Math can be fun.

Here in America, we take academic skills for granted. People in other states can locate all 50 states and name their capitals, yet in America only a fraction of people can do the same. Math taught in Russia is far more advanced than those taught at the same level in America. I didn't really value math skills until I passed Math 114 at De Anza with an A. That feeling was the best I've felt about a class in a long time. I couldn't depend on my parents to help me with my math homework, they "aren't good at math". I realized I want to be better for my future children. I don't want them to say "my parents aren't good at math," I want them to say "my parents are annoying, but they've always helped me study my math so that I can grasp it." Math 44 has been awesome so far. The class teaches Mathematics that is aimed towards getting you to think critically about situations, which I can say it has done for me. Today my professor gave us a group question.

The question was, if there are n people in a group, how can you prove that at least two people have the same number of friends within said group? There are two possibilities: one person could have 0 friends, and everyone in the group could have one friend within the group. I came up with this: if you have n people and n-1 numbers of friends, the extra person will have to fit into one of the previous numbers.

Confusing? This might help. If there are four people and three flavors of ice cream (Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry), let's assume person one chooses chocolate, person two chooses vanilla, and person three chooses strawberry. Since there are only 3 choices, person four MUST choose C, V, or S, which means there would have to be at least two people choosing the same flavor.

That's the best I can do. My group mates said it was wrong and refuted it, presented their own ideas. We ended up turning in my answer. After our 30min was up, my professor showed us the answer: My answer. Except he said that you could assume that no one has n-1 friends in common and cross that one out, leaving n-2 boxes and still n people, meaning that at least two people would fit into the category of the same number of friends within the group.

Math is a challenge for some people, but it's worth learning.

Adults don't understand. Sometimes, kids really don't know.

I distinctly remember getting in trouble for saying something. I didn't know what that something was, so I made up something that sounded similar (to get laughs). You may be familiar with the song "to the window to the wall". While playing that song, djs always seem to cut it off at one part. "Till the sweat drops down my _______, ..." to which everyone would scream the word that goes there. I never heard that word until years later, in a movie where Sandra Bullock rapped it in the woods with someone's grandma (The Proposal). So when I was a kid, sitting on my auntie's couch, that song came on the radio. I didn't know what the word was, so I made up words that sound like the ones in the song. "Til the sweat drops down my fows, all these females growl, ..."

"HEY!" my sister snapped at me, now glaring.

"What?" I asked, clueless.

"You see?" My aunt Loretta said to my sister, "you see how they say what you do?"

"Yeah," she said.

I was so clueless. It happened again while our family was watching Rush Hour. You know, Chris Tucker stands on top of something and tells everyone there's a bomb in the building and to get out ASAP? Then he says "____s, ___s, ___s. Getcho ___s out of here." Got lots of laughs from my parents. I didn't know why, I had no idea what he said, so once again, I made up my own word!

"Chitties, chitties, chitties," I said, "Getcho chitties out of here!" and laughed.

My mom gave me that look and told me not to say it again. I honestly had NO IDEA what the heck he was saying. Just had to get that out. Parents always think that kids learn too early and repeat it, not that we just repeat what we THINK we hear.