A person's a person no matter how bad at math
Today I saw two (of my annual allotment of three) movies: Horton Hears a Who and Proof.
A few thoughts.
Horton was pretty overtly religiously symbolic. Maybe just for Mormons, though, I don't know. Lots of: if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen which are true, worlds without end, persecution of the Savior figure. I even thought maybe the producers hired the MoTab for the climactic number.
(we
are
here
we
are
here
we
are
here)
I had a difficult time removing the images of Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnett from my head each time I heard their voices. Doesn't that mean the acting wasn't convincing? Actually, very good acting. They made me laugh. Well, Steve Carrell made me laugh, and that's saying a whole lot for me and an animated flick. (e.g. - Ice Age? I thought it dreadfully unfunny.)
I went to the movie with a whole gaggle of 6 and 7 year olds for a birthday party. My friend traded services to her husband's medical spa for a gazillion movie passes, and the manager just waved us into the theater. She hardly ever pays for anything, just trades credit at the spa. It seriously makes me wish I had a hot commodity that I could offer up in trade. Hmm, I'll have to think about what mad skillz I could offer the world.
Math's not my mad skill, that much I know and that makes me sad. Steve and I both immediately expressed desire to know math better after watching Proof tonight. (Steve also said that math isn't as sexy as reversing the pull of gravity, but obviously you can't have one without the other. Er, you can't have the latter without the former, that is. When I say sexy I mean it like lawyers mean it when they throw it around the conference table, all, "the expert report on blahblah had some sexy facts about suchandsuch" and stuff.) There was a time when I thought I was good at math, but then I peaked intellectually and went to 4th grade, and it's been downhill ever since. No really, I can grasp math concepts pretty well, but I thought I was hot stuff taking AP Calculus and thus testing out of college math altogether, so grade 12 was the last time I ever worked it out.
I want to be hot stuff again. Gwyneth and Anthony and Jake kind of inspired me to add math classes to the list forming in my head of courses I will take when tuition becomes free. Also on the list: bookbinding, chemistry, finance, geography, comparative lit, Isaiah, public policy, film, Spanish, Czech, family history, Norwegian history -- pretty much everything, with the possible exceptions of figure drawing and food science nutrition.
I also don't want to be crazy. Every time I see a movie about mental illness -- which are, incidentally almost 72% likely to be about mathematicians -- I remember about how I don't want to go crazy. Math is good, crazy is scary.
A few thoughts.
Horton was pretty overtly religiously symbolic. Maybe just for Mormons, though, I don't know. Lots of: if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen which are true, worlds without end, persecution of the Savior figure. I even thought maybe the producers hired the MoTab for the climactic number.
(we
are
here
we
are
here
we
are
here)
I had a difficult time removing the images of Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnett from my head each time I heard their voices. Doesn't that mean the acting wasn't convincing? Actually, very good acting. They made me laugh. Well, Steve Carrell made me laugh, and that's saying a whole lot for me and an animated flick. (e.g. - Ice Age? I thought it dreadfully unfunny.)
I went to the movie with a whole gaggle of 6 and 7 year olds for a birthday party. My friend traded services to her husband's medical spa for a gazillion movie passes, and the manager just waved us into the theater. She hardly ever pays for anything, just trades credit at the spa. It seriously makes me wish I had a hot commodity that I could offer up in trade. Hmm, I'll have to think about what mad skillz I could offer the world.
Math's not my mad skill, that much I know and that makes me sad. Steve and I both immediately expressed desire to know math better after watching Proof tonight. (Steve also said that math isn't as sexy as reversing the pull of gravity, but obviously you can't have one without the other. Er, you can't have the latter without the former, that is. When I say sexy I mean it like lawyers mean it when they throw it around the conference table, all, "the expert report on blahblah had some sexy facts about suchandsuch" and stuff.) There was a time when I thought I was good at math, but then I peaked intellectually and went to 4th grade, and it's been downhill ever since. No really, I can grasp math concepts pretty well, but I thought I was hot stuff taking AP Calculus and thus testing out of college math altogether, so grade 12 was the last time I ever worked it out.
I want to be hot stuff again. Gwyneth and Anthony and Jake kind of inspired me to add math classes to the list forming in my head of courses I will take when tuition becomes free. Also on the list: bookbinding, chemistry, finance, geography, comparative lit, Isaiah, public policy, film, Spanish, Czech, family history, Norwegian history -- pretty much everything, with the possible exceptions of figure drawing and food science nutrition.
I also don't want to be crazy. Every time I see a movie about mental illness -- which are, incidentally almost 72% likely to be about mathematicians -- I remember about how I don't want to go crazy. Math is good, crazy is scary.
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