Thursday, April 20, 2006

Out of Control

You know, I'm all for things like World Laboratory Animal Day, Sleep Awareness Week, and National High Five Day. Until these topics are regular parts of our quotidian discourse, awareness weeks, days months, etc. serve as a reminder to our sense of social, um, awareness. Plus, they have snappy mottoes- "Sleep- As important as diet and exercise, only easier!"2

However, here's a reminder I didn't need:



I've been trying to forget about mathematics ever since I stormed out of my last math course in high school1, I've been trying to forget math. But it keeps stalking me like paparazzi onTomKitten. Everywhere I go it's math math math: make change; pay the bills; do your taxes; subtract the real time from whatever time your alarm clock thinks it is to find out just how late to work you are; IT JUST WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE. I do NOT want to be more aware of math.

April is also National Poetry Appreciation Month. So, in honor of both mathematics month and poetry month, a poem:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Thinking of math
Makes me spew.

Can I get a high five for a soporific poem that raises awareness about math? Great, I'm going to go free some lab animals, because in the words of Stephen Fry, "I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers."


1. "Imaginary number my ass! You guys are just making this shit up now!"
2. Try telling that to your boss when she catches you sleeping at your desk... it works really well.

2 Comments:

Blogger Karinanne said...

I like math, but do we really need a whole month dedicated to awareness of math?

1:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In an amusing coincidence, the underappreciated cartoonist Tony Cochran has addressed this topic throughout this week in "Agnes."

http://www.snoopy.com/creators/agnes/index.html

As for myself, I love math and I'm outraged that the month dedicated to Math Awareness is only thirty days long. Maybe I'm just reinforcing Asian stereotypes, but I'm not ashamed of my love.

1:39 AM  

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