Algebra and the Art of Test Failure

I excelled in nearly every other subject, some because they came naturally and some because I applied some study skills.

But it's possible I have either an atrophied mathematics area of my gray matter, or I simply DON'T HAVE that lobe of my brain...I simply cannot do algebra (and you can imagine how much fun that makes geometry and chemistry, etc...)

What this has to do with homesteading, I don't know, except maybe I'm so very, very glad it doesn't take algebra to can vegetables, weed a garden, sell things at the farmers market, etc. (not that I'm even doing those things yet, but I at least feel confident I COULD if the opportunity arose...)

Today, my sister emailed me one of those Forwards that seem to make the rounds. My email box is where those Forwards usually go to die...I seldom if ever read them, much less respond to them. But today's was titled "How to Fail a Test With Dignity." I took the bait...

I've tried to cut and paste these from the email, but it didn't work. I did, however, find the same pics here and there on the web from others who've passed it around. These are mathematics-related questions, the sort that took me right back to those loooooooonnnnngggg classes where an otherwise bright student felt buried under a leaden weight of hopelessness, watched the mouth of the professor move, the pointer point, the dry erase marker mark the swirly lines and the cryptic letters and numbers on the transparent sheet on an overhead projector and then erase them with his/her thumb, have pop quizzes that may have as well been in Sanskrit or Swahili, and then asked the age-old classtime-wrapper-upper question only second before the dismissal bell rang "Now...any questions??"

Here is evidence I was not alone. (I have no idea where this email forward originated, so I give credit to whomever claims it) Yes, there are other hopelessly-algebraic-and-mathematically-crippled students out there, flailing around for answers to those ever-present tests the torturers/interragators math teachers dole out.

I'm having flashbacks...

Here's what kept me laughing this afternoon...

Oh, how this could have been me, trying to wrestle for an answer, any answer...

I sense an artistic soul anguished that the teacher can't existentially understand a simple English word here...

Shaken, or stirred?

I probably would have written "because he takes his bi-polar meds regularly"... (sorry)

Actually, which scenario here is more true to life?? lol


And my hands-down personal favorite... (not good for anyone to look at if you suffer from stress incontinence...)

I applaud all the algebraic zeros of the world, and your struggle to survive. I love your genius...I feel your pain.

;-)