Friday, September 25, 2009

No Chemistry with Chemistry

It has been a long 24 days to say the least. Yes it has been 24 days since I first walked in to my chemistry class at TWU and I am glad to say my tenure with this class is over. You see peeps we took our first exam yesterday and out of 80+ students over half of us failed the exam or at least almost failed it. I managed to pull off a 64 and it was through blood, sweat and tears (literally) that I was able to do that much. I studied harder for that one test than I can remember ever studying for any other test. It was a brutal weekend of hour after hour of chemistry. I am no longer feeling the love for chemistry. I can honestly say that I have no chemistry with chemistry. I tearfully called my beloved Joe, who just happens to be 1,000 miles away from home on his motorcycle none the less, and has been for over a week now and we decided that chemistry class and the lab must come to an end for me. I will be dropping the course on Tuesday! Hallelujah! I found this decision to be really difficult, but I felt I needed to drop out of love with chemistry in order to stay in love with my other 3 classes at TWU.

Lessons learned from this experience are listed below in no particular order.
  1. Don't take chemistry and chemistry lab and a math class all at the same time when you have been out of school for almost 20 years.
  2. Recognize that you are not super woman and you must pace yourself.
  3. Recognize that you did the best you could and move on from here.
  4. Recognize that it is better to have tried and failed miserably than to have not tried at all.
  5. Recognize that family is first.
  6. Be prepared that your child will get sick and you will have to leave them home with 102 degree fever just to take a flippin' chemistry test that you just might fail and you still must be Ok with that because your child feels better today!
  7. Recognize that you actually love your math class and your food lab and your food prep course and are actually doing well in them. Go figure!
  8. Recognize that you have a wonderful husband who is totally OK with you blowing $1,000.00 on a course that you drop 24 days later. Thank you for that my beloved Joe.
  9. Recognize that your sweet Carly and most mature 12 year-old of the world Alex love you and just want you to STOP crying over chemistry already!!!
  10. Recognize that you are successful just because you are a loving mother and wife and that is the most important job in the world anyway.
  11. Recognize that you have until December 17th to finish what you have started at TWU and then you can get a new game plan from there.
  12. Recognize that just because you suck at chemistry you can swim 250 meters really well after only 1 month of training.

I have learned a lot in the past month...yes sir I have for sure! Another list I have come up with is the list of the things I have missed most over the past month.

  1. I have missed talking with my sweet Carly about whatever. I have missed you Carly and I am sorry for being so consumed with Chemistry.
  2. I have missed helping my lovely Alex with her school work. I have basically let her sink in that department. I apologize to you my sweet Alex.
  3. I have missed my kitchen floor as I can no longer tell you what it looks like because it has not been swept in a month.
  4. I have missed my little kid bike. I do plan on riding it again really soon as I want to do my first triathlon on it. I will be back on it tomorrow.
  5. I have missed my blog. I am making up for that today.
  6. I have missed just sitting and reading other things than chemistry.
  7. I have missed my beloved Joe. Please come home soon.
  8. I have missed training with some type of intensity. I am sure Denny will make up for that in the morning or on Monday.

I wanted to share this experience with you peeps so that you will understand that some of the most valuable lessons learned come through failure instead of through success.

Show up and make it count!