You never know (before you take calculus) what you have (time) until it's gone.
“You need to switch with someone for the speech, don’t you?” the communications teacher asked.
“No, Felicia and I will just switch. She goes the class before me anyhow, so-“
“Did she charge you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did she go ‘You can switch with me for twenty bucks.’”
***
I walked towards the library, and noticed one of the baseball players from my team kicking a soccer ball about in the new team windbreakers. He held the door open for me.
“What’s up Tomas?” he queried.
“Calculus test soon.”
“Calculus?”
I entered, and he stayed behind to open the door for the person who happened to be running in behind me, my sister.
“You bet,” she said to him.
(he presumably thinks “What the heck? Do I know her from somewhere?”)
***
“Could you help me on this one?” I asked.
“Yes,” Felicia responded.
“First you are putting it in standard form, then you find P(x), then you use that with this formula to find the integrating factor. You multiply it times the whole equation, then integrate both sides, then solve for y.”
“Yes, I think so. Good thing the teacher gave us practice tests.”
“I hardly remember any of it. It was all before break.”
***
Felicia and I were working on a problem, when someone on the other side of the room working, said “What’s 1+0?”
Felicia started laughing as we were trying to integrate (x^2-4)^2/4.
***
“I don’t get it, you’re doing the integral, but you are saying take the derivative of this part. With integrating something that’s more of the anti-derivative.”
“Oh yes it is. But you take the derivative of this part.”
Someone else in the room was getting help on a paper from another student.
“What do you think of it?” he asked the person.
“I need to fix your spelling mistakes,” was the response.
“You can’t. There’s no spell check.”
“Well, ‘These’ isn’t spelled ‘Theas.’”
“I don’t care. I’m a bad speller.”
It sickened me that he said it like he was proud of it.
***
I typed my English paper after the calculus test, remembering how horrifically that person spelled. I made sure not to spell any words wrong.
I can't imagine what it's like to be in your situation--pieces like this perhaps offer a taste, a sampling, but the gap never is truly bridged. The Grahams defy easy classification or stereotyping. That gap is certainly no fault of the writing, which makes its points, with both pointedness and edginess.
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