Get in losers, we're writing code.

The first class I walked into at OCC in Jan 2024 was Calculus, and I was terrified. I'd made the decision to switch to programming, applied to community college, and gotten a letter of acceptance within one 24-hour period in autumn of 2023. The idea had come out of nowhere. All of the people in the TikkyTokkys, I realized, the ones who have lives you want to emulate? The ones who work remote, who live in nature, who set their own schedule? They're programmers. You could do that.

In a storybook world, a golden light would have fallen across my face as my eyes lit up, my heart ablaze with the fire of a newfound passion. In reality, I kind of sat there a moment, went, "Huh. Seems legit," and then proceeded to apply to a bunch of colleges before I could come up with a reason not to.

In preparation for putting my insane plan into action, I took it upon myself to re-learn algebra, and while I wasn't a whiz by any means I got a certain sense of pride when my answers matched the ones in the back of the book. But as the first day of classes drew closer, it dawned on me how insane this was. In high school I was miserable in pretty much every class I had that wasn't art related. And here I was, launching myself into STEM without considering what would happen if I failed. What if it turned out I hated programming, or was just...bad at it? The good news - my Java I class made me feel like a teenager messing with HTML. It was a blast. But the flip side - within two weeks, I realized I was going to fail Calculus if I stuck around. I'd landed a professor who was allergic to review topics and half the shit he talked about came from trig, which I had never taken. Back to the drawing board.

That summer, I put myself in an accelerated trig class, where I learned trig was advanced geometry - the only math class I can honestly say I've ever enjoyed. Success! In the fall, I continued on to pre-calc. As my rematch with Calculus loomed, a well-meaning academic advisor suggested that since I'd gotten As in both prerequisites, perhaps I could try Calc honors. And so that's how, a year after dropping my initial math class, I came back victorious, hair blowing in the wind, sharpened pencils at the ready, primed to slay the math behemoth who had so viciously humbled me.

Spoiler alert: I failed again.

I dropped with a W about two weeks ago and while I can honestly say my GPA will be much better off, there's a part of me that feels the failure intensely. When trying to reinvent yourself, there's always a part that's eager to gloss over the faults of previous incarnations. It didn't matter that Art Me was shit at math, Programming Me would learn that I'd had the power all along! But unfortunately, what I always forget is that "me" remains...well...me. I don't like math. I probably never will. But there's something about the logic in code I find fascinating. Working to build this site and watching my changes be reflected in real time feels like storytelling when my love for it hadn't yet dimmed. It's not a grand passion, like I had in my 20s, but then again, perhaps that passion is a gift of youth. Reinvention means a change of course, exploring new avenues while honoring paths already traveled. Remembering who I was, dreaming about who I can be, living a balance between the two as the woman I am.

I'm scheduled to go back to Calculus (NOT honors) this fall. I am nothing if not stubborn.