End of Chapter One

Well, I woke up this morning to find this email note from Professor John Lapeyre waiting for me:
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final 102
course 95
course A

Highest score in either section.
There was one who scored 100.
Thats serious 'most improved'.

Have fun with the rest of the semester.

Best,
John

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A nice way to start the day.

I thought I had done well on the final, but not that well. O.K., so now it's on to the next class, I hope.

Reflecting back, I've enjoyed the semester a lot. Learning new things is always stimulating, but I also am grateful for the chance to meet inspiring people such as Professor Donald Saari and Dr. Jerry Droege and my many classmates.

And it really was a pleasure to have Prof. Lapeyre as a teacher. I'm sure he would rather have been just about anywhere other than in a classroom full of 18-year-olds who hate math and didn't want to be there for a second. I hope he found my presence and naive (and weird) enthusiasm to be amusing, if not refreshing.

Seth is pretty much assuring me that even though I did well enough in this class, I still may not be quite prepared for college algebra. I hope I can find out. I plan to spend a good part of Christmas break going through the lots of stuff in the text book that there wasn't time to cover during the semester.

A few catch up thoughts as this first part of my journey ends:


Students and math

The main thing I noticed about the kids in math class who weren't going to pass or were just barely going to pass is that they hadn't made the transition to realizing that their education is their responsibility, to the teacher's.

They were quick to blame John for their "not getting it." I think John did what he could. Sure, he could have been better in a whole lot of ways, but that shouldn't matter. Today, between tutoring centers at both the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, a good textbook, and CDs and an excellent Web site, the help was there.

I hope it (personal responsibility, not necessarily math) clicks for them.


The book

A funny thing happened on the way to learning high school algebra II in college. I really started to enjoy it and because I did, when I had some time, I found myself wanting to learn new math things rather than think about a book proposal or even consider the time it would take to actually write "The Minimalist Math Book for Journalists."

And, after getting a dose of reality from Lauren Miller, a former UA journalism student who is now working in both marketing and acquisitions for a textbook publishing firm in Scottsdale, I figured out that I was not that interested in performing what is essentially a labor of love, especially one that wasn't particularly needed. I'm letting that idea rest for now.

However . . .

String theory

String theory is some obscure physics idea describing sub atomic particles (or something) that is probably not true anyway.

For journalists, "string" is something completely different. String is (are?) the bits and pieces of sometimes random information or thoughts that relate to what could someday, possibly, be a book or an article.

Here's an example. Tom Miller noticed this and sent it to me.

From Jim Harrison's Returning to Earth (2007), p. 183:

Part of me was the university sophomore who reads Dostoevsky's statement "Two plus two is the beginning of death" and never gets over it.

But -- that only pulls up a few Google references.

Both are from Harrison.

The other, curiously, is from his 2005 book, True North, which has the following:

I was startled reading in a Sprague journal the quote from the Constance Garnett translation of Dostoevsky that said, "Two plus two is the beginning of death.

"Every other cite for the quote has it more benign, as I sent to you before: I admit that two times two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are going to praise everything, two times two makes five is sometimes also a very charming little thing.

Next time I see Harrison (4:30 pm, any afternoon, The Wagon Wheel, Patagonia, on the W end of town) I'll call him on this.

Tom Miller Tucson, Arizona
www.tommillerbooks.com

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So, I am collecting string.

Will it become anything? That's one thing about string. You never know, but you collect it anyway.