Jamie Ruiz

Math 1010-407
Instructor- Bryan Wilson
3/11/2020
Exam 3 Prompt Extra Credit

I don’t have one time where I struggled and then accomplished something. I am the type of
person who struggles with a lot of things. In the end I usually end up quitting and moving on to
something else. I am not sure why this is, but I am always doing new things. I am a very impatient
person, maybe therefore. If I don’t understand or don’t get immediate results, I will quit. I had this
happen to me with math in this chapter. I was really struggling with rational expressions. I have always
loved math and the fact that something complicated I could understand. Until this chapter, I was
struggling and thinking why this is so hard for me. Why am I not grasping the concept of this? I even
thought maybe I should just drop this class, even though I knew I needed this class for my generals and
to get my degree. But I thought if I didn’t understand this concept how was I going to move on to the
next math class. I have spent time on studying to understand it more. I could also use an example of
losing weight and working out. Since December I have been trying to work out and eat healthy based on
a health coach, I have paid for to help me. This is not the first time I have paid for something to help me
loose weight. But most of the time I try it for a short period of time and if I don’t get results, I quit that
thing. This time was the time I was not going to quit on myself. So, I got this health coach and told
myself I was going to follow everything he said to a T. So, I started and each time I met with him, he
would have me get on this in body scan. This scans your body to see what your body fat percentage is as
well as your bmi and muscle percentage is. He would also weigh me and take my measurements. At first,
I was not losing any weight, the coach as well as others continued to tell me that I was not losing weight
because muscle weighs more than fat. I know this information, but I have this idea in my mind that I was
never going to lose the weight. That this is the weight I am supposed to be forever. That every time I
worked out, I would gain weight and my body must be the exception to the rule. However, the thing
that was going down was my inches. Each week when my coach would measure me, I was going down in
inches all over. But for some reason this just was not enough for me. It didn’t mean anything unless the
weight or the number on the scale was going down. Fast forward to this month, since January I have lost
14 inches all over my body. I am now starting to lose the weight, I am down 6lbs. Had I used my normal
mindset and the thing I would always do just quit. I would have proved myself right that I am not
supposed to lose weight and that I am just supposed to be this weight forever. I needed to push through
the uncomfortable phase I had to put in the work and just wait for the results to follow.

If I use this experience with my weight loss and journey to being healthy and continue to push
through with math and to not give up. Eventually I will understand and know how to work through
rational equations. It is a good thing that not only in this math class but the math classes to come will
also want me to work with rational expressions and equations. This will help me practice and work on
strengthening my math skill and then achieve what I felt before in loving math and being able to look at
different problems and solve them. Which will then in turn give me the feeling of accomplishment like
the other math classes and problems do that I do understand. Pushing through the uncomfortable
phases is what brings you to the top and helps you grow.