God, I'm glad I'm not in high school anymore. It mores than makes up for the fact that I'm expected to clean toilets regularly now.
T R I G O N O M E T R Y
Tangents, signs and cosines, please
Lord oh lord, keep me from these
I entreat you, keep from me
Wretched trigonometry
Algebra was bad enough
Cubic roots were nasty stuff
But I longed to run and flee
Faced with trigonometry
How I prayed I might be freed
Of times, distances and speed
How I blanched at X + Z
Until trigonometry
Dirt dull teachers drilled and droned!
Inside, how I griped and groaned!
Bored and baffled, equally
By that trigonometry
Even now, full-grown and wise
I can be cut down to size
All I have to do is see
That word -- ‘trigonometry’
|
Written by Phil (6730 comments posted) 14th December 2006 |
And I loved it - in fact I loved everything about maths. I think you either 'see' patterns and concepts in maths, or you don't. If you don't, learning methods can be very trying. The thing that finally did for me in maths was calculus. I could do it, but could never see it or really understand how it worked.
All the best, Phil. |
Written by ellipinnock (1753 comments posted) 14th December 2006 |
With Phil on this one loved maths until we got onto imaginary numbers and higher order differential equations and I started to feel like Alice in Wonderland and gave up in disgust (especially as the exceptionally bright vietnamese girl in my class could do it all effortlessly in her head!) I liked this witzl - captured the frustration.
Elli |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 14th December 2006 |
Thank you for commenting. And for understanding!
Almost everyone in my family was good at math. My mother was good at teaching it, my older sister was gifted at it; my younger sister was a year ahead of me. I had a 'block.' And, I suspect, I took after my father.
Watching my husband helping my kids with their math homework now, all the memories have come back. I actually took algebra over again at university and got a C+. The instructor thought I was crazy: I was so proud I almost wept. Little did he know what I'd come from . . . |
Written by Talisker (1326 comments posted) 15th December 2006 |
I think you should try to integrate Mary, not to differentiate yourself from the rest of us. Your talent tends towards infinity as your ego tends towards zero, oops that's calculus isn't it!
Trigonometry - angles - you often go off at a tangent...errr - dairy lea triangles are isoceles I think...yes. A great life skill is the trig - I use it every day.
Nice poem.
Oli |
Yay!
Written by kitten_princess (31 comments posted) 15th December 2006 |
A poem about maths! I knew maths and poetry had to be linked somehow.
Even though the poem is the complete opposite to the way I feel, it's a good piece! I liked it! With me, it was geography and art that filled me with dread...
Talisker's comment = very awesome. Hehe! 
[In the first line, should it be "sines"? Unless you mean plus/minus signs...]
Kitten xx |
Completely Agree
Written by Abigail (29 comments posted) 5th February 2008 |
I loved your poem, its exactly how i feel.
I thought you might want to hear from someone who wasn't great at math.
I struggled through math during high school, and after repeating each class twice i finally learned enough to pass, and guess what? just as i suspected, its completely useless.
I dont have any critisism, your writing is funny and light, I would love to hear more. |
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