Confessions of a Math Diva

"Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out." -David Foster Wallace

   This week we looked at the legendary commencement speech 'This is Water' by David Foster Wallace, and I 'ja definitely felt' the quote above. I think it hit home with a lot of the kids in this class actually, many of us were put into 'Honors' and 'Advanced' classes from the 6th or 7th grade when it was first offered to us. Without any real discussion, we just ended up there, and soon enough it just became a part of who we were. It's a running joke between my best friend and I that we are 'math divas' living the 'diva lifestyle' of AP courses. The diva life entails sending grammatically correct texts-and more importantly tweets; using higher diction in everyday language; staying up all night to do your homework that probably could have been completed at a decent hour if you didn't come home everyday and fall asleep on the couch (because you didn't sleep the night before); and generally believing you are above everyone else. But my best friend and I came to a disappointing realization, despite how we like to believe we are so well equipped for this big, bad world with our superior intellect-we are not. I have a stunning lack of everyday household skills, I can't figure out my own washing machine. We're simply try-hards, when in fact many of the kids who aren't living this diva life have been exposed to the real world. These kids who leave me scoffing when they misuse 'your' and 'you're' probably posses skills that will actually allow them to be independent. While I posses the skills to factor polynomials at lightening speed.
   When it comes to being seen as smart, I feel eternally caught in that trap of being 'found out' especially during discussion time in this class. Most of the nuances we discuss sail clear over my head, as by brain is preoccupied with knowledge of the Kardashians and Kate Middleton. This week for my Creative Writing class I was asked my parents to think of a story they could tell a stranger to demonstrate my character. My dad told me a story of when I was in the 3rd grade and took weekly spelling tests. He watched me come home very pleased with myself after my first spelling test with a 100%, which was naturally displayed on the refrigerator. He congratulated me as any proud father would, but reminded me that it isn't the grade that's of importance, it's what I'm learning. The next week I came home with another 100%, and the next week, he began to prepare his speech for the inevitable week that I came home unhappy with a lesser grade. He became worried I would identify too much with my grades, that it would consume me, so he waited patiently with his little speech in mind. Yet, he finished the story by saying that the inevitable week never came. But now, I do identify with my grades, so much so I created a name for it, a lifestyle for it. I'm characterized being smart and in AP classes. The story my father chose to characterize me was in fact a story about my academic achievements, and here I am at 11:00 living the math diva life, feeling like my blog will never compare to the others. That when I mention Justin Timberlake in class everyone laughs, but they also question why I'm here. Then I'll leave my class and tell my non-diva friends of my sleepless night and they'll ask why I don't drop APs, and I'll say it isn't about the class anymore. It's my pride. I would literally fail this class (and I just might be doing so right now) before I walk away from it.
    The AP lifestyle is my lifestyle. Some days it most definitely feels like a life of lies, but it's my life of lies, and I can't bring myself to live any other way. So if you would be so kind as to wish me, "way more than luck," I believe we could all use it.
xoxo
Math Diva

When 'Planet of the Apes' Happens

The 1968 film, 'Planet of the Apes' ends on a rather haunting note. Charles Heston dramatically drops to his knees in the sand as he sees the wreckage of the Statue of Liberty, he puts together that he is in fact on earth, with no chance of salvation now that apes and humans have reversed roles. America has fallen, and worse, so has the entire human race. This week as we read The Declaration of Independence in English, our sign of freedom that we often associate with the humble beginnings of the new world in the western hemisphere, in my World History we were taking a look at the fall of the Roman Empire. In doing so, it became evident that history shows nothing lasts forever. Rome's fall can be attributed to 3 problems; the society, military, and economy. The people of Rome began to care not about Rome's well being-but about their own individual gains. While the military became lax, almost to the point of laziness, and stopped pushing to conquer more land. Finally, unemployment mixed with inflation lead to an economic disaster for Rome. Rome's run as an empire lasted six hundred and some years, as of the current moment that's almost exactly three times longer than the current age of America as a nation. But parallels in the fall of Rome and the current issues in America leads one to wonder how much longer America can, and will, as a nation. The current mindset of Americans is that America will remain a nation forever, though that was also the mindset of the Romans. Yet, history shows that a fall of America is not only normal, it's nearly expected. If sometime in the future the US is to fall, it poses the question, 'What will happen to documents like The Declaration of Independence?' Very likely it will, along with other documents, serve as a guideline for the documents a new nation writes in the dawn of a new era. A new nation will use a similar structure, and the same poetic elements, maybe using them deliberately. It will be later analyzed as an allusion, hoping to capture the essence of what the founding fathers had in mind. Using the same ideas to bring to mind the successes of a past nation. In the same way that the Romans mimicked the Greeks, a new nation will one day mimic the United States. They'll prove themselves to be not only great like the US once was, but they'll promise to do it bigger and better. Hopefully, it will just be more people, rather than apes.

We Can Stop, and We Did Stop (the Government)

This week we worked on reading 'The Virginia Convention' by Patrick Henry, here Henry's zeal leaps off the page at us through his use of diction and rhetorical questions. In the face of political unrest he proposes a plan, a plan that we see he is very passionate about. It is similar to other writings of the time that have to do with politics, such as 'Common Sense' by Thomas Payne and Sam Adams' propaganda newspapers. Henry has a plan and calls us to action, while also igniting a sense of patriotism. Today in America we are once again facing political unrest in the form of a government shutdown. Yet, citizens (myself included) meet this with a rather lax attitude. When asked, many are upset by the fact that a simple disagreement has resulted in withholding pay and shut down of major attraction nationwide. But, when we look at day to day life I have seen little more than a few confused tweets. It looks to the masses as though we all assume the situation will simply fix itself soon enough. It's a punchline for late night comics, and also Miley Cyrus in an SNL skit featuring dancing elephant backpacks to replace her infamous dancing teddy bears and foam fingers. Is it that we have lost patriotism, that there is not a great enough devotion to our country that our citizens demand that we stop the nonsense and return to being an example for the free world. Or is it that we have faith in America, knowing our abilities and quietly believing that all things happen for a reason, and all shall be right again soon enough.

Regina George and Aaron Samuels Were Seen Canoodling

This week we read The Crucible by Arthur Lee Miller, though Miller based the play on drama in Congress as a teen girl I believe the drama is...like totally mirroring high school drama. The finger pointing frenzy is parallel a lot of real-life drama, and most importantly Mean Girls. The cult classic film bears a stunning resemblance to the events of the play. Abigail is Regina George-queen bee and also a 16 year old mastermind. Mary Warren is Gretchen Wieners, both girls somewhat aloof but have their eyes on a bigger prize. The unconscious Betty is most like Karen Smith; mostly because poor Karen is about as bright as Betty's sleeping body. Kady Heron IS the enemy to Regina; therefore making her Elizabeth Proctor. Both Kady and Elizabeth end up as the queen bee's enemy for getting between the queen bee and her man. Finally, no one could forget John Proctor as he is mirrors Aaron Samuels; the dashing male lead, creating a great deal of chaos with his charm. The events of the film also show parallelism; finger pointing, witch hunt frenzy can be compared to the insanity that ensues when The Burn Book is leaked. Regina and Abigail both fake innocence when in reality they've each carefully plotted the demise of their enemy (Regina attempts to take down Kady as Abigail does to Elizabeth). Both girls are found out in somewhat similar situations, Proctor makes his big confession about Abigail in the courthouse, whereas everyone admits to feeling 'personally victimized by Regina George' in a major purging in the high school gym. After some intense Google searching(aka searching past the first page of results), I did come to the sad conclusion the Tina Fey has never mentioned using The Crucible as inspiration when writing Mean Girls. But, the parallelism is ever present, and that is, like, SO fetch.