Get Off Your Ath and Do Some Math

Math and Me haven't always been friends. In eighth grade, I took Algebra I. I went to class every day, but that was about it. When I should have been learning about the Cartesian Plane and factoring and the FOIL method and all that shit, I sat in the back of the room drawing Batman in my notebook. Consequently, I took Algebra I again in ninth grade. That year was different. I went to class every day and instead of learning about the Cartesian Plane and factoring and the FOIL method and all that shit, I sat in the back of the room drawing the X-Men in my notebook. By springtime, with some "encouragement" from my parents, I decided that I really, really didn't want a third go-round with Algebra I in tenth grade. So, with the help of a tutor from the local university and a math teacher who was, in retrospect, far nicer and more understanding than I had any right to expect, declaring that he would give me a passing grade if I passed the final (On the off chance you're reading this, Bob Grimes, you da man). Working my ass off, I scraped out a "C" on the final.

So in tenth grade, it was on to the exciting world of Geometry I. I was no more interested in learning about the Pythagorean Theorem and calculating the volume of a cone than I was in the Cartesian Plane and all that Algebra shit. Another notebook, more X-Men. Dude, when you're a big nerd in tenth grade, you can never get tired of drawing Wolverine. Never. Anyway, with another "Oh, fuck, I don't want to repeat this class" effort in the spring, I managed to get a "C" in Geometry. And now I couldn't calculate the volume of a cone if my life depended on it. Which, thankfully, it doesn't.

As part of some lame-ass new "well-rounded education" thing that I guess colleges are trying these days, I have to pass College Algebra as a requirement to get an art degree. So this semester, I dutifully enrolled in "Remedial Algebra for Those of You Who Haven't Taken a Math Class in Nearly Fifteen Years." Since I was paying for it - or rather, going into debt for it - I decided to pay attention to the teacher and not draw any comic book superheroes in my notebook. Amazingly, it made a difference.

I got a 98 on my final exam. I'm going to get what is quite literally my first-ever "A" in a math class. And that's just a hell of a thing. Dude, I rule.

And now, having accomplished that and learned all kinds of shit about how to calculate the slope of a line and graph it...back to drawing Wolverine...