Posts Tagged ‘math’

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Kids Today: Ridiculous

November 6th, 2009 by pladd

Monday, tutoring group
Boy: Ugh, I hate it when my phone vibrates, it feels like my leg is going to fall off.
Me: Who’s calling you?
Boy: My friend. He probably wants to come over and play Xbox.
Me: You have an Xbox? Wish I had an Xbox.
Boy: Psh, you can’t play Xbox, it’s for boys!
Girl: Nu-uh!
Me: Are you a video game chauvinist?
Boy: Name one Xbox game.
Me: I can’t have an Xbox, I’m too poor.

Tuesday, tutoring group
Girl: Where do you live?
Me: You’re just trying to distract me so I won’t make you do more decimal division.
Girl: No, I really want to know! I love decimal division! Decimal division is for rockers! (does rockers sign)
Me: ….. Awesome.
Girl: You’re kind of helping so you can be like my backup singer. Or second guitar.
Me: That’s like… my dream.

Wednesday, tutoring group
Girl: Do I really have to keep multiplying fractions? I know it already!
Me: Okay, do the Challenge page. That will prove to me that you’re a MASTER!
Girl: Whatever.
Me: (to the tune of the Pokemon theme song) I WANNA BE THE BEST AT MATH, like no one ever was. TO MULTIPLY FRACTIONS IS MY REAL TEST, TO REDUCE THEM IS MY CAUSE…
Girl: You are the most annoying tutor ever.
Me: You mean you’re not so inspired right now?
Girl: Can I be with Mr. Cameron next time?

Then I realized that my tutoring kids are probably too young to even know what Pokemon is, let alone know the theme song. To be fair, the only reason I do is because Thomas had the CD and made us listen to it in the car for a period of two months. Rob also told me that the kids he works with had no idea what a velociraptor was because they were too young to have ever seen Jurassic Park. And if they did see it, they would probably be all “This movie sucks. That dinosaur doesn’t even look real!” IN MY DAY we made do with moderately realistic computer animated dinosaurs and puppets! Kids today. Ridiculous.

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Modesty, Math, and Waffles

October 2nd, 2009 by pladd

Steven: You can look at how many page hits and where they’re coming from with google analytics. Because I bet so many people are reading your blog and not commenting. You should think of a way to entice them to comment.
Me: Meh. I’m not going to cramp their style. I don’t need commenting. I know they’re there and they know I’m amazing. It’s like a symbiotic relationship. Just like how I don’t need an app on facebook to tell me who my top friends are.
Steven: Well, maybe a modesty app

Me: … so really the fraction bar is just a different way of writing a division sign. We could write this as 1 divided by 2 if we wanted.
Boy: Which is 0.5!!!! That’s so cool! I wonder if my teacher knows that.
Me: Probs.
Boy: What?
Me: It’s actually a math secret I invented.

This kid was literally ridiculously excited about fraction/division/decimal equivalents and could not WAIT to tell his teacher about them.

So last week while in H-Town Steven’s mom bought us some pots and pans. Yay! Now we can cook in more than just a soup pot or the World’s Littlest Frying Pan! However, she also included Steven’s old waffle maker in the box they came in, not realizing that, as part of his random gift giving every time I see him, my Uncle had already given me a brushed silver Industrial Size Belgian Waffle Maker. Literally the same one we had in the servery. Steven’s waffle maker looks puny and weak by comparison, but also scrappy and good at maneuvering. Clearly you know where this is going.

Stay tuned for WAFFLEOFF2009!

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One Month to Learn All of Math

September 10th, 2009 by pladd

Boy: How long have you worked here?
Me: About a month.
Boy: WOAH. You know a lot of math for only a month.
Me: I knew most math before I came here. I didn’t learn all of math in a month.
Boy: I’m going to try!

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Who Invented Numbers?: My math tutoring group decides

September 9th, 2009 by pladd

Boy: Who invented numbers?
Girl: THE PRESIDENT. Duh.
Boy: Which president?
Girl: THE president!
Other Boy: I thought it was God.
Girl: Nu-uh!
Other Boy: God invented the president! So if the president invented numbers, GOD invented numbers!
Me: And what identity is that?
All: (general mumblings)
Boy: Ooh! Ooh! Transitive property!
Girl: I knew that.
Me: Good.

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Things Written In the Margins of My Notes

August 25th, 2009 by pladd

First Prof of the day on being a babyboomer: “Since I was born in 1947, I’m at the cutting edge of ruining your futures. Do well in my class so that I can continue to live like this: (picture of himself drinking wine)” I love it when people use powerpoint unprofessionally.

My new hobby: counting how many times I hear the word “metadata”. I already got sick of it during orientation so I figured I would masochistically track exactly how many times it’s said this semester by people who are only trying to sound pretentious. Luckily, I am now a graduate student, and not to be intimidated by buzzwords. Neo-classical post-colonial paradigm! Come on, guys, I was an English major. That’s like all we do.
Current “Metadata” count: 17

My tutoring group, asking me about myself to avoid working: “Why do you want to be a librarian when you’re so good at math?” I haven’t been told I was good at math since the ninth grade. Maybe I too could have been an SE with some POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT.

A giant snail with a flashlight in its mouth chasing a stick figure man over the Intro to Cataloging. No one said margin doodles had to make sense.

Number of people I’ve met so far who have heard of Rice before: 2. Way to go, “Who Knew?” Campaign. Way to go.

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