I Think I Can('t)

I tell myself that I can do anything if only I try hard enough. For the most part, I still think that's true. Swimming has been exhausting (I'm sweating while I'm in the water, I swear), but I can swim more laps every time and I *might* just be getting more muscles from all that movement and resistance. One day, I might even start to feel comfortable in the not-so-shallow end.

I can do it, I can do it, I assured myself when I decided to take on another part-time job. I'm now working eighteen hours a week off-campus (Job #Recent), plus my hours as an Ambassador (Job #Original), plus a full-time course load aka five classes. Money isn't that tight, but I for some reason thought that this would be a GOOD IDEA so I could get some experience. Experience with what? Burning myself out, I guess. I'm also going to the gym, the pool and kayaking too. But I can do it! I can do it if only I try hard enough! I bet I can keep my sanity too! I can!

So, when I think about all those things that I tell myself I can do when I'm on the verge of exhaustion (and it hasn't even been a week yet), I feel rather ashamed when I think about how badly I want to give up when it comes to my finance class. It's hard. Really hard. And I remember telling myself a few weeks back that I could get through it if only I worked hard enough to beat the hardness of the course. The thing is, my working hard is nowhere near keeping up with the difficulty level of this class. So tonight, halfway through lecture, I pretty much threw my arms up in the air and said, "Well, that's it. I'm done." This was after I put my head down on the table and whimpered, "He wants us to do what?!" and "I don't get iiiiiitt...."

My mind has been molded by over three years of a liberal arts education. I know how to research and how to analyze and theorize and write papers. I do not know what to do with numbers (which may explain why I'm so bad at saving...). So when I'm sitting in class being lectured at about valuation and growth models and dividends and yields and RETENTION RATIOS you can bet that I'm sitting there with my eyes wide open while my brain is hyperventilating and thinking OH MY GOD I CAN'T DO THIS. It does not help that the professor speaks in monotone and only (vaguely) smiles when he's talking about stocks and how students get fined for partying too loudly.

Despite this horrid frustration at my lack of numerical intellect, there's still some part of me that thinks, "Well, maybe you still caaaaann." I remember being terrified of Grade 10 math class, absolutely terrified. I'd get my binder from my locker and I'd sweat as I walked down the halls towards the mathematical genius that was the rest of my gifted class. It took three years and a lot of help from a dear friend, but by the time the end of high school came around, I liked math. And not just regular math either, calculus. I even did well in my 1st year calc class here at uni. So, if I could go from being afraid of math to really liking even the difficult stuff, surely I can also learn to be good at, and maybe even love, finance. Yeah, that does sound remotely possible.

It might just take me three years is all.
10:30 pm