Okay, I've Tried, But I Just Can't Let it Go!!!

I took my Statistics test this past week. There are two parts to every exam in this class: Computational and Conceptual.

The Computational part is the pencil and paper, show-your-work, mathematical section of the test. This is what shows the professor that I know how to do the math. The Conceptual part is on the computer, multiple choice. It's basically the part of the test that allows me to show the teacher that I know what everything means.

I hate math. I think I've expressed this many times before, and in different contexts. However, this statistics class really hasn't been horrible. The only math that's been required is pretty basic, and I can do basic math. Even better? The professor doesn't expect us to memorize any of the formulas. He just gives us a packet to take into the test with us that actually gives us the appropriate mathematical formulas.

Doing all of the practice work for this section of the class, I did pretty well. I could usually come up with the right answer. However, when I went in to take the exam, my confidence evaporated when I came to Question #3 on the Computational part of the test.

There were 5 questions on this section of the exam. All of them had multiple parts within the question. Because of this, Question #3 was worth 30 POINTS. Yes, you read that right 30 FREAKING POINTS!!!

I'd done this particular computation several times before in the homework. And as I said before, I always came up with the correct answer. The formula was kind of hairy, but I always did it right. Unfortunately, for this particular concept, there are actually TWO FORMULAS. I'd only practiced ONE of these formulas. My professor had told us that he would be looking for the second of these two formulas on the test, but no matter where I looked in the book, I couldn't find it. So I never practiced it. I figured that since the professor would be giving us the formulas to use in the test, that I would be able to figure it out.

I was wrong.

I came to Question #3, and did the first 3 parts of the question without any problems. Then I came to the part where I would have to use this "other formula". And can I just tell you, IT THREW ME FOR A FREAKING LOOP!!! It's like my brain just shut down, refusing to comprehend the letters and numbers in front of me.

Oh I tried. I literally spent an HOUR on this one question, doing it over and over and OVER again. I tried the formula in a number of different ways, and no matter what I tried, I could only come up with numbers that COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE THE RIGHT ANSWER!!!

Finally I just gave up and moved on to the rest of the computational test. It went well, but I just HAD to go back and try Question #3 one more time before abandoning a huge chunk of that 30 points. I still came up with a crap answer, but by that time I had been in the test for an hour and a half and I had a baby to get home to, and the second half of the test to take. So I just submitted it as it was and kissed those points goodbye. I hate walking away from something like that, I knew it would haunt me for days, if not weeks.

I took the second part of the exam, and when it was over I trudged through the rain to the on campus shuttle that would take me to my van. Wet and cold, I started the half hour drive that would take me home to AJ, relieving my dear Mom from the duty of babysitting her.

It was when I was well on my way home, and it was FAAARRRR too late to fix anything, that the right way to solve that b***h of a Question #3 finally popped into my head! It was SO SIMPLE!!! I wanted to bang my forehead on the steering wheel. I spent the rest of the drive yelling out loud, verbally berating myself for making something so simple a thousand times harder than it had to be.

I ranted to Ty about it after I got home that day and he called me from work. (Telling me in the process that he got the promotion he had been waiting for! Yay for Ty!)

Ty, always the voice of reason, told me that I just needed to let it go. That beating myself up wasn't going to change the past. That I would do better next time. I knew he was right, and I want to let it go, but I JUST FREAKING CAN'T!!! I HAD the answer, I KNEW how to do the problem, but I just couldn't get past the unfamiliar formula and allowed myself to stand in my own way and overcomplicate the whole thing.

AAAARRRRRGHHHH!!!! It's been 3 days and I still can't let this go! It was such a stupid mistake, and it's going to completely destroy my grade for that test!!! It sucks, plain and simple! Grrrr...

Okay, I'm going to go eat some cookies now. I've gotten all upset again.