Julie Faces her Arch Nemisis: The Evil Fraction!

I just started a new tutoring job last week. All of my students are adorable, and things were going well until (scary music: dum, dum, dum, dum) a sixth grade girl needed help with her math homework. All I had to do was crack the cover of her textbook and years of math anxiety came flooding back in one of those "my-life-just-flashed-before-my-eyes" moments. I found myself going through a werewolf-like transformation. My palms started to sweat, my pulse quickened, and I felt a little sick to my stomach. "Julie, are you okay," my trusting pupil asked? How could I tell her that my mind was swimming in a Twilight Zone of fractions, square roots, and exponents. (All of which should be swear words in my opinion.) So, I did what any self-respecting English major would do. I went to the library the next day and checked out a whole stack of books on math.
I have discovered that if you can read, you can learn to do almost anything else. Without a belittling math teacher hovering over me, cursing my inability to factor, math isn't so intimidating after all. I'm not saying I'm an overnight Einstein or anything, but maybe I will be able to balance the checkbook now without having a week's worth of anxiety dreams.