This fall, I also faced another really big fear — college algebra. I am taking online classes in order to get my bachelor’s degree. Each class is a semester’s worth of work that I complete in 5 weeks. That is a very fast pace. This fall, I was scheduled for algebra 1 and algebra 2. I was very nervous about it. I am good at business math, consumer math, accounting, etc. Algebra was not my strong suit in high school. But I have been teaching my children at home for a while now, and I have taught algebra to my high schoolers. I worked very hard in algenra 1. Some weeks I spent 24 hours on school work. At the end of the five weeks, I had an “A” average. WHEW! So I started algebra 2 feeling pretty good about myself. Well, week 1 started, and I worked my tail off to get the work completed that week. And I had trouble with a few concepts. In researching a topic for a discussion question, I found that some of the concepts were for calculus. YIKES! I finally made it through week 1. Then, I came to week 2. It was as difficult as week 1, and at one point, I was wondering if I would make it out of algebra 2. But I mastered week 2’s concepts and passed the weekly quiz. In week 3, I spent a lot of time working on the concepts, but I was catching on faster. So I felt like I was on the downhill swing of things. Made it through week 3’s concepts and quiz. And my average was stil an “A.” In week 4, I knew that I had a 2-week Christmas break coming up. I did not want to lose any skills over Christmas, and I did not want to practice over the Holiday. So I decided to do two week’s worth of work in one week. Yep, I was going to master week 4’s concepts, pass the quiz, and take my final exam in one week. God sent a snowstorm, and I was able to spend a lot of time online doing math. I met my goal, and I passed week 4 and my final. My average was still an “A.” Had my two-week break, and this week I jumped back into week 5. It has been very low-key. I have had few requirements to meet this week, and it has been nice. I am enjoying it, since I start statistics next Tuesday.
I met my algebra fear head-on, and I mastered it. Thank you, Lord, for Your enabling!
