Today with time to focus and study, I got through most of a statistics chapter. I'm doing pretty well at it. I've not been able to concentrate like this in years. Like seriously, since 5th grade. I handed my husband my cell phone so no one but my mom or kids could call me and I communed with my numbers. It makes sense-- I don't know why I have such a hard time with it.
Darrin is awesome-- he is so patient with me. I have been building up in stress to this (Ropi, you and all of Hungary laugh at me!) and just been on the verge of panic for the last month, feeling like the sky would turn to stone and cave in on me. It won't. I kept saying, "I need to do my stats!" then curl up in bed and sleep. This wasn't lazy-- lazy means I go sketch or call my mom, or I procrastinate and do laundry or clean the garage. There are THREE stress reactions. While most people go into fight or flight, I fall asleep. Today I hurt so much, and for the past few days I have been hurting and couldn't sleep. I never thought I would be happy with a sore back!
I made the kids play with Legos and their puppets (quietly, but Mudd gave the princess puppet a light saber and calls her Princes Leah! Today she fought with a pig a few times, then Darrirn read them a story to act out, building Lego structures to go with it. Most of the kids are not feeling well so I wiped off the Legos with bleach water.
Tomorrow I plunge again. I expect to not do well on the test, but it's a mid term. It's OK, then I will wrap up my biology class but mid February and have the rest of the semester to work alone on statistics.
Did I really think I could do med school? I was crying about it today and DARRIN called my mom to have her talk to me and she said, "You can do anything you set your mind to! The problem is, you can't set your mind to anything that requires concentration for more than a half hour most of the time." Life is crazy-- I can't drop off and pick up where I was last thinking. It's so frustrating, but it's not about spazzing out... it's about staying as focused as I am able.
Sometimes I want to divorce Darrin-- in the forefront of my mind, I sometimes feel like he impregnated me six times when I already had 3 kids, so it's his fault that I am so strung out. (I could have also done the operation.) The problem is not the number of children; it's the dynamics that they all go through. Cloud and Basil have been fighting non stop for the past month-- she is almost 13, he is almost 10. This will last for a few years off and on. These two can be worst enemies one moment, then best friends defending each other the next. (They do a lot of push-ups for the things they do to each other and have started facing off and clapping between push-ups.) Anyone with 2 kids knows they will fight. The 3 tiny ones sing obnoxious songs and giggle, then Mudd antagonizes the girls and chases them through the house with a toy alligator! I fortunately see the humor in the midst of it, but dang-- can't I have a week-long divorce where I go to Vermont alone to cross country ski and hike? This nice thing is that when things are great and everyone is getting along I am also "blaming" him.
We have 9 great kids total-- the eldest 2 so far who he got through the hard math classes and the science classes, I sure couldn't have tutored them. They are surely better people for him. On days like today, I remember that he tirelessly works his tail off to support us, believes in what I want to write about, encourages me to write, calmly tells me to get back to work (OK, he sometimes yells and gives me bulgy eyes when I don't concentrate when he sits with me and helps me, but can you blame him?) on my stats, and he says when I get it, "Do you see? You told me you'd never get this an hour ago. Now you have it!" I caught him in a mistake today and he kissed me for it. I cry because I feel like I am doomed, then I "get it" and I cry because I got it. Thank a loving God that I only need one stats class!
5 comments:
Why should I and Hungary laugh?
Because I know that whatever I am learning is stuff you guys had mastered by 9th grade! I was in Germany and my host sister teased me mercilessly for my lack of what they considered back knowledge!
Wow. I must tell you that you fascinate me, and impress me too.
You and your family are doing what is called "living life", so keep it up. You're all doing fantastically.
Thank you, Olivia! I always worry about what people will think when I say all that I do, but you know with all the ups and downs, this is what it's all about.
Yes, I was in Alaska with the finishing school. It was actually a 3 month charm school with a modeling agency. (It wasn't Swiss!) I frustrated one of the teachers who tried to teach me to walk-- she said that I walked like a Great Dane. I was in Downtown crossing the street to a big tower with some women in a convention and they were all young lawyers and I thought, "I DO walk like a Great Dane!"
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