In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Land of Confusion.”
Which subject in school did you find impossible to master? Did math give you hives? Did English make you scream? Do tell!
In response to this prompt, I quickly recall the only school curriculum I did not master or derived any pleasure from was math. I never was quite comfortable with math. Yet during my freshman and sophomore years of high school algebra and geometry was uniquely cool, but I was happy to complete my math requirements. The only numbers I loved were in the form of measured music beats of 2-2, 3-4, 4-4, 6-8 and one of my favorites 4-5 used in the music arraignments titled. “Take Five.”
College math was unbelievably easy, however since college, I learned not to be fearful of math and numbers in general after I purchased a calculator for class. Years later, I ditched the calculator when I discovered every smart phone has a calculator.
My favorite school subject was and still is to this day “History.”
During the 1970’s, I loved my visits to the local library for class project assignments. This brought me into contact with my favorite books of my youth, the hard back covered editions of the encyclopedias. After I collected the information, I need, I spent hours upon hours reading through encyclopedias. It was thirty years later, when I purchased my son a computer and discovered an entire set of encyclopedias on a CD. Needless to say. II began to reminisce and monopolized many hours on my son’s computer reading the history of unique and factual bits of knowledge from around the world.
My extracurricular activities were my eight years in the symphonic and marching band that exposed me and others to classical music pieces like the sound track for “The Wind and The Lion.” A little music theory was explored, but my favorite extracurricular activity was playing football for four years.
For my years of education, I was fortunately blessed with phenomenal teachers from head-start to my twelfth grade graduation. Teachers who inspired and challenged students with knowledge of environments outside of my community yet maintaining a focus on my community and civic pride.
My years of education was never a “Land of Confusion,” like the claymation video developed by the Rock group Genesis. My education has been and continues to be a steady flow of learning, developing many new forms of knowledge, leading to incredible discoveries.
Chemistry. Still don’t get it. And there is NO chemistry in my fiction. I don’t even want to go there and research it for even a passing reference. I’ll leave the blood and DNA stuff in my crime fiction to the “lab guys”. And in the historical series hard cider is as close as I get to any chemical potions mentioned.