We had a quiz tonight in math. The instructor didn’t put any of the hard problems on it. There were 12 questions. I worked all of them and checked all my answers in 15 minutes. The answer to one of them was the empty set, which delighted me for some reason. I think I liked the fact that I understood what I was doing well enough to be certain there was no correct answer to the problem. I think I understood what I was doing, anyway. He’s going to return the quizzes on Sunday. We’ll see how I did.
The new material this evening covered absolute values, which are kind of intriguing. Imaginary numbers still fascinate me more than anything else we’ve gone over, but absolute values are kind of fun to play with.
Math is interesting. Why did I hate it so much when I was a kid?
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 
I think it’s an acquired taste–sort of like broccoli. . .
I have read that the brain isn’t finished developing till like 18 or 20 and that for females the whole “math” section can be one of the later developing facets. It was so true for me. While I was in the “gifted” program (whatever that really means) I was always in the “slow” math group. Numbers never ever clicked for me. It didn’t help that the math classes seemed huge and impersonal. The last year of high school that I took math it was in a small carpeted room and everyone was up close to the teacher. My teacher also happened to be young, friendly and female. I made an A. An A! I loved it. Math clicked and I continued to make A’s in math throughout college. This from the girl who couldn’t tell time until she was eleven.
I love that you are revisiting it and giving it a go again.
It’s funny. I hated it in high school too and then when I took it in college at the tender age about 38 (a “few” years ago) it was like a light bulb went off, literally over my head. I felt like a cartoon character.
I never got over that jr. high fear/hatred of math. Not even cheese sauce could help it. : )