Math. Yuck.

"Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind."
--Mary Ellen Chase

What exam are you most nervous about taking? What are you doing to prepare.

Ha HA! No exams for me to take (though I still have an every-now-and-then dream that I've forgotten a math exam...)! Oh, wait--I just have exams to make and then to grade. Not very fun at all. When all I want to do is be home doing Christmas-y things. Somehow, that makes it seem like it takes even longer to grade...
I was always nervous about taking math exams, and also History--there is so much to remember, and I'd always get the names mixed up (President John F. Lincoln--never that bad, but close) and the dates are pretty hard. It has to do with numbers, so there you go. Math is everywhere. I wanted to be a geologist (I know I'm cool, you don't need to remind me) when I was little (I had the rock collection and everything), but then math came along and ruined that. I actually want to make a t-shirt that says Math Killed My Dreams.
Perhaps this entry should really be about the History of Why I Hate Math. Here I go:
In the first grade, I had to take a test which I now know decided my fate. It was a diagnostic test to see what level of math I should be in. I remember a question with a negative one (-1), and having no idea what it was. And my friend Jessica Martell was writing something different than I was. I thought "oh, well. Playground time!" And from then on, I've been in the lower math class. Not the lowest, but I struggle for sure.
Then--France. Ms. Mason taught all the English speaking kids Little House on the Prairie style: 1st-6th grade all in one room. It was time for me to learn fractions, but it never really happened. And really, I'm still fine with any kind of math until the day they throw fractions into the mix. I can't figure out percentages because of my fractional fear, making sales tax, tipping, and sales an embarrassment.
And then in high school it was even worse. My algebra teacher spent the class periods talking about his trip to Woodstock back in the day and waiting for us to leave so he could run to the teacher's lounge for a cigarette break. And because I was bad at algebra...
I was horrible at chemistry. Though I had an interesting teacher (legendary, really) who assigned us all numbers and called us by that instead of by our names (I was 1314), had two rows of teeth (read that again. yes. two rows.), and would finish an equation and say, "see? even a trained monkey could do that." Friends, I am lower than a trained monkey.
So now I'm faced with math like averaging grades. And I can handle that.
Just keep me away from fractions, please.