MATH, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD! By: Nathan Lowe

Originally written by me: September 11, 2008

I have always been comfortable with math. I can do many calculations in my head, I have written hundreds of computer programs, and on many occasions I have dazzled people with my ability to track numbers. I have often argued that math is better than English because there can only be one correct answer. There is no room for personal opinion or subjectivity. The answer is correct or it isn't. Black or white, true or false, equal or not equal, greater than or less than. All these things are the things I have loved about math.

At the beginning of the Fall-Winter semester at UVU. I was looking forward to my math class. I had only just scored high enough to qualify for the math 1000 block instead of the 900 block, and I eagerly anticipated the challenge. When Professor Bartholomew suggested that we do the exercises in Chapter 1 of my Elementary & Intermediate Algebra text, as a refresher, it sounded like fun, and it was. It was like stumbling across a forgotten toy and then showing off for a new audience.

I flew through the chapter and I hardly had to take a breath to get it done. I went through it so fast, I was halfway done before I realized I didn't need to do all the problems. It was like jogging a quarter mile just because I could.

On Wednesday we started on Chapter 2. The processes he discussed in class were easy to get my head around. I found myself thinking ahead of his lecture on several occasions. But.... when I went home to work on the homework I started to get tripped up. By the time I was into Chapter 2 section 3 I was feeling very doubtful. It felt like I was barely treading water and it was getting deeper by the second. More and more often I would have to rework a problem. Once, twice, three times even four times on a couple occasions.

By the end of the second week I had lost most of the optimism I had after that first chapter. The odd thing was I could follow the lecture and be certain of everything. Then I would go home and the bottom would fall out. Nothing I tried seemed to bring me to the correct solution. I worked and reworked every single, stupid little problem. But this was no little problem. I felt I was in over my head. I started to feel like I was drowning. I started going into the math lab to see if I could figure out what was missing but it didn't help, because I did not know which questions to ask.

Coming out of Chapter 2 I was nearly ready to drop the course and I had Chapter 3 to look forward to. Oh boy, it's only going to get harder right?

Chapter 3 was completely new to me, graphing. I had never done graphing. I had written several programs that used x and y coordinates, but I had never put it into a strictly math application before. By section 3 of Chapter 2 I was feeling better. The graphing had come very naturally to me. I was back on my game. “Give me that quarter mile! No, make it a half mile!” I was back in it and it felt good to believe that the worst was behind me. To know the test was on Monday, and that it was in the bag. I would review a bit over the weekend and be ready to go.

I got an early start, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the air was crisp and invigorating as I walked to my '92 Buick Regal and pulled out of the gravel driveway. There was no traffic to speak of. I just set the cruise control for 72mph all the way to the UVU campus from my home in Goshen.

I arrived at the west parking lot at 8:40am and I had no trouble finding a good parking spot. As I climbed out of the car I was singing “I kissed a girl” to myself. It is a catchy tune and it was perfect for my mood right then. As I started the walk across the west parking lot toward the LA building, I noticed that the leaves were just starting to turn a bit on the mountains and a gust of wind chilled me, just slightly. There were some clouds forming over the mountains and the wind was getting a little bit stiffer than it had been just moments before. If I had simply paid more attention I may have realized that I was going to have a bumpy ride.

Finally I reached the north steps into the LA building and I once again heaved my backpack up the steps. I climbed stairs on my toes to get a little workout as I climbed them. I Walked through the outer doors and then at the next set of doors. I was forced to wait, just a moment, while a machine vendor maneuvered his cart into the passage way.

I turned to the right and climbed 2 more flights of stairs, on my toes, then I was on the second floor. A quick left and I saw the hall to room 231. It was pretty crowded. There were a lot of classmates who were sitting on the floor leaning back against the wall, and reviewing their notes from the past few weeks.

I found a patch of wall that was unoccupied and carefully removed my back pack so that I wouldn't bean somebody with it. I set it to my left against the flat white paint wall and then I sat next to it. “Should I pull out my notes?” I thought, “Nah, my review was thorough over the weekend I should be ok.” That Chapter 2 stuff was still tricky but I got through it, and I didn't really have any trouble. I decided to get my Nintendo DS out and play some Galaxians. I just wanted to relax for a few minutes.

I glanced at my watch. 8:52am. The door to room 131 swung open and the students from the previous class began to file out. I saved my game, put the DS back into its case and put the case back in my backpack. I stood up and began heaving my backpack off the floor. “Why does it seem so heavy some times?” I thought.

I walked into class and I was greeted again by the lack of grandeur. I had watched paper chase when I was much younger and I always felt that a university should have grand lecture halls for every subject, complete with wood veneer and elevated seating. This classroom is nothing like that. It is square with textured walls covered with flat white paint. The dull 60 Hz hum of the fluorescent lighting that makes everyone beneath its glow seem a bit lifeless. There are thirty desks crammed in the room so tightly you can barely walk the aisles between the desks.

As I crossed the front of the room it was tight. I tried to turn sideways to squeeze through and my Ogio backpack slammed into one of the desks, so I swiveled my hips a bit and tried to scoot through the gap that was barely wide enough for a 5 year old. Eventually I made my way across the room to my desk. It usually had a nice view of the LA to LI causeway but on that day the blinds were shut. Probably just because it was a test day.

I glanced at my watch, 8:58am – just a couple minutes.

I got my backpack set on the floor just as Professor Bartholomew walked in. He has this “I have been up all night” look. He looks like a math teacher. Slightly pale, with an odd hair cut. He was in well worn jeans and a faded blue “I don't get out much” pocket tee. I know that shirt. I wear it often.

9:00am on the dot.

“Pass them back. You have 50 minutes.”

While I waited for my test to get to me I noticed there were several stacks of different colored papers on his desk. Pale green, a kind of orangy yellow and light blue. I suppose they were so that he could keep straight which tests went with which class.

I received my test and filled in my name “Nathan Lowe” written in my usual cramped yet legible print style. I then filled in the class number “Math 1000-02” and the date “9/9/08” and took my first look at the first problem. 0.6x – 0.2(x – 4) = 0.4(x – 2) Solve for x

It didn't look too tricky. There were a lot of negatives in it but they should have been easy to handle. I worked it and reworked it, always getting a different answer. “How is this possible?” I thought. My review over the weekend had gone very well. Why was this problem being such a “Problem”. After several attempts I glanced at my watch. 9:32am. Oh boy, half of the time was gone. I knew that my only chance was to get through the rest of the test as fast a s possible. If I could get through all of the problems I could get a passing grade.

It wasn't happening. Every problem threw me for a loop. I was very flustered, at this point, and almost certain I wasn't going to pass. I had never failed a test before. I had received my share of “D's” but never had I received an “F”.

I looked at my watch again. 9:42am. 8 minutes left. No way I was going to finish. I had only been able to complete 4 more problems in the last 10 minutes and there were still 10 more. I continued to work feverishly, but I was hitting a roadblock on every equation.

“Times up. Pass your tests forward.”

Doom! I had failed my first test – and in math! I was good at math. I had reviewed over the weekend. I had completed all of my homework but to no avail. The test was over. I had failed.

For the rest of the day I rolled it around in my head. “How did this happen?” I thought I was prepared. I had trouble with the homework but I was always able to work it out.

Was there something wrong with me? Was I losing it? Had I been wrong to champion math for all this time? It didn't make sense at all. How could math, my anchor, my predictable friend, suddenly become shifty and unreliable? It was like I had slipped into some parallel universe where math was not easy or logical. I had always loved and understood math. It had been a rock in a sea of ambiguity, a center in this subjective and opinionated world.

Slowly I began to realize, that it was not Math's fault that I had failed. It was mine. I had taken it for granted that I would be good. I had never been challenged by math before – and I saw no reason to think it would start to challenge me now. I needed to get faster and more precise in the process of solving these equations.

It had just taken too much time. The answers came too slowly and to make it worse I didn't have confidence in my answers. I would check them by reworking the problem again, and in the course of checking I must have been making new mistakes.

I have learned a new respect for math, and that has opened the door for me to pursue a new level of understanding. I look forward to all the challenges that lie before me, and will meet them head on, with hard work and determination and maybe, just a little more humility.

Math, it's all in your Head! by Nathan L. Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nathan-lowe.blogspot.com.

OBSERVATIONS By: Nathan Lowe

Written: November 11th, 2008

Well the turkey has been cooked, carved, portioned out and eaten. The bones have been given to the stray cats in the neighborhood and the nieces and nephews are finally getting tucked into bed.

I had to run to Santaquin about dusk to get a couple movies from the movie store and I was struck by the intangible look of the mountains as I came into town. The tops were covered with gray heavy looking clouds. The clouds looked so heavy it was as if the mountains were groaning under the weight. But that was not the striking part of what I saw as I crested the hill driving past Genola. What was so striking was that the mountains looked as if they were part of the clouds. They were darker, a sort of charcoal color but they did not look solid. More like a cloud that had been forced to stay in a certain shape, There were no defined edges and they seemed to sit just behind the horizon as opposed to coming all the way down and joining with the ground.

I am reminded of a few nights when I have been on my way home from the video store and the darkness seemed tangible. Not like it was an absence of light but a sponge sucking all of the light into the darkness. Like looking through a glass of water filled with black fluid. Often darkness is clear or it will sharpen the look of the night sky but on these nights all light seemed to be simply muffled. My headlights did not reveal any hint of mist or fog but the darkness just seemed to swallow up the light that came from the headlights. The rays did not seem to penetrate as far as usual and there was a sense of foreboding. Nothing happened on those nights and I arrived home without incident. It was just an odd sensation to be left with.

Observations by Nathan L. Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nathan-lowe.blogspot.com.

THE STORY OF SARAH JAMES By: Nathan Lowe

Foreword:

I also wrote this for my writing class fall of 2008. I wanted to create a story that has palatable fear in it. One day I will build upon the scene set by this short story.

It has been weeks since she first felt the chill of someone watching her. She has tried to explain it to her friends, her coworkers even the police but none of them have believed her. She has wondered if she was simply going crazy. After all, there has been no evidence of anyone or anything that could validate her fears.

Tonight when she sees the lone dark figure out of the corner of her eye and then looks and can see no one. The hair on her neck stands up so straight it could prick skin. She lifts the phone receiver and calls her fiance. "Tom I can't be alone tonight, I don't feel safe. Please come over I need you here."

"I can be there in 20 minutes. Just try to calm down. I will be there as soon as I can."

"Ok, I love you."

"I love you too. Lock the doors until I get there."

She reluctantly hangs up the phone. "Get a grip Sarah, this doesn't make any sense!" she says to herself.

She walks around the living room checking all the windows. Goes through the Kitchen and the Dining Room and the Pantry. She makes sure the Garage door is locked and the front door and the back door. Then she starts up the stairs to her bedroom.

She walks to the end of the upstairs hallway and secures the window there. Finally she is in her room. She closes the door firmly behind her and locks it. She gets her flannel pajamas out of her dresser and changes into them. Placing her other clothes in the hamper in the closet.

She looks at the clock. "Just 11 minutes more and Tom will be here. I should be ok."

She goes into the bathroom and opens the mirror cabinet. Pulls out her pink toothbrush and toothpaste, and turns on the cold water at a trickle. Her hands are shaking as she clumsily spreads the toothpaste on the bristles.

"Get a grip! Geesh!"

She brushes her teeth and rinses with Scope. Then she begins to pull back her hair. Still feeling like she is not safe but seeing no one, hearing no one.

She scolds herself in the mirror and then feels it again, some one must be there.

She turns around and he is there. Gaunt, with cold dark dead eyes. Fear grips her. She is paralyzed, unable to move but it is not the fear that holds her. It is his lifeless gaze.

The doorbell rings but she cannot answer. He moves toward her slowly, deliberately and she glimpses a flicker of something darker than his eyes within them.

She vaguely hears shouts, pounding at the door. He moves close enough She can feel his cold breath and the rattling of his chest as he bites her neck. The coldness starts at her fingertips and her toes Creeping through her extremities.

A sudden distant crash as her front door comes down through thick blankets of air. Her vision begins to dim. The coldness now closing in around her heart.

"Sarah! Are you ok!" he shouts through the bedroom door. There is no answer he raises his leg and shatters the latch. The door flies open and he glimpses a dark figure embracing her as the door bounces back and he barely deflects it with his fore arm. He pushes the door open again and sees Sarah collapse to the floor. Her eyes faded with no spark left. Her skin gray and clinging to her bones.

A shadow crosses his vision and he sees the dark figure leap from the window.

He crosses the room to her in one inhuman leap. She is cold and limp. He draws her eyes closed and turns to the window. Two swift steps and he is looking down at her lawn. No sign of anyone no trace that anything had been there.

The Story of Sarah James by Nathan L. Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nathan-lowe.blogspot.com.

WHAT ABOUT THE LEAVES? By: Nathan Lowe

Forward:

This is a free write from fall of 2008. It was written for my writing 1010 class at UVU and is one of my personal favorites.

It is based on a group of personal events from my elementary school years but not intended to be a precise retelling of those events. I enjoy sharing this story whenever I get the chance and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Hmmm, What do I think about when the leaves begin to change? I think about quite a few things actually.

Things like Halloween, and trick-or-treating come to mind first. I begin to look around for the next cute costume for my kids. I start watching the candy aisles for bargains on the good candy. You know, the mini candy bars. I would never dream of handing out any kind of second rate candy like smartees or lollipops.

Halloween comes and goes in a blink, and I am on my way to working out the logistics of a family get together for Thanksgiving. This issue is always fraught with concerns about who can be where and when. Who is hosting, what will be served. Etc.

Next comes Christmas. It always arrives too fast. Never enough time to properly shop for presents and I end up getting everyone a card with some cash or some other pitiful excuse for a gift. I usually don't get the tree up before the 20^th of December and then I don't get it down until well into February.

New Years is right behind Christmas. So close that if you blink you could miss it.

I guess I could say that the leaves turning is the beginning of the end for me. The year is essentially gone because there are so many things going on in these last 3 months that I don't have time to stop and soak it all in.

I have, on occasion, been able to find time to get into the mountains and attempt to absorb all that begins to happen in Autumn. I remember a field trip in second grade. It was a very big deal. We had been talking about trees in class and Miss Perrywinkle(yes that really was her name) had arranged for us to go up Santaquin canyon. To do crayon rubbings of the leaves we were going to find.

We were all asked to select 3 crayons to rub with and take them along. I knew I could choose any 3 colors I wanted but I chose only purple. It was by far my favorite color at the time. I remember shuffling through the crayon box and pulling out all of the purple crayons or bits of crayons I could find. After lining them all up I considered each bit of crayon and discarded them one by one back into the box. This one is too short, that one is too small, this one is too round Etc. Finally I settled on a piece of crayon. It was a fat crayon that had been split down the middle. It had a good flat surface on one side. I placed it in the folder that I had been given to put several pieces of paper and my crayons in.

Soon we were out the door and walking to the bus. It was a bit chilly still. The dew from the night before was not off the grass yet and as I walked across the lawn the toes of my blue tennies got wet.

Because my last name started with “L” I was always near the end of the line when I climbed onto the bus. Being near the end usually meant I could not find a seat near the front and I really liked to be able to sit behind the driver so I could see where we were going. On that day there was a seat, to my utter delight, right behind the driver. I sat in it as if I was playing musical chairs and there was just one chair left. I scooted to the window, placed my folder between me and the cold outside wall of the bus, and got ready for the ride.

After everyone was seated Miss Perrywinkle sat in the empty space next to me. This was a very rare treat. You see I had a crush on Miss Perrywinkle. She had long light brown hair and her eyes were as blue as her name implied. I truly enjoyed having her sit at our reading table during reading practice, because I was a good reader and she always seemed to notice.

The bus pulled out and we headed along the street to the canyon road. The drive was not a long one, just three or four miles, but as we traveled, I made it a point to show Miss Perrywinkle my carefully selected, purple crayon. I explained to her why it was so important to have a flat surface to do rubbings with and I just lit up when she complimented me on my very good choice.

We arrived at a picnic area at the mouth of the canyon and the bus stopped. Miss Perrywinkle stood up and turned to the other kids. “Ok, I want all of you to buddy up with the person sitting next to you.” Immediately there were groans from several of the boys, and cries of “Cooties!” and little kissy noises from the girls. By the time everyone was paired up I was still at the front of the bus without a buddy.

Miss Perrywinkle realized this and took my hand. “ Looks like I am your buddy today Nat.” and “WOW!” was my only thought.

We got off the bus and started looking around for leaves. I was not going to be satisfied with just any leaf though, I wanted that perfect leaf. I wanted it to be bright orange and with no holes or tears.

The dew was thicker in the canyon and it did not take long for my tennies to get quite muddy. The air was still heavy with the smell of damp loamy soil, and the sun had risen high enough that there were spots of sunlight in the clearing. I could hear a woodpecker hunting for bugs in the distance and the sound of the breeze in the trees that sounded like a rushing river may be just over the next hill. There were shocks of red, orange, and yellow scattered throughout the area and I began working my way toward the edge of the clearing. The best leaves had to be there.

Miss Perrywinkle and I walked slowly toward the under brush and as I got closer to the scrub oak I got a glimpse of orange through the leaves. I let go of Miss Perrywinkles hand and ran. I had to get there before one of the other children saw it. Then I had it. It was exactly what I had been looking for. It was bright orange with a sunspot of yellow in the middle. There were no holes in it and the edges were pristine. It must have fallen just moments before. Just for me.

I picked it up and carefully wiped the bits of wood and soil from it. Then I pressed it against my jacket to dry it off. I went to the picnic table and wriggled in between two of the other kids from my class, and carefully placed it on top of the picnic table. Then I placed a piece of paper over it and pulled my select piece of purple crayon out and began to rub it on the paper.

After a few moments I began to see the edge of the leaf and then I noticed the veins in it. I had not noticed that the leaf had veins when I picked it up. I rubbed the crayon a little more and the details of the leaf continued to be revealed. I was amazed to see that the veins wove together to form a pattern, like purple dragons scales, all over the leaf.

“Ok, everyone time to get back on the bus.” announced Miss Perrywinkle. I heard the groans from the other kids and heard one of my own. Was it time to leave already?

I wrote my name on the paper in my rudimentary letters “Nat Lowe”. I placed it and my carefully selected bit of purple crayon in my folder. Then I very carefully placed the beautiful bright orange leaf with the sunspot of yellow in the middle, in the folder as well.

I trudged my way back to the bus. I wanted to be the last one on this time. My seat was still there in the front so I sat down, I scooted to the outside of the bus, and I placed the folder on my lap. I did not want to damage my perfect leaf.

Miss Perrywinkle sat next to me again but I didn't care. I wanted to stay just a little longer. I did not want to return to the school. We were always there and this was something different.

Soon we were back in the classroom. “Everyone put your crayons back in the crayon box and then go back to your seats.”

Well things were back to normal. I remember just kind of moping through the rest of the day. Miss Perrywinkle had us place our rubbings on the bulletin board at the front of the class and the rest of the day was swallowed by the tedious things that we always did.

Finally the bell rang and we were free to go out and play. I took my folder with me. I wanted to show my mom the wonderful leaf I had found. I ran home and showed it to her. She was delighted and suggested that we press it in a book so that it will keep and not lose its color or be damaged by handling it too much.

Well, that was a life time ago. I wonder what happened to that book with that leaf so carefully placed within its pages.

What happens to the events in our lives that seem so important that we don't want to ever forget. Yet there they are, forgotten, and we don't even know what we have lost.

Autumn is much like those unforgettable moments. It is beautiful and colorful, the air is crisper than any other time of year and the invigorating sensation of being outside when that nippy chill is still in the air is a sensation that I have been thoroughly enjoying this past week. The holidays take over your thoughts very quickly and Autumn is suddenly lost in the planning of all these events that make up the holiday season. All too soon we are up to our necks in cold and miserable weather.

Perhaps we should try and linger this Autumn. Maybe we can find a way to press it between the pages of our memory, and maybe, just maybe we will be able to find that memory tucked away in our minds on a day that is too hot or too cold or too hectic. And find a way to be surrounded by the crisp clean air, the oranges and yellows and browns of the turning leaves, the musty damp and loamy smell of a mountain valley just a couple hours after dawn, or the wet feet that come from walking across dew covered grass in those first daylight hours.

What About the Leaves? by Nathan L. Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nathan-lowe.blogspot.com.