Chemistry, Literally and Figuratively

This semester I am enrolled in a class called "Soils." While I can't tell you quite yet whether I love or hate it, I am making some interesting observations.

1) This is a heavy science class. Heavy. I haven't taken any hardcore science since high school. I remember being completely overwhelmed by my physics class back then. The teacher confessed that he was teaching it at a college level. I just remember spending countless hours with my calculator and going through the textbook until it was fuzzy. I also remember that my Dad had gotten me an electric pencil sharpener and a few boxes of Ticonderogas (which I LOVED!) and I wore those babies down to nubs. The teacher kicked our butts but we learned a lot and I do remember that I dedicated more than a usual amount of time to that class. To this day that was my most favorite and memorable class in high school. "Soils," in the meantime, is bringing back an awful lot of flashbacks to that time. Tonight was only the third class but I've whipped out my calculator and am digging deep as we are learning formulas and mass and volume.

2) I am intimidated. Very intimidated. So, after high school I concentrated on the humanities. In college I focused on literature and creative writing. I was interested in the world of words. I read and read and read. I wrote essays with clear (eh, or not so clear) arguments about this or that character and this or that theory. I can string words together or wind them around in knots until I come to any old conclusion that I so desire. But science? The world of hard facts and clear arguments? Black and white? Right or wrong? Answers measured in decimal points and theorems and mathematics? It's not like I could argue my way out of an algebraic mis-calculation and get points for that. And one of the components of the class is chemistry, which I never took in high school. Want to know why? Because I elected for more literature classes! I want to say that I don't regret it, because I don't, but maybe I'm just feeling the buyer's remorse of having spent impressionable, flexible, youthful brain cells of my high school days reading Beloved and writing bad short stories in my first creative writing class. It's not like I'm not capable of learning chemistry, and the teacher is spending a lot time teaching the basics to us, but I am definitely feeling the overwhelm.

But I am determined, and I mean absolutely determined, to see this class through. I don't care if it kills me, I am going to pass this class. Yeah, hand me a box of well-sharpened Ticonderogas and hold on a sec while I replace the batteries in my calculator, and I'm gonna make it!