are we there yet

Open Air Jiu-jitsu, round two, I fail again.  Just didn't feel like it.  Tried really hard to get myself together and go anyhow, but I don't feel like going out.  I don't feel like being around people.  I'm tired.  Some days are still better than others.

First calculus quiz, I got a 95% but the next chapter has been much more problematic.  I just failed the midterm with a 55%.  I don't understand what the problem is.  What does it mean to not be a math person?

"Dyscalculia is a math learning disability that impairs an individual's ability to represent and process numerical magnitude in a typical way," but it's not the numbers I have a problem with.  It's all the parts I don't even recognize as numbers.  The cube roots of secants over tangents of e to the power of x.  Find the derivative of the linearization.

I understand that a lot better than I did a year ago.  That would have been absolute gibberish to me.  The progress is cool and all, I try to remember that.  I was just hoping to be able to get better grades, and it's incredible to me that I'm consistently behind most of the class in this stuff.  Wtf is wrong with me.

The most sane approach would be to visit the tutoring center and ask for help but goddammit fuck that.  There's got to be something else going on here.  I've been putting tons of time into trying to make sense of the material.  I don't understand why this is so hard for me. My third semester of trying to get the hang of math, and I'm still floundering like this.

Just did my homework, after giving it up for hopeless yesterday.

   #1 if y=x⁴+3x², find the linear approximation at a= -1

This is the entire problem.  There's supposedly enough information there to come up with some kind of answer.  Sounds crazy, but wait, I know the formula for this..

f(x) + f ' (x) (x-a)

I have all these formulas memorized, but I can never seem to plug everything in right.  The only way I could get the right answer was to switch up the order of operations:

f(x) +(f ' (x) (x-a))

I don't think that makes sense.  I can't imagine why the formula wouldn't make that explicit.  It's like I'm just guessing and came up with a roundabout way that coincidentally lined up with the right answer.  The next problem I get right on my 17th try by dividing instead of multiplying, and that makes no sense either. 

This instructor doesn't give A's for effort.  He doesn't give anything for effort.  That 55% was 40% of my final grade.  I'll have to get an A on the final to pass at all now.

Meanwhile, getting A's in Python 101, but it's so elementary.  I'm not going to be able to code the most basic app by the end of it, just a bunch of tricks through the compiler - and there is no Python II, let alone anything more interesting.  Need to transfer to a real school for that, but I'm not there yet.

The confidence success builds can be motivating, but motivation in response to failure is so much more difficult.  I've been practicing lots of failure lately.