My Love of Math

Like breathing in toxic chemicals in a metropolitan city or getting a flu shot in the autumn months, this how I equate my feelings with mathematics. It is a necessary evil, an evil none-the-less that without such trivial laws of imaginary and abstract number would make shopping obsolete. Not a very desirable thing. So, yes, math does have some happy applications but toward the whole system past exponents and everything geometry related, because geometry can do no wrong, is like the noxious air particles in Mexico City.

Math is not as bad as my metaphor makes it seem to be. My own attitude towards it, is because of my bias that I can’t do nor like to do mathematical problems. I remember in the fifth grade, they had an open field day that the only way you could go out and participate is if you did a certain number of time tables under the required time limit. I worked and sweated and often cried because I would miss two here with the sevens or three problems with the nines, and you had to get all them right. The last chance to get the fabled golden ticket, I panicked my self into getting them all right. Ever since then, especially of government given test, like the TAAS and the new found TEKS, math would be one my lowest scores- save history. The only math that has my never dying love and affection is geometry. That is my soul mate; if number could ever be such a thing. In ninth grade, I fell in love with finding the angles, proving one shape from the other, finding the arch and the tangent lines. I was the crazy one in class asking for more homework because I found all the angles in the myriad of triangles that was suppose to take us the whole week to finish. I looked forward to that class everyday and glowed after each lesson. The tests were challenges, more like puzzles and games to occupy my time until we learned something new. I was infatuated with geometry, and I dare say that what I felt for that class can be defined as true love. That’s why pre-cal wasn’t so bad- once I had a better teacher that explained things- all we were doing was finding angles but with harder applications. It was like finding out that your betrothed had a twin brother.

Calculus, in a metaphor, is the mother-in-law. I was apprehensive about this course, just because I could be. No real reason to be so worried, because it’s not has hard as I thought it would be. The only thing that I can’t stand is the fact that there is no rhyme and usually an overtly complicated reason to everything. In calculus, you do things because some old, dead, white guy made this arbitrary law that just happened to work, and we are forced to suffer in the aftermath. But in geometry, you do something because a circle has 360 degree, only and forever, and you just subtract from there. But in calculus, you find the derivative why? Because we need a good grade to get into medical school. I genuinely try to understand why the prime of u needs to be multiplied to the function of v and plus the vice versa to find . . . but that’s why I got frustrated with math in my youth. I want everything to be explained: A goes to B because of Q. But it took me a year of college level chemistry to learn to do thing just because I had too to pass. That’s how I look at this course, and the only reason I understand how to do any of the “upper” level math at all, is because I keep it within the ramifications of don’t-try-to-understand-why-just-understand-what-and-when. It makes things a lot simpler.

So no, I would not take this course in my spare time because it would be a waste of time. The most math that I would need, I surmise, would be enough to know how many bedroom sets I need in my house, the area of my master bedroom and how many shirts I can get away with and stay within my budget. Yes, I do realize that some of the math that I will use is outside this 9th grade application of math, but I love how in my sarcastic state, all the math past 10th becomes a waste of time. If I was a music major, I might want to understand the placement of notes in relation to mathematical equations or if 5+5=10 really does sound like Mary had a Little Lamb; or if I was astronomy major I would like to have the formula to find the number of galaxies in the milky way. But considering that none of these are my major of choice, and that I don’t really think that I need to know the quotient rule in order to diagnosis the psychosis of a deranged patient, clearly I wouldn’t be taking this class on my own time or money. Of course, I’ve only completed one semester of psychology in high school. I might have to calm a astronomical savant by doing a physic problem explaining the earths gravitational force, or have to explain to an ex music major that the makers of the chain rule aren’t sending people subliminal diabolical messages. In the farthest reach of the hypothetical, I might have to describe the mental stability of a visiting alien who only communicates through the instantaneous rate of change. In these cases, and only, will this course be imperative to my future as a psychologist. Because according to Michael Crichton, if I am stuck on mission exploring an alien spacecraft, they will appoint us a highly recognized and above-able mathematician.

I will not deny the present or the use of math- it is everywhere and in everything, from programming a computer to calculating the distant an arm flies when the average male is hit by a metro bus. But that doesn’t mean that I have to indulge in its trivialities and nonsense. I will bide my time, bite my lip and bleed to get to through what I have to in order to past not only this class, but this point in life where the derivative of some imaginary concept of a negative square root hold some weight to my over all future and mental well being. But I shall celebrate, mathematically, by taking the legal drinking age, applying it to the number of permissible alcoholic content, times by body weight and finally squaring the number of ounces in a Corona, to the day when I can leave math where it belongs; in the gaping, decayed, and very dead brain cavity of the mathematicians who though of these concepts. True, it holds precedents in the world that we live in, that we lived in and what we will live in, but I can just hire someone to do my taxes and solve that all together. I do what I have to, plain and simple. I add, subtract and divide in order to function in everyday live- but I refuse, I refuse, I refuse to be another mathematical statistic.