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Wednesday, February 04, 2009
How To Feel Fourteen Again
Not, of course, that you'd want to. Sixteen? I can see wanting to feel sixteen, although you couldn't induce me personally to go back and actually be sixteen for any amount of money. Ten? Ditto. But fourteen, that's right there along with twelve and thirteen in the Miserably Awkward and Uncomfortable range. No thank you.
But if by any chance you ever did want to feel fourteen, there's a simple remedy that only costs $60 plus materials: take an algebra class. The algebra itself isn't what does it. Algebra is pristine and pure and beautiful; algebra is order from chaos and music without sound; algebra, in short, is ageless. Successfully working a page of algebra problems makes me feel like I've just helped to create a fresh, clean universe where it's always springtime. No, it's that sentence:
"I have to do my algebra homework."*
Ding! I feel in my soul that my bangs are soaring three inches above the top of my head, and that if I look down I'll find I'm wearing too-tight rolled-up cutoffs and white canvas (knockoff) Keds without socks or shoelaces. Not to mention the painful crush on the bespectacled, skinny, soft-spoken boy with an era-appropriate mullet and braces who barely knows I'm alive.
Oh, please, make it stop. I'm going to have to come up with alternate terminology; there's no way around it.
*(Not that I actually uttered this phrase very often at that age, unless it was approximately twenty minutes before the start of my 6th-period algebra class.)
In all seriousness, I am as glad about studying algebra this semester as I thought I'd be. You may remember from last semester, when I was up to my eyes in psychobabble, that I held an algebra class out before myself as a reward for surviving the term without needing to be institutionalized. It worked; you'll note the conspicuous absence of a straitjacket, in spite of the number of papers I had to write for that Godforsaken communications class. So now I traipse off down to the valley every Monday night to sit for three hours in a surprisingly diverse class taught by a youthful blonde high-school algebra teacher who looks startlingly like one of my bridesmaids and who speaks with an Eastern European accent that I'm sure her young male students find extremely alluring. It's a very happy time.
I'm also taking a class in California history that I don't need, but it's taught up here by an instructor I enjoy on a night when everyone else was busy anyway so I signed up. Last week we were asked to tell what topics we were thinking of for the papers we'll turn in later in the semester, and fully half the class is apparently planning to write seven to ten pages about the Gold Rush. I pity the instructor. I personally am going to add spice to the mix by writing about the Hetch Hetchy water system. I KNOW. You can't WAIT to read that one, and I'll bet the poor beleaguered teacher can't either. (I had it narrowed down to that or the life of James Lick, but in the end I decided against doing a biographical paper, even though the research trips would have been AWESOME.)
Comments
Toney suggested I do it on Hetch Hetchy, and I was like, no.. exept in an "eewww" kind of voice. =) LOL! I am having such a hard time with this one. sigh
Posted by: debi at February 5, 2009 03:12 PM
I LOVED fourteen. Good times.
Posted by: jennifer at February 5, 2009 09:14 PM
14 was my worst year. Hands down. Algebra makes me frustrated and makes me feel like life is hard and gray. hahaha
Posted by: Denise at February 6, 2009 01:44 PM
Is Hetch Hetchy the one where the Sierra Club people more or less said, "Fine, dam *that* one, i you promise to leave the Grand Canyon alone," then took a boat trip down it just before it was filled up, looked around, and mumbled "Oops"? (Or am I confusing it with Lake Powell?)
Posted by: dichroic at February 6, 2009 08:57 PM
Honestly? I don't want to be one day younger than I am right now. I successfully lived this long, why try my luck a second time?
I am taking finite mathmatics this semester and I have to say that algebra is going to drive me to drink. There is a reason I am a lit/radio major - no figuring. If I have to factor the difference of cubes one more second, I'm going to freak out. Blegh.
Posted by: MamaGeph at February 9, 2009 04:13 PM
Gah, yeah, 14 was not so good. 12 was great for me, though. And I LOVE algebra.
Posted by: Kat with a K at February 17, 2009 07:00 AM
