Here we go, the month with just 29 days. Some years, it’s 28 days. Go figure. I can’t figure. This has been a lifelong problem. I am math illiterate. A few years back I attempted to do something about this but failed miserably. Actually, I didn’t fail miserably. The system, as it always had, failed me.

I took a test at Mat-Su College in an attempt to figure out what level of class I might be in. No surprise, my test scores were at the bottom of the bucket. I learned what I already knew (and this statement was not a contradiction), which is that I could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Barely.

I’d decided to take a class because I still harbored hopes of becoming a veterinarian. This was ten years ago – I would have ended up being the world’s oldest veterinarian graduate, but figured someone had to do this. I’d done just fine in the veterinary related courses at the college, so why not?

I remember the first day I attended what can only be described as Bonehead Math. I entered the room, and in doing a headcount (imagine that) discovered that there were 34 students and an older, heavy set teacher, who had serious health problems. The class began with her showing us a cartoon, about Donald Duck doing math. It was downhill from there. The teacher whizzed through problems to which she did not know the answers. Neither did the students. It was a weed out class, taught by an individual who was well past her teaching prime.

Class was torturous. It was like being back in high school, sitting in the back of the room, while a teacher with a thick foreign accent scrawled indecipherable notations on the wall. I had done poorly in math in grade school and was pleased to have been put in Algebra 1 class. But I didn’t get it. I didn’t have to get it in college. Science and math credits counted as one and the same.

As a sophomore and a junior, I took Basic Math 1 and 2. This supposed lack of aptitude again manifested itself that semester at Mat-Su College. So there went my lifelong dream, which was to study veterinary medicine.

Fate was attempting to remind me of something that second time around, and this was that I was to do other things with my life. And so, I went and did other things with my life. But I was left with a big fat what if?

I am always going to hold to the belief that there are differing ways of skinning a cat, and this instance was one of them. For instance, I could not grasp the concept of positive and negative numbers. I did recently figure this out on my own. I understood how this worked when I pictured a thermometer, which is on the vertical rather than the horizontal. O˚ F is the dividing line between positive and negative, and it is in itself a number.

How come the basic math classes are so large? And why wasn’t this explained to me then?

No, I am not going to take any more math classes. But it is tempting. I can’t let go of the dream, which still is to study veterinary medicine.

Next: 33. 2/2/24: Making Friends with a New Acquaintance