"Can't"

Okay, I've been a little preoccupied with stuff since we've been back. Philosophy 120 stands to defeat me currently unless I can earn a reprieve today and tomorrow. This would mean I'd have to take Philosophy 325, which I've heard is way easier, but it would push convocation back to November. An assignment due last week has been the source of incredible anguish; On Sunday, Rod tried to help me with grasping a couple of concepts that I am unable to grasp, and it led to screaming and tears and threats of shoving pointy things into his eyeballs. No one likes to hear the words "I can't", but when it comes to math, I've learned that unfortunately, I really just can't get it.

I was always a very competitive person, and until about grade 9, I could keep up. But then Math started to get too complicated, and I fell further and further behind in the pack. I stubbornly refused to go the Math 13-23-33 route, instead insisting on doing Math 10. I tried to keep up, but in the end, I failed. I took Math 10 again and just barely passed. Then I went on to Math 20. This is where I became a long-running joke in my school, because I ended up taking Math 20 four times before I finally just barely passed again. But still, my ego refused to let me admit defeat. That came when the school refused to let me enroll in Math 30. I watched all of my friends take Math 30, while I (the idiot) pissed away my time until break so we could all meet up.

And just when I thought things couldn't get any more humiliating, I was forced out of Chemistry 30 because it was so Math-intensive, and the teacher called my parents to request that I withdraw. At the midpoint in the semester, I had a 29%. At this point, I had to learn to swallow my pride and say "I can't". And I was not alone. My mother wasn't mathemathically inclined, and my sister has also tried and failed, just like me. We did go to Math tutoring sessions, and tried the free help sessions at the local community college, and we just didn't get it. After 5 years of trying and having repeated failure for a result, I've become exhausted. I've accepted that I am unfortunately incapable of grasping concepts of math and logic. My parents have accepted it. My teachers all accepted it, and they were really nice and supportive anyways.

Rod couldn't accept it. He was doing what my parents did initially...mistook my "can't" for "won't". It took a long time before everyone would see that no matter how hard I tried, I was getting nowhere. I see no harm in pointing out to Rod that when he tells me he can't accept that I don't get this stuff, he's doing the very thing he hates...using the word/concept of "can't"