answer.  "No answer" to a question does has no effect on your score.  Do you have any idea how agonizing it is to calculate your confidence in an answer using a system like this?

It was a struggle the entire year.  Yes, I had to take two semesters.  I played with the test formula.  I took risks.  I got a 56% in the class.  It was, however, much to our surprise, graded on a curve.  56% netted me a B.  A B!!!  Unbelievable.  I didn't deserve that, but I took it and ran.

Physics and I are still not friends (except on Big Bang Theory, of course) but I survived.  Next time, a little story of another strategy that made it possible.

~Tina, getting by with a little help from my friends

;-)

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Photo credit: Frustrated student

Photo credit: Students Studying

Episode 1: Rommmates

Episode 2: You've Got To

Episode 3: The Cheerleader and the Boyfriends

Newton's Laws of Depression

You know I'm a math nerd and a word nerd, but I'm also a science nerd. Can't really help it after hanging out with an Engineer for 30 years (yes, that's actually true – in December we'll celebrate the 30^th anniversary of our first date.) So we're going to talk about physics today. Newton's Laws. Newton was cool. He's one of the guys who invented calculus. Calculus is cool. But that's for another day. Or maybe not. I've found that calculus fans are hard to find...

So yeah, Newton's Laws of Motion. (No, you have not stumbled onto some rip-off of The Big Bang Theory...I will not mention that damn cat, don't worry.) His first law, in regular words, states that an object at rest wants to stay at rest, and an object in motion wants to stay in motion. I've found this to be so true when dealing with depression.

On the days when I'm feeling completely done in by inertia (the at rest part) there isn't much I've found that will get me unstuck. I'm paralyzed by that inertia, and don't want to do anything. Not even fun things, like visiting a friend to drink wine, or hard but necessary things, like paying bills with dwindling funds. “Oh just do it!” Nope. Doesn't work that way. Call it Tina's Laws of Depression.

On the other hand, on the days that I'm moving, like yesterday when I did 8 loads of laundry, and I could have kept going - but I ran out of detergent, and by the time I got home from the store with more, I was out of time - that motion, that accomplishment just keeps me going.

So what determines which kind of day I'm having? I honestly don't know. I just know that some days I wake up, completely stuck, and others I don't. I've tried to figure out if there's some sort of situational event that triggers one or the other, much in the same way that I'm trying to figure out what foods cause the crippling stomach aches and which don't. So many variables, not enough equations. (That's not calculus – that's algebra, by the way.) You'd think I'd have enough equations by now, having suffered depression for twelve long years, but no. That's because the variables just keep piling up.

Am I depressed because I don't feel well? Or does depression make me feel sick? Or both? It's a circle, that's for sure, and that's probably why I'm stuck on this merry-go-round. I know this isn't exactly a fun topic, and I really don't want to whine about being depressed, but I'm stuck in an inertia day and then the fun ideas for writing won't even come.

So do you think Newton's Laws can be translated like this? Suffer from depression, and willing to talk about it? Feel free to discuss. Just don't tell me it's all in my head and to just get up and do it, or I'll hit you over the head with my oh so popular CPAP machine. That sucker's heavy...

~Tina