A post with a yellow hyena in it! That's something!

I am currently overwrought with work. Twice a year we have national sales conferences and the sheer amount of work that goes into these is just beyond anything reasonable. I work in college textbook publishing and August is a big month for us. It kicks off the new school year so we must set to work learning what we are selling.

In school, I was the type that studied hard to get good grades. My GPA was earned through grit and tears. Fractions still make me cry. Why do we need fractions when we have decimal points? My son came home from 3rd grade last year with fractions on his homework. I felt my senses tingle and my temples start to sweat. 

"Go find Daddy," I said.

"Why can't you help me, Mom?"

"Because sweetie, I will cry. Do you want to see mommy cry?" Shockingly he pondered it for a moment and then decided to seek out his father...the quiet genius that lives among us.

So, when the time comes to start prepping for the sale conference I get antsy. I get nervous at the amount of learning I must do. I am not expected to have deep knowledge of disciplines like physics or calculus but I have to know enough to have a conversation. That's the hard part. I have to learn the language of these disciplines so I can properly converse with professors. I have had times when I told professors I simply do not comprehend what they are saying.

"I am sorry Professor Calculus, but I don't understand what you mean. The L'Hospital rule? Is someone sick?"

Generally, my professors take the time to teach me which is really cool...usually. Not so much in biology where my confusion led to a conversation about the female yellow hyena which gives birth through an organ much like a male's, ah, thingamajig. Seriously. Never say you are confused in biology lest you want to lie awake at night and fret over a poor hyena's birthing options.

So, as I sit a week and a half out from my sales conference, I am feverishly completing online modules and piecing together an operating plan to carry me through December when I get to do the whole thing all over again. 

Though stress floods my mind this time of year I admit that it is pretty interesting to learn bits and pieces of all these different disciplines. I still haven't wrapped my head around the L'Hospital rule but I do have the disorders found in abnormal psychology down! At least it is something. Even Calculus instructors like a good story about an abnormal disorder once in awhile. And, sometimes those stories can be as unsettling as the poor hyena!