Of math and whiskers

So I haven’t written much of anything lately. No blogging, obviously. And not much else, either. A few months ago I excitedly wrote a little note about how I couldn’t stop writing, how I just had stories and ideas and inspiration coming at me from every direction. That was a very stupid thing to do. Clearly, I pissed off someone, somewhere. Sharon Stone, maybe? I don’t know. But someone is pissed.

So I’ve been wanting to write, but can’t find the drive, and I’ve been wanting to blog but just haven’t found the inspiration. I don’t really have the inspiration now, either, but I’m writing this post anyway.

I haven’t shaved in, oh I don’t know, quite a few days now. Which is weird because I don’t really enjoy having a scruffy face. A few times in college and during the winter I let it grow out to the point it was a full beard and that was OK, I guess. But in general I don’t enjoy it and yet I still haven’t mustered the will to actually shave either of the last two mornings. (It’s not that uncommon for me to skip a day or even both days of shaving over the weekend.) Yesterday, since Diana was sick, I basically just stayed in bed with her and then was running late and didn’t have time. Today I went stereotypical and was actually reading the paper, which not only took up the time I should have been shaving, but considering that I live in Phoenix and subscribe to the Republic, was pretty much a colossal waste of time on all counts. Now the whiskers are long enough that it’s going to take a good bit of time when I actually do find the time in my busy schedule. I suppose I could just get up earlier and have more time in the morning, but … no, sorry, even I can’t take that suggestion seriously and I suggested it.

This reminds me a little of freshman year of college. When I registered for my first semester, an 8 am class seemed like a great idea. After all, in high school class started at 7:25 and I had to be up way earlier than that to get ready and walk or drive to school. So I figured a class that started at 8, that was literally across the street from my dorm, would be no problem. I mean, it couldn’t have required more than 150 or 200 steps to get from my bed to a seat in this lecture hall. It should also be noted, however, that I registered just a few weeks after graduating from high school – by the time I was midway through the summer I was starting to suspect the early class was a bad idea. Anyway, I’d be surprised if I went to that class even half the time. I know that sounds bad but not only was I generally sleeping through it, I figured out pretty quickly that I didn’t actually need to go. It was an anthropology class and there wasn’t much going on there I didn’t know already. Moreover, the professor didn’t do much but go over the reading, so I just read and showed up on days when we had tests or papers due and I got an A in that class. Which is sad in many ways, but especially so considering how poorly I did in most of my classes that I attended that semester.

Anyway, I decided I was done with that 8 am shit and only took one other class that started so early the rest of college (it was required). I tried as best I could to not really have anything going on before noon, though usually I had to. Second semester freshman year I took a math class that started at 9. I wasn’t keen on it starting that early, but that was the only time open and I really wanted to get my math requirement out of the way. Now, I’m really pretty good with math, but I’m not one of those to whom math comes naturally. I know someone, somewhere was actually the first person to discover (invent? Whatever) algebra, but that wouldn’t have been me. It’s not intuitive to me. Still, once given a very basic starting level of instruction, I pick it up pretty quickly and do well. This particular math class had a lot to do with statistics, which seemed pretty simple. It only took me one missed class to realize it wasn’t going to be as simple as anthropology, however. So I made it a point to at least be there, even if I was barely coherent. But the professor didn’t help. It was like he knew we were all barely awake and reveled in his ability to put us all back to sleep. Which was fine, except I would tend to look at a question in the homework that asked something about scheduling airplane routes and think, “I don’t know. That’s a good question.”

One day, after most of the class did particularly poorly on a test, the professor showed some liveliness. He always wore a big straw hat to keep the sun off him and oftentimes he would not remember to remove it even while teaching. Well, on this day he was so upset with our collective inability to understand even these simple concepts that he was actually keeping everyone awake. I mean he was really fuming, all pink in the face and steam coming out of his ears. OK, steam wasn’t really coming out of his ears but it would have if he’d been a cartoon. Then he grabbed the brim of his hat, ripped it off and threw it on the floor. He let out a kind of moan. It wasn’t that he was screaming, he just wanted us to care. I thought for a moment he might jump up and down on top of the hate, like a manager arguing with an umpire. And for a moment I felt really bad. I’d actually done fairly well on the test, but I still felt implicated by his frustration because I knew I wasn’t taking the class seriously and that I could barely stay awake. I made up my mind to change my ways. I would get up well before class started. I would shower. I would eat breakfast. I would pay attention!

Then the professor stopped and said he was moving on with the next chapter. And just like that he was insufferably boring again. People around me drifted away, maybe some even fell asleep. And I was flat out pissed. Not at the students, but at the professor. Didn’t he understand that for just a few minutes he’d been somewhat lively and actually had our attention? Didn’t he understand that if he remained lively while actually teaching that those who chose to show up to class might actually stay awake? Then it hit me. He didn’t want us to learn. Maybe as long as people did poorly it confirmed some preconceived notion he had of us as a slacker generation. Maybe it made him feel intelligent. He was trying to keep statistics his own little secret!

And he’d nearly fooled me, the rat. Anyway, the moral of my story here is I really, really need to shave, because my neck itches and it's driving me crazy.