Did you know? the literal meaning of "radical": proceeding from the root; marked by a sharp departure from the usual or traditional. Yeah, me neither. I have said the word, not lately, but I have said it without really knowing it's meaning. No longer.
I now know the meaning because my latest read was Radical Accounting. I told you I meant business. I would highly recommend this book to anyone doing what I'm doing, or anyone who wants to understand accounting better and isn't sure where to start. It's fairly entertaining, a quick read, and easy to understand, though a bit corny in spots.
I must confess, I am mostly a novel reader. I don't care for non-fiction, even when it's interesting. I tell myself, "You can read this, everyone loves it, it's not hard to read," and I may read 3/4 of the book, but inevitably I give it up. The one exception (up to this point) has been Christian authors - Tozer, C.S. Lewis, etc., and even those are if-y. Anyway, I whizzed through this book in 5 days and am now working on implementing Madeline Bailey's suggestions.
The world of accounting is opening to me, but I have so far to go. I spent one day after reading this trying to polish up the way I run our Quickbooks (accounting program), and was mostly frustrated by what I DON'T know. But I'll figure it out. I feel like I did when I was learning to knit. It took soooo long to get all of the yarn and needles and fingers doing the right thing consistently, but once I figured it out so many possibilities opened up. I'm sure at some point I'll get this, too.
7 comments:
Good for you, Christy! No one knows like I do how hard this is for you, but I predict you will master this stuff. Nothing like a few mental stretches to keep you young and learning. What an accomplishment.
I prefer novels too!! But alas, these days when there is time to read, it is almost always practical/application (though i have not resorted yet to any accounting anything). (and i like math!) sooo sad. someday when our kids are over us and only want their friends, i'll have a novel again, and i'll probably resent it because i'd rather be with my kids.
"proceeding from the root" When I read this, it made me all uncomfortable and a little upset. OK - more than a little upset.
Currently, I am not resonsible for discussing math not involved in our budgeting. It was disturbing to be reminded that there is a whole, horrible world of words wasted describing mathematical functions. Beautiful words twisted, used and abused for non-literary purposes. People think they can just replace whole paragraphs with Greek symbols and equal signs - or equally unnerving - with parabolas. Heavens, Christy, until my children are required to know these non-budgetary math terms, please keep such language to youself!!!!!!!!!!!
Affectionately,
your fellow novel-reader,
Audrey Ann
P.S. Thank you for the heads-up on the spelling of "niece" - have I also been spelling it incorrectly? I can't figure it out, but the thought is a scary one. What other words out there are we casually misspelling as if it doesn't matter? Sigh. Come to think of it, should one misspell pi, cosine or inverse tangent, t'wouldn't bother me at all. In fact, one could misspell, or remove from the human dialect entirely, the following sentence and I wouldn't be offended: Show that f is differentiable at x=0, i.e., use the limit definition of the derivative to compute f'(0) ." Oh barf!!!
Ok I'll weigh in as the official accountant in the family. You are totally right Christy when you say that it is mostly an organizational skill. I must admit it helps to be anal about keeping track of your money and about everything being in its place. People used to always assume that I loved math because I was majoring in accounting (calcualtors are the best invention). Needless to say this was not what drew me to the field. After hearing how much time and effort you are putting into this I have a feeling you will know more than me soon. As Audrey said, I am not using this skill everyday, but I must admit I keep a mean check register.
Good Luck - I haven't even read an accting book since college. Feel free to e-mail with any questions - I might be able to help it make more sense.
Candace
P.S. You can be a reader and an accountant. The worlds only collide during finals when you need a break from studying and pick up that novel that you just can't put down.
Everyone made me smile. I may be emailing you, Candace, but right now I'm not even sure what to ask. If Quickbooks help doesn't have the answer, it may be very soon...
Audrey, I might be a little suspicious as to how you were able to come up with that last sentence...do you have closet calculus issues?
Slim chance that I'll ever know more than an accounting major, you know things that I never dreamed of!
I got it off calculus.org - how on earth - WHY on earth - would I remember or could I remember any of that. Selective memory is there to protect us from the scars of the past. On towards the calculus-less future.
Love,
Aud
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