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Bezier Pattern Screensaver c. 1990 (credit: Screensavers Planet)
I suck at math. Until today. Here's the brief backstory: promise!
How's your math life? Have you thought much about any chosen numbers since lesson one? I admire anyone taking the math path because own has been meandery since elementary school when our first-grade teacher made us learn by counting on our fingers without exceptions.
Dad never agreed with this method and had been a math tutor in the Army for soldiers seeking their GEDs in the 1950s before the Korean War. I felt unready for battle at our kitchen table to do umpteen problems (most way past their prime for own grade level) and sweating algebra rage when learning to "Solve for X."
Done.
With equal patience and frustration, dad would say: "It just takes practice" but no figure. The numbers did not stay in my head and I would continue counting on own fingers under the desk throughout high school while knowing other peers for whom math is effortless and the ones like me staying silent and resigning to ignore careers in STEM (science, tech, math, and engineering). Why oh why can't we?
The solution for our math problems may be dementia prevention.
Have never hated math but I do resent its ability to eviscerate soft underbellies with Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally vengeance. Even our high school Computer Science teacher took me aside after class following 1:1 programming lessons to create a Bezier screensaver using Pascal coding language. When we're done, am packing up my backpack and her expression turns to flatscreen when she says: "Never be a programmer."
She was right. And not. What happened to practice makes perfect? I had to test the theory that patience and practice would work. In 1991, the year after high school graduation, I made a perfect score on a College Algebra exam at Austin Community College (ACC) by studying equations at the tutoring lab for six hours a day (five days a week) with a tutor from Tunisia back in the early 90s when school was affordable.
Today, am reviewing an Excel spreadsheet to decipher standard deviation formulas (since, regretfully, had made it through university without ever taking any statistics courses) and figure out fast that's it's these video'visers to the rescue:
Granted, these calculations are not difficult for most; however, all throughout my life these would have been an overwhelming struggle - until now - with the only difference being my adherence to intermittent fasting and Keto (though now much less this weekend thanks to: caramel lollipops, Amy's Ice Cream, and Ike's Love & sammiches); plus, the YouTubes have saved countless students from torturous textbooks before the internet. This guess is from own observations rather than any scientific research or study. Am hopeful that one day someone will be able to prove through peer review research that we can improve our brains through lifestyle changes because am living proof methinks!
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