Stubborn.

I get stubborn. My last name has the word "mule" in it. Stubborn runs in my family. It's hard being stubborn, and it's doubly hard being stubborn and in school.

High school was a nightmare for me. I got the information. I understood completely. I just couldn't figure out why I would ever need to know it. That got under my skin and I dug my feet in. I slowly stopped doing homework or projects. I aced tests. The further I got, the worse my grades were because, WHY?! Why did I need to know the capital of every state? It's not like I would be visiting them all in my Winnebago some day. Why did I need to know how to write a five paragraph essay? Couldn't I just WRITE? I hated it, hated it, hated it.

I did end up graduating, barely. It frustrated my teachers and parents to no end. A smart girl who wouldn't "apply" herself.

And here I am, in school again, feeling that old familiar stubbornness. When am I ever in life going to need to know the difference between a rhombus and a parallelogram? What does that have to do with midwifery? I'm itching to get to the nitty gritty, get my hands on a few bellies, catch a few babies.

I know, I know. I've got to learn these basics so the advanced stuff makes sense. The problem is, I get bored and distracted.

English is going well because our essays have been interesting and I get to really think about things I'm reading and writing. Biology is fantastic. I really understand the why's and how's of basic biology and the more detail we go into, the more fascinating I find it. I know why I need to know about cells and atoms and the like. When something goes wrong at any level, the whole organism suffers.

My only problem... It's math. Even in high school it was my worst subject. It drives me up the wall.

Every day I have to force myself to do it, and do it RIGHT. I have gotten 100% on every homework so far, and 99% on our first exam. But it's draining and irritating. A friend at school (and what an unexpected treasure she's been!) said someday I may be giving a patient a pill and suddenly exclaim, "Oh! Did you know this pill is a rhombus shape?" She reminds me to try to inject humor into every situation and that works pretty well...

But the best cure, the only real cure, is the reminder that I need to do this to get to where I want to go. Failure truly isn't an option. If I fail, I don't get to be a midwife.

As I sat in the lunch room at work, scowling over geometry, a coworker rushed up to me. She gasped, "How do you make someone have a baby!?" I laughed and told her I was sure she was old enough to know about the birds and the bees. She laughed, too, and told me a family member was overdue and they wanted to induce her.

So I listed off the options (acupuncture, pressure points, red raspberry leaf tea, get a pedicure, make out with your partner, have sex). You know what? It felt so good. It felt so good to know that answer, to be sharing that knowledge, to be helping someone.

When I went back to my homework, I was smiling. I know why I have to do this. I do. And I'll do it. I'll figure out the area of a four foot wide pool deck with lengths of 36 feet and 28 feet. I'll do it because the only thing between me and my dreams is my own damn self.

And those freaking rhombuses.