I’m only a day behind this week, and already feeling more back on track. That was a clunky sentence, and I’m not going to clean it up. I don’t think I have any follow-ups today, so let’s just get to checking things in.
Health & Fitness: Feeling back on track came in both health and fitness – I finally, FINALLY got my goddamn important heart medication prescriptions all filled. It isn’t what I was originally prescribed, or the very similar but slightly different drug they wanted to replace it with, but the generic version of the second one. Medical papers assure me it isn’t “second tier”, that they’re both first-rate versions of whatever this thing is doing. But then, they do also seem to indicate that this one is slightly less good at the main thing I’m taking it for. But, you know, it’s only my heart and all, so that definitely means it’s not medically necessary. Oh, right, it’ll be more efficient… to take the drug that isn’t as well proven to keep patients out of the hospital. The very, very expensive hospital. It once again seems we should be asking, efficient at what and for whom?
But with that, it seems like the health can take a back-burner in my check-ins again, at least for a while. I have a few other medical visits that might be worth mentioning at some point. I just did my first at-home sleep study, and that should be worth writing about when I get the results. I’ll say this now – it was like a zillion times more pleasant of an experience than the clinical, sleep-center version. If you need a sleep study and can manage getting the at-home one, you should do that.
I’ve also gotten back on that fitness horse pretty reliably. I’d been feeling like my latest routine changes might have been hasty and undercooked, but over the past week or so, I’ve really been pushing things as close to failure as I can. That’s clearly been a missing factor, and I am really feeling it. The regular walks and runs have also been great. I do need to make some tweaks to it. With my strength training, I’d really like to move into more functional, full-body exercises. I don’t want to spend hours in the gym each day hyper-targeting individual muscles. I do want to do some of those – I do have my vanity, and I’d love to have a nice chest, arms, and legs. But more than anything, I want to recover more of my lost strength, mobility, flexibility, endurance, and agility. If I can do that, I’d like to see if I can improve over my past self, though I don’t have any real benchmarks, so I guess that’ll be vibes-based, to use a slightly outdated parlance.
All of this together has had me back on a more regular life schedule as well – not staying in bed quite so long, not going to bed at night quite so late. Not lingering or dilly-dallying on BS quite so long or often during the day, either. I still haven’t hit my ideal pattern just yet, but I’ve meaningfully improved. Same with the diet. I’ve already found a pretty good rhythm with that, including saving a bit of money on all that dang chicken, and leveraging my years-long built knowledge and experience in cooking and food prep. It’s been a nice reminder of how spices really do go a long way.
Academics: With my last class firmly behind me and having gotten started on the next set, I’m also feeling a good bit back on track here. Let’s start with a quick recap on the plan.
I’m looking to head back to school and try my hand at a college degree. The real goal is the learn enough stuff and gather enough skills and experience in them that I can actually finish some of my many unfinished projects. The secondary goal is to gain enough credentials or experiential bone fides to bolster my resume and interview background. I would love to never have to work for someone else again, and I see this as my best way to do so. I also see it as a fantastic fallback if that doesn’t work out. And since I’m equal parts strategic and uncertain, I have fallbacks stacked on fallbacks.
The degree I’m most seriously thinking about pursuing is something in the Engineering realm. I think the world of Engineering gives me the best likelihood of actually pulling through on the greater plan, though I’m not really sure which area of study to pursue specifically. I really like the main areas in both Mechanical and Electrical, and have some notion that Mechatronics, which supposedly combines the two, might be up my alley. But given some of my other interests, I’ve had friend and family suggest Aerospace, Industrial, and Civil. I’ve had recommendations in just about everything, including a bunch that I’d never heard of before. It seems like a bigger field than I expected, which oddly, actually, seems like it should be expected. I don’t know, and I think I’m early enough to not need to worry about it just yet. I think I need to take some early classes to really get a feel for it.
My biggest concerns are money, time, and my own ability. I’ve been feeling like my ability has become extremely diminished over the years, and that is on top of it not being all that great to begin with. To help with the money and time, I’ve been taking courses online, some of which for credit*. From those, I should get credit for English Comp. I, Statistics I, and College Algebra I. I might be able to finesse a credit from an Intro to Computer Science class I took online from Harvard, and it seems I could get credit… for a few thousand dollars. I’m not sure if that’s really worth it to me yet. It’s not even the path I plan to head down, but then it would be 4 credits if I did. So maybe. I’ve also taken Micro and Macroeconomics courses, mostly Open Course Wear (OCWs) from MIT – because that’s free. I don’t think there’s a path to credits for those, but I think I will try to take some for-credit courses for them. I suppose that depends on time, because I’m planning on starting at my local community college in the Fall. Possible a summer class, but that’s coming up really soon. So maybe not.
I have had some struggles with parts of each of these, but I’ve so far been able to finish each. The bigger win, in my heart, is that I did better at each than I was expecting, and better yet, I really feel like I understand them. That’s pretty dope.
So where am I at now? Right, given that the plan is Engineering and that means a lot of Math, I want to tackle Calculus. I took AP Calc in high school and did fucking terribly. I think I may have technically passed, and I’m not sure if I took the AP test, but I’m certain I did not get any credits for it. I barely understood any of it. In retrospect, it seems the underlying problems were, of course, the foundations. I seem to recall doing pretty well in Algebra, but I think I started to fall off around the end of it. The bigger thing was that I somehow convinced my teachers to let me into Calc without taking Precalc or Trig. I think I might have promised to study them over the summer, which was absolutely a lie. The focus on Calc is that, so much of what I come across is really just concept and system, and once you can get a grasp of those things, you can really do anything. I’ve also been picked up by just how many absolute dipshits I’ve come across that have college degrees. Like, if these absolute drains can manage a degree, it really can’t be that hard, can it? Then again, the number of dipshits with Engineering degrees is a much, much smaller ratio. And frankly, after that high school experience, I’m pretty intimidated by Calculus.
So I figure that’s my real gut check. If I can pass and at least somewhat understand Calculus, then I think I can actually pull this thing off. And on the approach of the Pre-calc plan, I’ve discovered that College Algebra actually covers a good chunk of what I was missing from high school. I really struggled with a lot of the concepts that I should have had back then, and everything I’ve come across now, yeah it takes me a minute but… I get it.
So now the plan is do a strategic pass on Pre-Calc. I’m starting with all of the Trig that I missed, and it’s already going well. Not great, mind you. It’s only been a few days, and I’ve gleaned some knowledge, but I definitely haven’t committed anything key to memory just yet. But I’m getting there. I am eager to catch those Econ credits, but in this current phase, I’m not actually directly going for credits. Since most of the online credit-recommending options (stuff like Study.com, StraighterLine.com, Sophia.org – things that are like a modern take on CLEP or other ways you can “test out” of credits) bill monthly, or are free and culminate in a for-pay test or CLEP voucher, I figure the best way to use my time in this phase is to pre-study. Basically, I have a whole bunch of books and physical materials, and the internet is bursting with wonderful resources to study up on my subjects of choice, so how’s about I preload that knowledge while I ease off the monthly charge for a while?
So a Trig-heavy Precalc phase is under way. I’m going to see about layering in my Chemistry I and Physics I subjects as well. Since these are all core classes for some pretty intensive degrees, I’m not actually sure than any of the credits will transfer. I sure hope so, because, you know – time and money. But I won’t be crushed if they don’t. I also won’t be crushed if I end up falling back to a completely different degree or drop out entirely, to be honest, I’ll only be crushed if I meaninglessly give up. And if I take the classes and need to retake them for credit, I”ll just consider that extra practice. So Pre-Calc into Calculus I, Chem I, Phys I, Intro to MIcroecon, Intro to Macroecon. That’s the plan for the remainder of the Spring and Summer. If I can at least understand those well enough, then I think I’ve got a real chance.
I have so much else to say about all of this, but I’ve already said so much, and it’s late. I’ve gotta wind down for the night so I can turn in and get back at it early. Until next time, y’all.