Math for Everyday Life

Once upon a time when I was a math teacher, I tended to specialize in the basic algebra courses. I should just leave it at that... I was a "specialist" -- yeah, that's the ticket. You know, like I turned down the higher-level stuff to pursue my calling of helping the confused entry-level guys.... Sounds better than the truth: as a long-time adjunct, I often got stuck did I say stuck? I meant assigned the courses that had a lot of sections to cover and were perhaps not quite as popular with the regular faculty.

In any case, I probably taught some variation on Elementary Algebra 20 or 30 times, and while I wouldn't say I did it in my sleep (OK, some of those 7 AM classes were borderline), I did definitely develop a somewhat ritualized shtik.

For example, opposites. Low-level math students are conditioned to think of - as "minus" or perhaps "negative"... but is "-x" a negative number? I tried to get them to read this as "the opposite of x", and I told them: it depends on where you're standing. If you're on the number line to the right of zero (positive), the opposite is in fact negative; but if you're on the other side of zero, taking the opposite results in a positive number. Make sense? All right, for your homework, do the odd-numbered problems on page 117....

Well, as I so often told my students: the math you're paying for, but the philosophy you get for free -- and so it is that so much in life depends on where you're standing.

Like Robin Williams. It's amazing how many of his movies I've seen, but I can't think of too many of them that really involved me viscerally. That may be because we never quite lose the awareness that we're watching **Robin Williams**; a high percentage of his movies exist for the sole purpose of allowing him to do his running-around, arms-flapping, funny-voices, high-energy thing he does... but again, maybe it depends on where you're standing.

Recently I re-watched Mrs. Doubtfire, many years after my first viewing. First of all, I have to say it's really not a documentary. It might be in the same zip code as plausible, but it's certainly not walking distance. The mere fact that a man who's obviously hairier than several species of apes can pass for a woman is actually only the tip of the iceberg.

And, OK, it's not trying to be. It's a fairly broad comedy with an inoffensive "awwww...." kind of moral to it, and it's enjoyable enough on that level. Then, we reached the pivotal courtroom scene.

In that scene, the ex-wife (Sally Field) is petitioning for sole custody of the kids, and he delivers a speech about how losing touch with his kids would devastate him; there's no way he could live without them. And suddenly I found myself on the verge of tears, putting myself inside the scene and thinking what it would be like not to see my kids every day.

Now, I saw this 10 or 15 years ago and enjoyed it -- certainly wasn't traumatized by it -- but this time it was like all the air was being sucked out of the room. I'm surely standing in a different place now... maybe even the opposite of where I was then.

TFD: Like Looking in the Mirror

I am always mindful of writing for a varied audience -- granted, my 'usual audience' could probably assemble in a standard cubicle, and my circle of acquaintances doesn't reach the level of diversity of the average reality show cast (or war movie, if you prefer). A high proportion of my connections are made through the church, so we share that faith vocabulary; others of my readers don't relate to that topic as much. So while one of my major categories is "Theology For Dummies", I try to balance out my subjects.

Last year during Holy Week, I tried something a little different... I was a bit tentative about combining, you know, crucifixion & jokes. I'm not sure there's a huge overlap between my audience and Monty Python's, but I just read it again and I think it came out all right. It still makes me smile a little, at least.

Anyway, here we are at Holy Week again and I didn't set out to write a "Holy Week piece", but I kind of fell into it by rereading the story. The story of Holy Week is of course focused on Jesus and His sacrifice; but what struck me on this reading was really the story of the people around Jesus:

• Judas is of course the agreed-upon villain of the piece, and he makes such an inviting target. Probably the most famous betrayal in history, don't you think? And none of us would ever do a thing like that. Except... some scholars think he really did it to try to force Jesus to do something miraculous, or publicly declare himself a king. We can't know for sure, of course, but something about that explanation resonates with me. Is it just vaguely possible that the reason that makes so much sense to me is that I'm personally familiar with the concept of Knowing Better Than God? No, Lord, your timing's pretty good, but you'd be better off doing it my way...
• Peter takes a fair amount of abuse too, traditionally. He's the one who takes front & center claiming, "What, are you kidding, Lord? I've got your back!" and then of course, given that blatant foreshadowing, it's seemingly a matter of moments before he's saying, "What, are you kidding? Never heard of the guy!" Now most of us probably don't cuss out somebody who "accuses" of of being Christians... but I know for myself it's not quite unprecedented to make a promise to God about my behavior or my attitudes, only to see that promise slip away when the opportunity comes to follow through.
• You can group the rest of the disciples, whose major contribution to the story really consists of dozing off while Jesus needs them the most. And again, while they come off as buffoons, I don't think it's a huge stretch to see in their failure a reminder that all of us (OK, I'll just speak for myself) tend to fall asleep at the switch when God calls us to do something. For that matter, I can be much more literal and admit that bedtime prayer & reading time sometimes has about the same effect on me as diphenhydramine.

I've heard it said that one way to read Scripture is to put yourself in the story... and all I can say for myself in this case is that it doesn't take much imagination. I think I've probably mentioned this before (since I've written over 110 posts and I've only ever had about 17 ideas) but one of the fascinations of the Bible for me is that I can open it at random and find a story about someone I know. A lot of times it's me, in fact... and not usually wearing the white hat, either....

Spring Ahead, Fall On Your Face

Any parent with more than a few weeks' experience can tell you that medical crises don't occur at 1:00 on a Tuesday afternoon. No, in fact, even children too young to read a clock are inclined to wait till the household's abed. Bonus points are awarded if the episode coincides with the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.

So I was less than astonished Saturday night when my bedtime preparations (early to try to beat the time change) were interrupted by a fit of barking. In fact, it took mere seconds to recall that we don't even have a dog. Well, of course that's hyperbole: it sounded more like a seal, and I was instantly sure we didn't have one of those.

The daughter had progressed directly from a slight cold to full-on croup (again, not surprisingly, since I had just told my wife I'd looked in and she was sleeping peacefully). This could only mean that it was sauna time -- facilitated by the phone-booth dimensions of our shower. In fact, our entire bathroom could fit inside a lot of the showers you see on HGTV.

Needless to say, the early-to-bed -- which wasn't going to turn out all that early anyway -- was completely by the boards, but at least my pores got a good cleansing.

Our household's Crack Medical Staff determined that the best arrangement would be for the girl to sleep on the floor in our bathroom -- a warm, moist space close at hand -- and further that occasional scheduled check-ins would be necessary throughout the night. Scheduled, as in setting the alarm... and since I am both the keeper and the hearer of the alarm, I would also have scheduled wakeys.

It's not like I ever get much sleep on Time-Change Night anyway. For the "fall-back" event, I always seem to stay up way too late, figuring I'll get it back anyway, and more often than not end up in deficit.

And I've slept with one eye open on Spring-Forward night ever since the fateful events of 2000. I've alluded to this before, but I think I'm finally ready to talk about it. I am, as established, in charge of anything electronic in the house, particularly the items with digital display. However, in 2000 I was a bit preoccupied with my 4-month-old firstborn son, and I neglected to make the rounds of the clocks on that Saturday night... most importantly, of course, the alarm clock.

So it was that, Sunday morning at "7:55", I sat in the rocker feeding the boy as my wife began her leisurely preparation for the morning's first church service. That is, the 9 a.m. service. I happened to glance toward the TV....

Can I just say, while I'm not a huge fan of The Cable Company -- although I'm sure yours is very different, of course -- there is one thing they do that's an indisputable, maybe even indispensable, public service: they deliver the correct time to your home. And that was how I discovered that it was actually 8:55... I'm sure there was an audible clicking of mental levers and switches as my omission dawned on me.

Naturally the scene devolved into a Keystone Kops short from there, but we were able to phone ahead (to a neighbor, since the church itself had no phone!) and basically ask them to start the service and keep it going till she could get there.

So... perhaps you can understand why I get a little bit unsettled round about this time of year.

I did find a way, for once, to foil the Amazing Alarm-Clock Boy. I actually forgot to reset his clock before bed, and then I thought, "Let's see what happens!" Sure enough, he didn' t emerge to use the bathroom till "6:30", little knowing it was really 7:30. Think he'd notice if I set it back another hour?

I'll Take Geeks for $1000, Alex

It struck me today that I have something in common with the denizens of a certain fictional island. If you're a fan, you'll remember the hatch people, having to push the button every 108 minutes.... sometimes the timer would get down close to zero and the alarms would start howling -- someone would have to leap to the keyboard before the time ran out.

I've got that same little clock running in my head all the time when I haven't posted. Once I get past about a week (in recent months I've stretched it to 8 or 9 days), the alarm starts shrieking. I sometimes get tempted to knock out a couple paragraphs just to say I've posted -- I could probably tell a story about one of the kids every other day, but I've just decided I don't want to do the Funny Kid Story blog.

This is the same season I complain about every year because there's so much going on and fitting it all in is an issue. Somehow, though, I always find time to read. I just finished Brainiac, by Ken Jennings, the all-time biggest Jeopardy winner. I found the book utterly engaging, although that may have something to do with the fact that Jennings reveals himself as a family guy with a strong faith who works as a computer programmer and enjoys trivia. I can't say quite why that resonated with me so much.

Here's where it gets weird: another one of my favorite recent reads was Prisoner of Trebekistan, a memoir by ... another former Jeopardy champion. OK, it seems pretty logical -- when you have an interest in something, it can be fun to read about it. Except for one fact: I can't remember the last time I watched Jeopardy. I like the show well enough; I enjoy playing along at home; I've even entertained fantasies of being on the show -- but it's hardly a passion of mine.

In my defense, both books are great reads even for the non-fanatic. Both of them are wonderfully witty; Jennings in particular seems to have been blessed with the same sense of humor as me (I think you should read his book anyway). Brainiac also discusses the history of quiz shows and trivia itself -- I discovered that, like crossword puzzles, the modern enthusiasm for trivia dates to the 1920s. The other book, by Bob Harris, features some interesting ideas on improving memory.

Or maybe I'm just a geek.

I'm not sure I really need to convince anyone of that, but just in case you need further evidence, a story from my past (I was reminded of this recently during my time-travel experiments):

I was, it surely goes without saying, not the top-ranked physical specimen in my peer group growing up. So in my mid-teens, I decided it was time to make a change. I got a set of weights and set them up in the basement, and started a regular lifting program. I decided I'd probably do better with some music to pump me up -- so to speak. Every time I would use the same cassette to help get the pulse racing.

Something screaming, intense, high energy? Van Halen, maybe?

Nah -- This One's for You. Because as you know, nothing says macho like Barry Manilow.