Contrast

Everything is defined by its opposite. You need a bad day sometimes to keep appreciating the good ones. You need to freeze your butt off for a day to reset your thermostat for winter.

Wednesday beat me up psychologically. In math we had a quiz, and I got completely stuck on a problem worth a quarter of the points. So I went home knowing I got a 75 at best, and when I went to craft center to start some pottery, I ended up more or less dissolving several lumps of clay with only one successful throw. Thursday morning, I had a sore throat and a cough. But it all made it that much better when I turned out two nice clay bowls in a row Thursday evening.

Yesterday, it was freezing cold. I had a scarf and a sweatshirt but I was still cold outside, always. So I put on a coat this morning and it was still freezing as I walked to the bus but at least I had wind protection. Now, I've left my coat in the chemistry lecture hall and can't go get it yet because there's another class in session. But compared to yesterday, the temperature really isn't too bad. After all, I evidently walked from chemistry to math without noticing I'd left my coat.

As far as the math quiz, well, I did get a 75 and I wasn't happy about that. But the good part is, I can correct it to get half my points back for 87.5, which is less than I should have gotten but not too impacting. It turns out my error was calculational and not procedural - and also not really really stupid, which I thought it might have been (on the order of substituting 2 for -2) - so I can prevent the same error in the future by practicing my polynomial division. No wonder I did it wrong, really - we had calculators on tests in high school and so I only ever practiced it for two weeks three years ago.