Math

I feel like my first week of regular classes at school was a smashing success. To put it a little more properly, sometimes I felt like smashing something, and sometimes I felt quite successful. The successful parts involved good, clear, productive lessons. The smashing parts included such mix-ups as teaching P.E. to the wrong class. There was also my math class. I am teaching English, but there are certain "topic" classes that the foreign teachers have to teach in English as well. I have a one hour math section with my first grade class. Math and I have never been the closest of friends. It is not that we are outright enemies. We are acquaintances who have always been polite enough to give a cordial nod when our paths cross but have never felt any real compulsion to initiate a deeper relationship. Thus, I was not thrilled to find out that I must teach math. However, the fact that it was just a first grade class consoled me. How complex could it be? When I got the curriculum, I noticed that the first class was on "number bonds." No problem. Bonds are things you buy from the government.

Well, it took the kids about 10 minutes to teach me what number bonds are. They, of course, already knew all the material. The worksheets were finished before I could explain what they were to do. There I stood, embarrassed by my inability to teach meaningful mathematics and with about 50 minutes of class time left to fill. At this point the old Thigpen blood began to rise. We don't just lie down at let these sort of situations steamroll over us. I reared back and threw my first punch. Yes, I reared all the way back to the Pythagoreans, explaining the centrality of mathematics to the philosophy of a large branch of these ancient thinkers. Since we were talking about Pythagoras, I though I would throw the old boy's theorem in there for extra weight. Forty-five minutes of class time left. Next came a jab with Archimedes and his approximation of pi. This knocked off about two minutes. Unfazed, I charged back in with Paschal's representation of binomial coefficients in what is now called Paschal's Triangle. 35 minutes left. I was tiring now and blood was flowing freely, but as I mentioned earlier, it was Thigpen blood, which is of the non-quitting type. On I went with Newton, Leibniz, and the calculus wars, coming down clearly on the side of Newton simply because of my dislike for German philosophers. Next came wild swings at applied mathematics, logic, and anything else remotely connected with math. I discussed the glories of the number 15 and how it has adorned all of my jerseys for years now. I got them to guess how many hairs I have in my goatee. Then we counted them. At the end of the hour, the kids carried me back to my office. I was battered and bruised, but we had done math for an hour.

In other notes, I started Chinese lessons today. I am a prodigy. I can say my cell phone number in Chinese. It is not quite intelligible, but I am saying it none the less.

The last baseball game was a 7-6 loss. We gave up a 6 run inning late to hand the game over. My line: 1-2, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K. On the year my line is .500 AVG, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K, .600 OBP. Not that I am keeping stats, though.

Well, I must go eat supper. It will probably involve rice. When it comes to meals with rice, I am eating about .500. The other half of my meals have noodles.