So I’m new to WordPress…

And I wanted to start a blog here to share my views as well as a focusing mechanism, if you will, because for the last 20 years, since middle school, I have had a hard time focusing on even the basic stuff. I would not plan my days accordingly and therefore, go hours and even days without doing what I was supposed to do.

In other words, I was winging it.

But even though it’s a problem that is never fully going away, I wanted to find ways to mitigate it. I usually use Google Keep, One Note, and my Rocketbook notebooks (I have two and planning on buying a third) to keep me company while I sort out my days.

I know it’s not as exciting as actually planning the day the night before, but for me, it helps. I will share those apps in a later post.

For now, I will drop this equation here, and I’ll show you the steps to get the answer at the end of this post: -3(5x+9)=18

For this post, I spent the day fixing the template. I had a vastly different template when I started this blog Sunday night and I spent all of Monday fixing it and playing with it. I ended up hating my first template and switched to the second. The second one was alright — I was able to customize it — but I was still missing something. I had three posts (this is my 4th), and they weren’t showing up the way that I liked. I wanted to show just the excerpts of these posts, but the whole posts were being shown, so I really searched for a free WordPress template that shows excerpts and it’s easy to read while showing off my favorite color scheme.

Enter the one you’re looking at now.

So, yeah, it’s trial and error. If you’re new to WordPress like me, just play around with the templates, create your posts, and see where it goes from there. I was able to add the sidebar widgets that came with it, so I have an about me, a search function, categories, and tags on the right-hand side of this blog. I’m even trying out the in-house ad function because eventually, I want to make money off this. Right now, it’s a hobby of mine. I know I said in my first post that I am a math wiz, but I also like to write, so this is a perfect outlet for me to be creative (and be more creative than I really am).

Despite my forgetfulness, I was able to get by alright in my job. I can learn things academically without a problem, but when it comes to real-life stuff, my brain goes kaput. If you’re having the same issue, welcome. I am not a professional doctor, so I urge you to go to one if it’s part of a bigger health problem you might be dealing with. If you are reading this, thank you for stopping by.

And now, let’s revisit the equation I dropped earlier: -3(5x+9)=18. We are looking at an equation that requires distribution and solving for x

First — distribute the -3 to the inside parenthesis. Remember that multiplying a positive by a negative (and vice versa) will give you a negative: -15x-27=18

Second — add 27 to both sides. The + and – 27 will cancel out and you’ll be left with -15x=45

Finally — divide both sides by -15. Just like multiplication, the positive/negative signage applies to division. Dividing a positive by a negative (and vice versa) will give you a negative: x=-3

And if you want to check to make sure it’s correct, just plug in the -3 and solve. Remember the PEMDAS rule

-3(5(-3)+9)=18

-3(-15+9)=18

-3(-6)=18

18=18