Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Neither one of my alarms went off this morning. Funny thing that right now I’m taking Probability and Statistics in college and one of the probabilities I’ve had to work out was the odds of two alarm clocks both not going off and it’s a very small number. Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket.
Speaking of probability, I failed two attempts at my assessment for Probability and Statistics, and as a result, am having to go back and vigorously re-read ALL the material and take a LOT of tests. Mind you, I only failed the second assessment by one point (I got 60% and the cut-off is 61%) and I did something I never do whenever I take an assessment, I went back and reexamined everyone of the 68 questions and changed my answers on around 10. I think I should have stuck with my first choice in the majority of these questions, but I got stuck in doubting myself and that self-doubt bit me. Oh well, it’s all good; I’ve already completed eight courses this term (well more than necessary) and only have Probability & Statistics and College Algebra to complete before this term’s over at the end of February.
As a 47-year old I see that math is my Achille’s heel and the one subject that I keep trying to put off, but I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on getting a solid foundation on math; Khan Academy, here I come. For anyone who doesn’t know about this site I can’t say enough great things. I’m a kinesthetic learner and by watching the videos and using a white board (or in my case my iPad sketch pad) I am able to work out the problems and better learn (and hopefully retain) key math concepts. I need to be sure to go back and “refresh” my memory so these ideas take a firm root in my brain – otherwise I forget the “how” and not necessarily the “why”.
I’m on the school bond committee and last night there was a “get out the vote”card signing event before the bond meeting. People were asked to come in and write down some words of encouragement on a postcard that will be mailed to one of the 22,000 registered voters in Moses Lake. The MLEA was very generous to provide food and beverages and I ended up stuffing myself while writing.
I took around 300 names and postcards and will be working on getting 100 of these done each day this week. The bulk mailing will be sometime early next week.