The numbers, they are scary

I'm procrastinating because it's called homework. I have to do a drawing of a pine cone in ink using only lines. I've done a few sketches that I really liked the look of, but it's filling an 18x24 piece of paper that makes me want to hide behind a book or a computer or a husband who is too distracted with his homework to distract me (darn him). The gel pen I used on newsprint looked awesome and print-inky. Unfortunately, on the nice white paper it doesn't get absorbed as much so it's back to a strong black line. My teacher mentioned that I might get the same effect using actual ink so I'm tempted to dig out either my pen nibs or try out the bamboo writing stick that came in the art kit for the class. Having worked with the nibs before, I think I'll end up scratching the paper up too much with my uncouth heavy hand, but the bamboo holds some definite possibilities. (Bonus: using new toy for the first time.)

And then there's math. Scary, scary math. I mean, I haven't done higher math in ten years and here I am taking the math course that engineering students start with! We're not even allowed to use our calculators on exams and quizzes until after the second exam.

I earned my first 20/20 on a quiz yesterday. Not easy to do. The scores for the class ranged from 8-20 with an average around 15/20. The hardest part isn't always getting the right answers, it's solving them correctly. They really have a great system for teaching us. I wish I'd had it in high school. You do the book assignments (if you're smart or terrified like I am) on your own. No one checks or grades them. Then you do the online homework which you do get scored on. You only have to get the right answer and you can take it as often as you like.* Then you take the quiz on what you learned and get corrected on how you go about solving the problems. It's terribly thorough.

When it comes to solving and simplifying the problems, I'm thriving. Only, cruel world, we also have to work story problems which means coming up with the formula to solve and that is kicking my ass sorely. I am lucky in that both Adrian and his mom have old text books and I think I'm going to do my normal math homework this weekend, do the story problems in their old math books, and then take a practice exam on both Saturday and Sunday. Our first math exam is in less than a week. AHHHH!

I will not fail. I will become utterly tasty to the computer science department so they'll let me double major as one of their kind. *gnashes teeth and weeps internally as dentist bills and kleenex cost money*

As for personal projects and even posting the work from my art classes, well, I'm being terrible. I can't post the finished projects from my art classes cause, uh, I don't have them back yet. It's been a week and I don't even have the grade for my first project in design. Seriously, wtf? My contour line drawing of a hand, something I would have told you I could only screw up on, was nice enough the teacher hung it up in the hall. Therefore, I have it not.

At the least, I do need to finish stitching together the zebra swallowtail butterfly sometime. It is sooo sexy. Sowwy? :/


* And I think the most pitiful thing ever is that despite all of the resources available to students to get one on one help with their math homework for free, despite the fact that you can ask about how to do the problems in class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, despite the fact that you can go back and take it as many times as it takes to get 100%, there are people that are not getting 100%. It is incomprehensible.