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Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Math Won't Leave Me Alone!

I thought I'd escaped Math. There were the course requirements for school, of course, and I maintained a very high GPA and National Honor Society membership by taking just what was absolutely required to graduate.

So tonight, helping my frustrated Eighth Grader with her homework, I met that old bastard Pythagoras again. He's still an asshole.

I'd also forgotten that I'd forgotten that a number minus a negative number is an addition problem. 7 - 0.5x = 14: x is -14 even though it makes no sense.

Then we got trapped near the Inner Circle of Fault and I almost didn't get Em to bed on time. This is the 8th Grade stuff, and even though I've read and understood college level microbiology and water chemistry texts (when it applied to brewing better beer), I remember even less of 10th Grade geometry than I knew when I squeaked a lousy C out of that class back when the plains were black with buffalo.

If she takes any math past that, or probably past this, it's going to be up to my brother or my father to help her, because I'll be totally lost. Em knows Pythagoras better than me, she explained it and I almost understood it for a sec.

Math. Why me?

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