My handwriting's getting lazy; not the scribbles of a busy person with too much to write and not enough time, but the woeful scrawls of someone bored like a teenager. The fact is, this statistics class is really dragging me down. I vacillate between near narcolepsy and fits of rage. Sittin' here in this freezing house in the wettest winter in history, throwing my $100 textbook across the room and cursing at my professor.

I've been totally lost since the midterm two weeks ago -- or has it been three? The material driving on through without repeat, without a slow. Too much reading to complete; too many tricks to know in order to do the homework makes the reading imperative. I stare at problems for hours, flipping through the fifty pages or so comprising a chapter, looking for one single phrase that tells me how many degrees of freedom in the numerator for the F test in something like, say, a linear trend. (Whatever the fuck that is.) Just tell me why -- just take an hour and tie it all together for me. Give us a goddamn review. Two weeks. I won't stop now even if it means I don't turn in this particular assignment. There is one more assignment after this, then a final and a paper. Two point five weeks. That's all.

Then to Korea.

I've begun to think that maybe I really don't want to go back to school; maybe I'm not cut out for it. I'm surrounded by people bursting with drive for achievement. People getting things done fast, and brilliantly. People seeking out opportunities and keeping lists of them in mind to recite in a single breath. I don't share it. I sit opposite with my eyes mostly open, a blank look on my face, and say, "Really?" I don't contribute, can barely get a word in edgewise, just uh-huhing and naming "cool" when appropriate. (I hate being like that. I'm aware that it has the effect of making me appear unidimensional.) I wait for the next time I can drive off in the car, crawl under the covers, poke my nose into lyrical prose.

I can't concentrate in class; so much of my energy is focused on staying focused. In just a split second my mind wanders off and I've missed something crucial to the day's topic. It's a constant struggle. I bribe myself with food to get through the two-hour lectures.

But I'm trying not to generalize the experience of this class, which I expect to be the hardest class I will ever have to take, to an entire graduate curriculum. Yesterday was the monthly training seminar for the interns at the program where I work. I attended because the speaker directs a treatment center for perpetrators of domestic violence, a topic very interesting to me. For two hours we learned how to identify abusers in forensic situations, when they are most likely on their best behavior. It was absolutely fascinating, and I was engaged for the entire segment; when it was over I was unaware of the time elapsed. I'm in love with the puzzles of the human psyche. Others are in love with the language of numbers. This class is just a thing I have to endure; a thing I can do, but not easily. And the truth remains that the largest obstacle is my own indifference. What if I could focus as intently in math as I do elsewhere? Well, I'd understand more and I probably wouldn't be pissed off at my professor.