alien nation
If you've ever wanted to feel like more of an outsider than you are, the way is simple; study mathematics. Oh, and leave the ivory tower. In the grove of academe, mathematicians are an accepted oddity. A standard deviation, if you will. But outside...
Al (cook running the expo training class): So you guys in college?
Travis: Yeah.
J: Yeah.
Me: Just graduated.
Al: What did you do?
Me: Math.
Everyone: *uncomfortable silence*
Crickets: Chirp.
Al: Man, I can't even do geometry.
And this is not an isolated event. I want to tell them, every one of them, that they can do math, that their high-school teachers fucked them over, that anyone can construct nested infinities on a fucking bar napkin, but then I catch myself. "Patrick," I tell myself, "Stop. Smile. Nod."
Because math is like Victorian literature, ecological activism, and stock-car racing; if you're not into it, it is really really boring. I mean coma-inducing, chew-your-own-leg-off-to-escape boring. So unless you've got an interested audience or you are totally hot (in which case half the world is an interested audience), talking math is a bad idea.
So I stand there, glomp sour cream onto lettuce with an ice-cream scoop, and leave, and the fuckers think I'm Steinmetz because I can integrate a curve. It is nonsense. But the alternative is to tell them how to integrate a curve. And that can only end in one way: me being scalded by a tub of hot grease. True story.
Al (cook running the expo training class): So you guys in college?
Travis: Yeah.
J: Yeah.
Me: Just graduated.
Al: What did you do?
Me: Math.
Everyone: *uncomfortable silence*
Crickets: Chirp.
Al: Man, I can't even do geometry.
And this is not an isolated event. I want to tell them, every one of them, that they can do math, that their high-school teachers fucked them over, that anyone can construct nested infinities on a fucking bar napkin, but then I catch myself. "Patrick," I tell myself, "Stop. Smile. Nod."
Because math is like Victorian literature, ecological activism, and stock-car racing; if you're not into it, it is really really boring. I mean coma-inducing, chew-your-own-leg-off-to-escape boring. So unless you've got an interested audience or you are totally hot (in which case half the world is an interested audience), talking math is a bad idea.
So I stand there, glomp sour cream onto lettuce with an ice-cream scoop, and leave, and the fuckers think I'm Steinmetz because I can integrate a curve. It is nonsense. But the alternative is to tell them how to integrate a curve. And that can only end in one way: me being scalded by a tub of hot grease. True story.