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Thursday, August 28, 2014

While lunch is cooking...

So while my next article for BCP is slowly simmering away on the stove, I'm figured I'd get today's post here done.  Only as usual, I'm sitting here scratching my head as to what to write while my stomach growls at not having start lunch sooner.

Perhaps, some online resources that I'm enjoying thoroughly?

Those would be online college classes.  There's three main ones that I've been digging through and two that I've completed courses from so far.  I must say, that being back in some kind of learning environment even though it's here at home has done wonders for my levels of creativity.  It's been good for me in another way too.  Two of the classes have been astronomy classes complete with equations like "L = f x 4 x pi x D^2" and T equals the sqrt(3)etc etc etc.   Now, I failed math in High School.  Never made it past pre-algebra and math when I was being home-schooled was the class my mother and I both dreaded because we always always fought during that class.  It was an inevitable fate when it was math time.

When I started trying to do the math, I did not in any way shape or form understand the math.  My fiance can vouch for how many times I would just the computer and almost being crying from frustration.  The first course, I didn't register in time and ended not getting most of the classwork done on time.  This second course... I'm not sure what changed outside of me going "I will at least understand and be able to work one of these equations".  Well, I can do at least a half a dozen of them.  With ease to intermediate difficulty, plus a great deal of help from my good friend Stephanie.  She's been a blessing with this, and I've been finding with each problem I get through and get right, a piece of that past pain gets erased.

It's an odd feeling being able to look at these trig and possibly calculus problems, and understand them!  I don't really have a way of describing it. There's definitely a sense of accomplishment though.

So here's the website I take my astronomy classes from:  eDx.org  

All of their classes are free.  They've new ones starting all the time and there are several self-paced ones that you can do at your own time frame. Next time I'll be talking about Hillsdale and Coursera. Enjoy my friends!

2 comments:

  1. You posted this while I was en route to DragonCon, dear, or I would have responded to it before now. I'm an astronomer. It's not just what I do, it's who I am. And I also love to help teach people about it. The fact that I could help a friend learn this science I'm so passionate about was as much a blessing for me as it was help for you. And I'm glad to provide that help any time. :)

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