I'm gonna master all kinds of kung fu.

I spent last week with some oddbods. A woman who spoke about herself in the third person, an enormous woman who talked about her horse endlessly (I hope it has reinforced steel legs) two young men who whistled, tapped and played with their phones every minute of the day. A fragile blonde psychology teacher, two teaching assistants and a slight, fragile buddhist girl. All of us there because we need a maths qualification. A more unlikely gathering of people you can't imagine, but commonly, thickos when it comes to maths.
Maths. I can't trust anyone that can do maths. Like celery eaters, they are - well, weird.
The man taking the class was brilliant. Faced with the prospect of getting seven duffers through GCSE Maths in one week, you might think he would've been verging on the edge of panic. He was however, the most patient person I've ever encountered, going over and over the same points endlessly, trying different tactics to get things to 'click' for us in some way.
I have spent my entire life freezing up at anything remotely mathematical, teacher after teacher have tried to din the most simple formulas into my head. Even my oldest most favourite, gentlest teacher used to bang his head on the desk when faced with my brain freeze. My second year junior report said "Pesk still insists on trying to take the top line away from the bottom". It's a metaphor for my life I think.

Anyway, I needed this qualification to teach - I have a BA (hons) degree (2:1), I dont need to know about maths, but no - I must have it. I have A levels and GCSE's coming out of my ears - not enough. So I bit the bullet and booked a week off work to take this 35 hour course. Start to finish, from simple addition to algebraic calculations in 150 easy steps. And I actually did it. And passed. I can't tell you how amazed I am. How proud I am. Having been told I was stupid (harsh) to discalculaic (sympathetic), I have done the impossible. I'm more chuffed than when I got the degree, I really am. It makes me feel that now, anything is possible. I could really, do anything couldn't I?

Registering now with the GTP agencies. Whoo... watch out kids, here I come.

Fractionally off...

Went for my maths test this afternoon. Must admit I was a tad grumpy, as it was boiling hot in tinyvillagebythesea and my new book was laid on the hammock, flipping its pages suggestively in the faint breeze. And I was sat, hunched over a level 3 maths book all morning. Looking confused.
After striding confidently (it's all bluff) into the wrong campus building I doubled back and arrived blotchy and panicky at the agreed meeting place where I hung around for ten minutes feeling sicker and sicker. Literacy test or numeracy test? asked the admin guy (note - cute, Christopher Eccleston lookeelikee, corphroaretc. Let's hope he likes ditzy women who count on their fingers.). Numeracy, I whispered, and followed him into an IT suite.

I need this maths thing to get into teacher training. I don't want to teach maths, I don't even want to teach a broad subject range, as I am intending to teach just English, and at a push psychology - why is it then, that I need to work out the volume of a cylinder? Convert decimals to fractions? What is the point?

I got 46.9% anyway, which is too low to qualify to take the intensive one week course which would get me the GCSE. I failed because I cannot work out volumes (except the one on my stereo) and I do not know what mean, median and something else means. If I knew what they meant, I wouldn't be sat there with three knuckle draggers . I can though still attend, and then go for an extra two evenings a week (like my life isn't shit enough already) until I reach the standard that the exam requires. That won't be too long, said Christopher Eccleston cheerily. Bless him.

At this rate, I shall be pensionable age before I qualify.

Leaving the car park, I leaned on my horn and made wanker symbols at a bloke that cut me up inadvertently. I need to find a better way to channel this energy.

Feeling better when I watch this.