From Math Class With Love
Once upon a time, back in the land of high school, I found myself sitting next to a girl I was attracted to. Unfortunately we had nothing in common so starting a conversation with her became challenging. She was constantly writing in some notebook so I pulled out a piece of paper and decided to play along. Secretly I think I hoped she read over my shoulder and read what I was writing.
What was I writing? Well in order for this passive approach to work I’d have to be writing about liking her and not knowing what to say. So that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t even think it through, I didn’t even know who was I writing to. After an hour of her irritatingly good manners I figured I needed to make it easier on her, I needed to draw her eyes to the page. So I wrote in large letters at the top From Math Class With Love.
No luck. As I was leaving class a friend of mine asked what it was. Now the rule in high school, or elementary school or anywhere else in life for that matter, is the harder you try to conceal something, particularly once noticed, the more determined the rest of the world is to expose and mock you. That in mind I replied “a letter I wrote you” as I handed it over.
“You wrote this to me?” he asked obviously confused by the title.
“Well,” time for damage control “not you, anybody. I was just bored” He read it and passed it on. Wonderful, my angst-ridden passive-aggressive pathetic rambling would be school-wide news and cause for mocking by the end of the day.
“This is really good” said the second guy to read it.
“What?” I said, in confusion and disbelief.
“It’s really funny” said the first.
Riiiight.
“When’s the next one coming out?” asked the first.
“Uh…next math class!” I said, covering my surprise.
“Damn, I was hoping to have something to read in English“.
Eventually it caught on, people eager for the latest edition. Somewhere along the line I began writing in other classes so the title changed to Documentation, if memory serves that was Jeff’s name for it. It later evolved into being done on the computer with graphics and colour-coded text although still printed out for circulation.
One day my Mom discovered one of these and thought I might be suicidal largely because she read it out of context. She hadn’t read any previous editions, didn’t know the players involved, and was unfamiliar with my writing style. In point of fact I was probably the least suicidal person, or at least less so, because I had this outlet and forum for discussing things that mattered to me and how I felt.
For example I had a truly horrible ski trip and the only thing that kept me from loosing it completely was a helping hand from a fellow I hardly knew named James. I didn’t know how to thank him for the high school environment doesn’t exactly lend itself towards that kind of expression to your fellow man so I just laid it all out in an edition of Documentation which by then had been known as it’s new name Thoughts, Comments, Suggestions, Ramblings.
After high school there was a halfhearted attempt to continue this on my website but it never really got off the ground. Then, years later, upon return from a mini-vacation that same person who said my very first From Math Class With Love was funny began pestering me to create a blog. After a week or two of this I had a vivid dream about a vacation to Iraq of all things and I realized that the time had come up to pick up the mantle once more.
And here we are. Enjoy.
