Second time is not the charm, and I'm bad at math

Someone lied to me and told me the Mod 2 research article was going to be easier. Let me start with this - it was not.

Beginning with word vomit on the page wasn't really any easier than waiting until I knew what I wanted to write before putting anything down. Somehow, by writing it in my research article draft, I convinced myself that it was important information that must be included at any cost - my sanity, the length requirements, the coherence of my article and presentation of my data: none of it mattered as long as I could keep the revelation that graphing the curve with different axes would be easier. Novel stuff, I know.

In addition to this, I no longer had my trusty sidekick, Christy, to tell me when I was going off on an irrelevant tangent. As a result, I texted her a lot, annoying her, and also spent a lot of time on unnecessary results of the experiment.

I also came to realize, on the eve of the due date, that I am perhaps the only person to get into MIT without a basic understanding of elementary school level mathematics. I can definitely integrate but give me some addition or subtraction problems, or even some basic algebra, and OH BOY do we have an issue. As such, I realized that every single one of my calculations was wrong and I had to redo my figures, statistical significance tests, and analysis. My lord and savior, Emma Majercak, came through on this and sat me down and tutored me. She should know that if the MIT thing doesn't work out she can tutor my future children in basic math any time and I'd pay her.

There was one good thing that came out of this experience - I am no longer lying on my resume when I say I am 'proficient in Excel'. Like yeah, before this I knew how to put numbers into a spreadsheet and edit different boxes but now I can make graphs! With colors! And create functions! And do math! So I'll never have to do basic math ever again!

Anyways, thank god this is over. See you on the other side.

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