Today the subject of algebra and etc. came up on Facebook as we were discussing different issues about high school. Math has been the bane of my existence since the fourth grade when "new math" hit us like an atomic bomb. I never recovered.
Now, I am very good at arithmetic but at mathematics as a whole I am just as lost as I can be. Now I can give you the answers(or at least I could)to almost every algebra problem that my teachers gave me and at one point I could do logarithms in my head. What I could not do and what I still cannot do is to show my work on paper! I could not wrap my brain around it and was thus labeled as "bad at math" by those around me and myself. It was something I believed even though standing in front of class I could solve in my head whatever problems my teacher put up on the board almost immediately. You don't get good grades for this. You get good grades for showing your work on paper.
When I took math tests I would write down the answers which my teachers finally, and begrudgingly, acknowledged I was really coming up with myself and not copying off of others. Then because we would get credit for writing down something, anything(free license for the creative soul)I would write bad poetry, personal essays, and then in later life, recipes. The recipes did not have any measurements in them because I have trouble wrapping my brain around that too. That is why I cook and do not bake much of anything. You have to measure if you are baking. Bah!!!
My blog post requires you to have at least a measure of understanding of the above for you to fully appreciate my story.
I discovered a virtual world of play, party and sin...purely by accident. I was looking for a place to play slots and blackjack online. I found such a place. It was awesome. I loved playing slots and blackjack. It was an awesome time killer when I didn't have the energy for anything else.
THEN I found out that there was more to this place. I already knew that you could buy charms to help boost your scores but a few months in I found out that there were charm parties that people went to in order to collect these charms. They also danced, chatted and enjoyed themselves. It truly was a party atmosphere. It was great.
So my avatar mingled around with other avatars...people would meet, hook up, have online romances, cybersex, just enjoy "living the dream" on their computers(and later phones). Carefully playing the game I soon learned which charms had the best payoff in the slots. This was where I could consistently win some money and very soon by playing wisely I was a billionaire. And after that a multi-billionaire. It was heady stuff. Lots of men chasing my beautiful avatar, partying like crazy while sitting at y computer desk and winning big buck courtesy of applied mathematics.
On day as I was playing in the slots room a gentleman in a jaunty red cap started talking to me. I don't remember what we talked about but we talked a LONG time. When we finally finished I told Miss Teffers that I MUST get to know this guy because he was really SMART!!! It was like lightening had struck my little geek soul and I had found someone smart, funny and a little off center like I am. It had to be written in the stars. Also, his birthday was the day after mine. Too funny!!!
So let me take you through the months quickly. He was the only person I had ever met whose IQ was higher than mine. He'd been a chemist before he had to retire for health reasons and he understood my cultural references and I understood his. Our previous experience in relationships was that it was very difficult for anyone to keep up with us. We were both smitten.
I will call him Magnus XLII. He'd like that. Anyway, Magnus and I both had an affinity for playing the slots. I found out that he had also been working on which charms played the best in the slots but he hadn't been comparing different charms in varying games for example I had quickly learned by trial and error that while one charm played that best overall...many games played better with certain slots and the payoff for other charms was almost nil. It was like you were wasting your money if you played those charms in your games. Together we came up with charts of how each charm played in the games. It was math at its FINEST hour!!! LOL!!!
After that we started doing time trials with the machines and the charms adding a whole new dimension of playing by "speed slotting" which was pressing down on the space bar to make the games roll faster and the charms would blow through like lightening but the fake money was pouring in and pouring in fast. We were having a great time.
Not long after we started with our calculations and charting Magnus said to me, "I thought you didn't like math." To which I replied, "The only thing I didn't like about math was having to show my work because I didn't understand how to do that. I could tell someone the answers but I didn't 'get' how to show my work."
At this point Magnus began to wax poetic about the beauty of mathematical formulas and how they were so classically elegant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!!! I just rolled my eyes and listened to him. Then I told him that I had been rolling my eyes the entire time. We laughed together because he knew it was true...not all geeks share the same love for all things geeky. The thing about me rolling my eyes at him became part of our schtick and he often commented that he heard my eyes rolling all the way to Chicago when he knew that I was rolling them at him. We had such great fun with this. True geeks for sure!!
Often when we would be doing calculations I would take the data and give Magnus and almost immediate answer but he didn't hear it because he was too busy writing everything on paper and double checking it all on the calculator. I would roll my eyes a LOT during these times but in the end you can say what my loving Magnus and I bonded over math, fake money and slots machines. Good times, good times!!!
Ciao,
Ardee-ann aka Quantum Stardust
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