I liked the problem-solving aspect of algebra; that was very satisfying. But once you get to conceptual math like calculus, I was pretty lost. Bob and I have an ongoing joke about my calculation kryptonite-- I'm probably not as much proud as amused and completely unembarassed by it.

I can't do math but I'm suitably embarrassed and traumatized...would that make him feel better? But I think I know what he means: that attitude that's like 'Eh, foreign films..." Or "Poetry...who can follow all that symbolism stuff?" Not that the same people are all always saying all these things, but those are things I've heard people be sort of "proud-ignorant" about.

I was great in math until I took geometry from the hockey coach. I had 102% in freshman algebra. I read somewhere that it's common for girls to do well in math until that point, but the geometry teacher was truly amazingly awful, so I tend to blame him.

If erika can't do math either then I'm blaming PV and AHS.

Makes more sense than Canada.

I liked the problem-solving aspect of algebra; that was very satisfying. But once you get to conceptual math like calculus, I was pretty lost.

Yeah, me too. I love solving puzzles, and I was always good at math (I was even on the math team in middle school!). But I think once it got to the point where I needed a calculator to figure something out for me (sine, cosine, pi to the brazilianth decimal), I lost interest.

I am excessively proud to find that I have something in common with ita's mother, being all per-crappity at the fancy maths but very good with arithmetic. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, decimals -- I have a weird love of playing with them all: it's like having a boxful of cute puppies doing cute puppy tricks. In certain moods, the magical multiply/add-the-digits/collapse tricks 3's, 6's and 9's perform on command seem cuter to me than babies.

Given which, I really should be able to balance my checkbook a fuck of a lot better, though that's really a laziness problem, not arithmetic.

Anyhow, I have something in common with ita's mom, and it's not about lab animals, and this makes me happy.

ICompletelyON, someone please tell me to stay away from the letters section of Salon.com. That's some seriously fucked-up craxyland, there (annoyingly, complete with equal doses of craxy from both the right and the left), and I need to not look at it. I love Salon and want to keep enjoying it and it's creeping me out that I share reading material with these people.

I'm totally not proud of the fact that I suck at math. I am proud of the fact that I not only rocked geometry in tenth grade, I actually enjoyed it.

Anything higher than algebra just ... it's like another language to me. I tend to be a visual learner, so maybe it's the fact that I can't picture what X is supposed to stand for or whatever.

In the spirit of "ooh, look, a train wreck", is there a particular bunch of letters we're supposed to be keeping you away from?

I only went as far as precalculus—apparently I had a fair talent for it that I could have exploited if I hadn't found math to be the most boring subject ever. My freshman precalculus teacher told me I'd make a good mathematician if I chose to pursue it, but I couldn't imagine a career I'd get less satisfaction from.