Tuesday, July 01, 2008

learn something new every day - reloaded

... aka: learn something old every now and then.

Today I did both, learning new things AND old things.
The new thing I learned today is that the Vietnamese-French pidgin, the Tay B'oi, doesn't use articles. A piece of linguistic wisdom which is expected to have, let's say, minor impact on my future life.

The old thing I learned today was to solve equations with two unknowns. I should have learned how to do that in tenth grade, and I tried, I really did. But the much hoped-for enlightenment just wouldn't come. Until today.

While my frech students were busy with a complicated task I gave them, I was reading the script of the MSA maths exam that was lying around on the table. (Apparently, somebody uses my favourite classroom to teach maths!) I was able to solve the first two tasks (yahoo, just as in my maths abitur!), but I got stuck with the third one, an equation with two unknowns. I got halfway through, but for dear life just couldn't remeber how to get rid of the scond "x". Needless to say, that circumstance drove me nuts. So I asked my collegue (one of those who apparently teach maths in my favourite classroom) and he told me "Piece of cake! You only have to use the p/q formula!"
Right! The p/q formula! Silly old me, why hadn't I thought of that myself??
He then noted down the p/q formula for me and I was succeeded easily to solve the task.

I think I could understand maths now. A circumstance which could have had a MAJOR impact on my future life had it occured 15 years ago.
So, about this maths Abitur thing ... could I do it again maybe?
Had I had a better understanding of maths back then, I would have had much better marks. Which means I would have been much more confident in my mathematical abilities. Which means I wouldn't have let my disbelieve in myself stand in the way of me applying for pilote training. Which means I might have become a pilote. Which means I would earn lots of money now, see a lot of the world (especially from above), have a fancy apartment and never even worry about such things as Tay B'oi.

But then again, I probably wouldn't know all of you guys, so screw that!

6 comments:

kiki said...

what the hell is the 'p/q' formula?

and if you didn't know these people, you'd know other people...

scotspotter said...

Oh, please, don't you be so damn realistic all the time. ;P

kiki said...

tut mit leid

i played canaster and bridge with nick cave's mum the other day

psychorach said...

mmm... care to translate the p/q thingy please... in human o spanish if possible... imagine how sad your life would've been withour the princess ;)

scotspotter said...

The princess... the sad truth is: I'm already beginning to forget him. Gone are the smell of his microwaveable porridge, his face illuminated by the PS soccer game or the lovely THUDding of his feet in the hall at midnight. *sighhhh*

Canasta and Bridge with nick Cave's mum? Sounds like a scene out of a David Lynch film...;)

Mars said...

i know nick cave's nephew