Holy freekin' shit!!!!

I cannot believe I passed this test...

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

I hate math.
Always have, always will.

I had a pen and paper handy, but never even touched pen to paper. All I did was say the problems out loud to myself and I even know which one I got wrong... it was the one I went, "pffft, aw fuck you, man" to and guessed at.

This one...

# What's the value of (10-5)^2 + 12/4?

* 9.25
* 28
* 222
* 103

I had no idea what the fuck that one was asking, but the rest of them, I just said out loud, thought about and... of all things... got RIGHT.

Holy shit.

My Dad sees this, he's gonna flip.
He's been telling me for years that math is easy, it's "logical" and it's always the same, every time ya do it.

I, on the other hand, have wondered for years how you call something that's number-related that has LETTERS in it "logical".

I took algebra in 9th grade.
End of the year, it looked like Mr. Catherman had stuttered "F" all the way down my report card.

Dad says I got screwed as far as math goes because they'd just started with that "new math" shit when I was in grade school.

New math?

What was "old" math?

All I know is I hated it, it was stupid, it made NO sense whatsoever and I therefore refused to deal with it.

However, I also remember being in... had to be third or fourth grade because I was going to a different school in fifth... being in the school library, reading some random book.
Mr. Leslie, Walter Leslie, a teacher I had a major crush on, came over and when he saw what I was reading, he freaked because, apparently, it was several grades beyond whichever grade it was that I was in.

He said to me, "Do you understand what you're reading?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, tell me what it says in your own words."

So, I did.

His eyes bugged.

He grabbed another book, an even more "advanced" one and had me do it again.
That book, I remember, was about science and had a bunch of chemical names and technical shit in it and again, I read it out loud to him, pronounced all the words correctly, three-inch-long chemical names included, then told him, in my own words, what it meant.

He couldn't believe it. He told me he had kids in his class who couldn't do that and he taught 8th grade, too.

All I knew, or cared about, was that I'd made a teacher I loved proud of me and I never did lose my love of words and reading.

Then, in my new school, in 5th, then again in 8th grade, I had another teacher I was halfway in love with, Mr. Mark Durand.
His brother Jim was another of my teachers and couldn'ta been more different than his brother, but, man... I'da married him too, if I could have.

Mark looked like Ryan O'Neal and Jim had a beard, listened to Dylan and lost every staring contest we had.

Jim taught 7th grade and was my homeroom teacher, too.
I "fell in love" with him the second I saw him.
Dark brown, long hair, beard, moustache, bell bottoms, Earth shoes, cool shirts... I know now he musta got stoned back then, but I didn't know it then.
I just knew he was "cute" and "cool".
I guess I must have stared at him a lot, 'cause one day, he pointedly started staring back, with a grin on his face.
So, I just zeroed in and kept looking.

He blinked first.
Every time... *giggle*

I think he musta figured out I had a crush on him and he was cool with it.
I think he thought it was cute.
I dunno.
I just know he never made me regret it.

I heard several years ago that Jim had died.
Brain aneurysm, I think.
I was sad to hear that.
He was a good teacher, funny, nice and veeery patient.

But... Mark... his brother...

Had him in 5th grade, then again in 8th.

He was the second (and last, I think) teacher I was proud to impress with my vocabulary.
Reading and spelling, both.

We used to have weekly spelling tests in these little brown notebooks we'd hand in after the test for him to grade and return for us to study with and take the next test in.

I started telling Mark jokes in mine.

I'd ask the question at the bottom of my test, then turn the notebook upside down and write the punchline at the bottom of the page.
I made him "work" to get the answer...

He really thought that was funny.

He seemed to enjoy it, between my stupid jokes and my straight A's.

But, I don't remember any math teachers except Mr. Catherman and that was because he looked like a caricature of a high school algebra teacher, kinda like something you'd expect to see on Southpark.

Dark-haired flattop, horn-rimmed glasses and a goatee.
He always wore a dark suit, too.
Plus, he had that Tourette's problem with my report card and all...
Kinda hard to forget a guy like him.

I think the only thing that impressed him about me was that I showed up every day in class.

But, it wasn't his fault I didn't get it.
I'd already begun my hatred of math years before.
Wasn't gonna be anything he could do about it, really.

So, all my life so far, I've avoided math when at all possible, but... I can spell anything and my reading comprehension and vocabulary and such became my forte by default.

In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I can also remember a female teacher I had... Linda Birdsall, I think her name was, who first told me I have a photographic memory for things I read.

I know it was a Beatrix Potter, is that her last name?, book about Ramona Quimby and her little sister that I quoted word-for-word in an oral book report in front of the class.

I had the book in my hand, yeah, but it was open and facing the class so I could "illustrate" with the pictures in it when I quoted it.

And, Mrs. Birdsall KNEW I'd only just read it for the first time earlier that day.

It was one of several new books we'd gotten in class and we had to tell why we'd chosen it and what we thought we were going to like about it and when I quoted it after having already read the whole thing in just a short while (while most of the other kids were still just looking through theirs), she nearly shit.

I didn't even realize I'd done anything "special" til I saw the look on her face.

She asked me if I had that book at home or had read it before and I said, "Nooo."
I thought I was in trouble for a second there...

She said, "Wow... you have a photographic memory..."

I was like "Okay." whatever that meant....
*giggle*

If I'm not mistaken, Mrs. Birdsall was also the first teacher, or person, to use the phrase "scatterbrained" on my report card.

Something along the lines of "very smart, could be an excellent student, but a little scatterbrained".
*lol*

Yeah... a "little".
(So, see? I come by it naturally...)

So, here I am, a 43 year old who is thrilled to have scored a 90 on an eighth grade math test.

I truly could not believe it when that test score came up.
I was expecting to see "What are you, in PRE-SCHOOL, bitch?" as the result.
Not 9/10 correct.

Jeez.

Imagine if math had clicked in my brain when I was in school....
If they hadn't fucked with this "new math" shit at exactly the wrong time...

Oh well...

I'll take my natural love of and skill with words any day.

There's no way I coulda "mathed" my way outta hell with Xfire.
It was writing and words that did that.
With Rob lighting the way.

So, yeah...
It's been worth it.
Being a math-moron who loves words is VERY worth it.

I'm glad to have spent my life with people like Stephen King, Lewis Grizzard, Robert M. Smith and the other truly talented minds that I read and whose footsteps I've walked in or at least followed.

I shudder to think of spending a life alone with math, in all it's dryness and sterility, with alla those "rules" you have to live by.
That woulda sucked, big time.

Mighta paid more, but... I still wouldn't change a thing.

So, thank you Dad, for instilling in me a love of words and reading, Mr. Leslie and Mr. M. Durand for being well spaced and timed "booster-jets" in that love of words and Stephen, Lewis and Rob for giving me such inspiring examples to aspire to emulate.

Y'all are wonderful company to be in.
And, LOOK Y'ALL!!!!
I got a friggin' 90 on a MATH TEST!!!!!

Posted by: Stevie at 01:50 AM

Comments

Posted by: Chablis at June 24, 2006 11:02 AM (tMoUV)

Posted by: Tuning Spork at June 24, 2006 02:59 PM (i0pwT)

Posted by: Maeve at June 25, 2006 09:08 AM (b/7xM)

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