A Gift from Baby Jesus

Friends.  It has been so long that I don't even remember the last time I posted.  I think it was to bitch about my nightmarish Elf on a Shelf incident?  Just kidding.  I actually just checked and my last post was about my own personal savior, Beyonce.  Thank God that the last creative thing I wrote was actually about something uplifting.  And then I went into a deep, dark cave of loneliness and despair for the last three months.  This cave was so wretched that there were points in the middle that involved public crying and humiliation so intense that I felt like I finally understood how Carrie felt in the shower scene at the beginning of "Carrie."  (Google it if you don't know it because it is too awful to even link to it.)  If you can't, just know I am referring to THIS Scary Carrie:

And do NOT mean this Carrie:

(although I did have nightmares after this fashion roadkill episode)

Anyway-the cause of these awful, scarring feelings and public displays of emotion is an evil, heartless, bitch called "Statistics."  Yes, I had to take Statistics as a requirement for my Masters and it caused me anxiety before class even started, and even MORE once it did.  Because nothing, absolutely NOTHING paralyzes me more than complicated math.  And while my professor was a nice old grandma-type lady, she taught us as though we had all taken Calculus 2 for fun electives in college.  Which I did not.  I took Aquatic Aerobics and Aerobic Dance for my electives.  In fact, I changed my major FROM Marketing TO Public Relations just to avoid taking statistics.  Seriously, math more complicated than the basics has and always will make me feel like:

For eight weeks, I would show up early to do practice problems, then copy every note from the board, and every number and formula in my notebook in the hopes that something would ring familiar when it came time for our fucking WEEKLY quizzes.  Looking around every class, it seemed like my classmates GOT this shit.  Like they would ask questions and know what binomials and factorials were like it was nothing.  Me?  I sat in the back taking my millions of notes, and being like :

One awful night, I was the last person there, trying to throw anything relevant on my quiz paper about Confidence Intervals, knowing it wasn't right but hoping for partial credit, and when the teacher came around to be like "Hey.....  are you wrapping up?" I actually started CRYING in front of her.  Crying.  Like a fucking toddler who couldn't get a toy at Target.

CRYING.  What the fuck?!  There is almost anything I would rather do in public than CRY.  And there I was sniffling away in front of my professor like an asshole.  Now, of course I can blame this on my simmering pregnancy hormones (which is another bitch for another post), but STILL.  And my final exam?  It literally took me THREE HOURS to complete.  Eleven questions and THREE HOURS.  But I had determined (or my friend in my class who was also doing shitty had determined) that I only needed a 55% on my final to pass with a C.  Because here's the thing: If you get a D in a class, YOU DON'T GET CREDIT.  Which would mean I would need to retake the fucking class if I didn't at least get a C.  And believe me when I say that throughout most of the class, I believed that getting a C was an absolute impossibility.

Anyway, I am telling you all of this to drive home the point of how much I hated this class and how much it consumed my life and my thoughts.  All I kept reminding myself was that I only need a C to pass it and never have to take it again.  Just a C.  Just a C.  It became an almost daily mantra.  I actually told the Mister that if I did NOT pass and get a C that I might have to rethink this whole grad school bullshit, because I just didn't think I could take it again.  And because I am knocked up, I couldn't even unwind and forget my troubles with a glass (or bottle) of wine!!  Nothing!  It's been the darkest, gloomiest winter ever.

And then...  And THEN!  Our exam grades were finally posted and I saw a gorgeous 63%.  63%!!  Normally this grade would have been humiliation in itself.  But with this class?!  I was all

Literally, I jumped up and did a thrusty happy dance that made the dog bark at me and Mini laugh/cry and ask me to stop "acting like a crazy mommy."  But 63% was better than 55% and the system told me my "unweighted grade" was a 71.5%.  Which is a C- but a C and that meant I had passed.  Which was the high point of my winter so far (except for the whole "Yay, I have a baby growing inside of me" part) until yesterday when my final grade was posted.  Which, with whatever miraculous curve was cast upon it, was a muthafucking B-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

B-.  B-!!!!!  Somehow, everyone else who I thought was getting it way more than me, must have ALSO been failing miserably, because my pathetic 71.5% curved up to be a gorgeous B-.

And the weight of being done with this nightmare, just in time to start my second trimester when I CAN indulge in a glass of wine sometimes, feels like a small gift from baby Jesus himself.  I have not felt this happy and carefree in months and IT IS AWESOME.  I cannot even be bothered by my ever expanding ass and hips or the fact that my breasts are venturing into porn star territory.  (all other posts for other days).  But for the first time in a while I feel like I am BACK!  I am myself again, albeit a little more sober for the next 5 months, and it feels fucking fantastic.

So thank you, baby Jesus.  THANK YOU.

Praise be,
SD