Winston tried for years to help me with math. I had to take pre-algebra in college because Kent State thought it would be funny. And Winston is the most patient, calm teacher ever. He thought he could get me through it, if he took the time to help me with the concepts. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it assumes that there is a common ground to start from. There is no ground. Just air. A vacuum of logical processes. It's like talking louder in a foreign restaurant in an attempt to make the waiter understand you. He understands that you want something. He sees that you are talking and waving your arms and getting frustrated. But he has no fucking clue what you are saying.
It's like yelling at your dog. Imagine you find a turd in the hallway. You start yelling, "God damnit, poodles! To whom does this turd belong! Who shit in mommy's hallway? Who is the bad dog? I don't love any of you anymore!" They frantically mill around, pawing pathetically at the ground, whining and showing me their bellies. But all they know is that I am yelling and there is a turd present. They are incapable of making any connection at all. Math is my personal turd and as many times as I have shown it my belly, it refuses to just go away already.
I recently had to take the GRE to apply to grad school. I studied my ass off. For weeks. I am 15 years out of college, so I knew all that testing crap was going to be a bitch. And I figured that if I did a combination of best guess and answering (C) for all the other questions on the math part, I could at least get 50%, right? And I figured my writing sample and verbal reasoning scores would totally make up for my special needs. Yeah. That didn't work. Now on the math portion you have to actually type in a numeric answer for questions like this one:
If 2x < 100 and x is an integer, how many of the 2x + 2 integers will be divisible by 3 and by 2?
W. T. F. ? I mean, seriously, I can just randomly hit a keyboard, too. See?
If ^=678.0 than %@(* &^7i9284394839+h= ?
And being forced to actually enter an answer makes the "always answer (C) cheating technique" invalid. I laughed like a lunatic when my scores came. My writing sample and verbal reasoning scores were amazing. This was my quantitative reasoning score:
I managed to score a 1.5 out of 50 questions. (Honestly, even this number is miraculous.) I sat back and prepared to receive a letter of violent rejection, perhaps accompanied by a pamphlet for a care center for the "differently able." I was speechless when they admitted me. Yay!!! (although, really, it made me feel like Forest Gump getting into high school.)
So, Winston and I walk into the gym at their school, where the kids promptly ditch us to hang with their friends. And then, as if in silent agreement, we both did a half circle lap of the math games-filled gym, and then climbed to the top row of bleachers and leaned against the wall. We started playing with our phones and making snide comments about the sea of parents who were mingling in the gym making small talk with each other. And then it dawned on me.
"Winston, this is exactly what we did at the Freshman mixer. "
"Yep," he said, " and every single chapel service." (at our school, we had chapel 2 times a week.)
" Honey, we are 38 years old and incapable of participating in a social activity that is located in a gym. We haven't grown at all."
The problem is the groups are still the same. There's the A-list group. They used to talk about how awesome their clothes and cars were and stand around comparing coolness. (I'm imagining. I never actually got close enough.) Now they try to out-vacation each other and talk about their boats. There's the people that are super involved in all school activities. I don't imagine there is any difference in their conversations at all since high school. Then there are the drones who wander around, bouncing off of these groups hoping they can attach themselves to one of them, if only briefly. And then there's the jocks. They are standing by the door talking March Madness. And scattered around the bleachers are the angst-y slackers like me and Winston, who refuse or are too terrified to participate in any way, making snide comments. Nothing changes.
We survived Math Nite. My son broke up the evening like only he can. He walked up to us, his mouth glued shut with a Tootsie Roll.
Me: What the hell is wrong with you?
Henry: Mfun uhhh mmook muth. ("I ate a Tootsie Roll despite the fact that I have braces and it is on my "don't eat" list. My mouth is effectively glued shut and I have wrenched my braces from the left side of my mouth. This will most likely be an expensive mistake.")
So the evening ended with me dragging my son outside and picking, fleck by tiny fleck, what appeared to amount to 7 Tootsie Rolls out of his braces so he could open his mouth. Every time someone walked by, he shoved me and moaned/screamed through his gooey mouth to"get off" of him. Then I would have to chase him further across the campus with a sticky, Tootsie Roll covered finger, screaming, "10,000 dollars! You just destroyed 10,000 dollars worth of orthodontics! Get back here and let me pick it out!" The other parents scurried past in horror.
I think I have pretty much secured my outsider position in the bleachers. Me and my sticky finger. And it's very likely, at this point, that my son will be joining us there. And if you are wondering about my daughter? Working the room like a politician. Amazing. Two bleacher nerds produced a someone who can charmingly mingle with any crowd. I should get a blood test.
~dana
If 1/2x +1/If 1/2x +1/2(1/2x + 1/2(1/2x +1/2(1/2x + ... = y,
then x = ? 2(1/2x + 1/2(1/2x +1/2(1/2x + ... = y,
then x = ?
