Mathematical Musings XVIII

I hear a lot of things in my math classes like, "When is the bell going to ring," "Can we use our calculator," and sometimes even things like "I wish Mr. Korpi would assign more homework," and "Wow! I think I actually understand this stuff." What I hear, though, is nothing compared to what my poor students have to hear coming from my mouth. Here's another installment.

• Math is the language of the Universe. This means it is the language of love, too. So, for Valentine’s Day, I wrote my wife the following poem:

My love for you is like a one-to-one monotonic increasing function.

Together we have passed the Vertical and Horizontal line test.

For each of me, there is always only one of you.

But it’s your Vertical Asymptote that I like the best.

(After she read it, you’d have thought I had divided by zero!!)

• Jimmy Carter Plumbing: Getting you out of sticky situations Peanut Better than any other nut out there
• My first T-ball practice went great! Of the ten kids, there was only one kid who wasn’t doing what I asked. He was running around, going to the bathroom, playing on the nearby stacked drainage pipes and playgrounds instead of playing the field like all the other boys and girls. When we got home after practice, he got in BIG trouble.
• Gabriel’s Horn is a paradox: It’s like a bell of a trombone that extends to infinity, but it holds a finite amount of paint, however, you could never buy enough paint to give the outside a single coat!
• Don’t just do something!!! Stand there!
• If you liked that last problem, you’ll love this one! If you didn’t like the last problem, you’ll still love this next one, because you should have liked the last one.
• Since we’ve had a quiz every class for the last two weeks, we definitely won’t have a quiz next time in class . . . . . . . . . . . unless it is a pop quiz.
• If you forgot to put the “+C” at the end of the problem either take off 5 points or add it there really quickly so that I don’t know you left it off. Also, it the second case, please also hit yourself violently in the head and yell, “Geeeeesh, I’m not going to THAT again.”
• I’m giving out truckloads of free advice and help Monday through Friday each week and some of you come in here without a container to put it in!
• Of course this integration stuff is difficult, lest you become bored and sick of it all!
• I have already not said that before. Now please, don’t make me not say it again!
• The other day, I twisted my ankle playing with my kids. I tripped over a hole that was sticking up out of the ground.
• Student: Korpi, are you going to skip tomorrow and go the soccer game? Korpi: Go to the soccer game, I might, but unfortunately, I cannot skip anymore . . . bad knee.
• If you're not confused, you haven’t been paying attention.,
• I’m right 95% of the time. I don’t worry about the other six percent.
• Oh, Discrete Math!! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
• OK, if I have ten marbles in a bag, what’s the probability of drawing out a red coin on the first throw?
• Anitsesquipedalian is a make believe word that means ‘to be opposed to the use of large, imaginary words.’
• Think Five. High Five. Five-Alive. Math Power to all. Go AP!!
• I mean that it’s not so much the mode as the median.
• I think all my jokes are funny. Funny, weird, though. Not funny, ha, ha! Weird, isn’t it?
• Let’s just do this example for kicks and giggles.
• OK, let’s stay focused and not waste our time engaged in idle discourse . . . hey, where’d you get that shirt?
• In Mathematics, they seldom don’t never not disprove things by not concealing the fallacy of the negation of the opposite of a statement. For real!
• Ever since my son was severely burned by the hot frying oil, he has a newfound respect for heat. He is now much, much more careful when playing around volcanoes.
• Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 devoured 9, or something like that, I think it was 9.
• In middle school, I played trumpet in the jazz band. It was a blast!
• I may do foolish things, but I do them with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the key.
• I don’t want to over generalize, but every teacher in the world who uses this method, uses this very method.
• I only do math on days that end in “y,” and every other day in between.
• You either get this stuff, or you don’t. Most of y’all fall into one of these two categories.
• For your next test, please learn the material well enough to get an “A,” or learn it just well enough to fake getting an “A” so that I cannot tell the difference.
• Boy, if I had a nickel for everytime I heard that, I wouldn’t have enough nickels to rub two of them together.
• So, when you tell me you don’t “understand anything,” what specifically do you not understand?
• Could you possibly imagine a day without doing math????!!!! Well then, if only your math skills were as strong as your imaginations, we wouldn’t have a problem.!!
• Student: Mr. Korpi, I didn’t do my homework. Korpi: Ha, ha, ha, ha. That was a good one. . . . Wait a minute. What did you say? For a second there, I thought you said you did your homework.
• I can guarantee success on the next test if you follow these simple procedures: Pay attention in class, take good notes, do your homework, and work your review sheet 22 times without any help from me, friends, or notes. Yep, that should do it.
• Guess, what?! If you only focus on the grade and not the learning, you only get the grade, you don’t get the learning. The grade only lasts you through the next report card, the learning last at least 3 days longer.
• I’m sorry, am I teaching over your head? Well, it would help if you weren’t ducking at everything I said.
• Sure, it’s easy for me because I’m the teacher. Do you think I was born a teacher? NO!! I had to actually DO the math to learn it, just like you . . . errrr I mean, NOT like . . . well, do you get my point? Probably not. The answer is 5. Next question, good luck in the real world.
• Why do I like math so much? The answer is quite simple, it’s because it is so easy to teach, and it makes teaching so easy. It is the only subject that practically teaches itself, that everybody understands, people are naturally fired-up about math. All I have to do is point, and my job is done. So why do I like math? Out of selfishness, laziness, economy, and greed. Why are you in my class?
• So converting three feet gives us approximately, no exactly, 15 toes.
• Let’s see. 36 + 7. That’s . . .Ok . . .carry the one, divided by . . .borrowing from the neighbor . . .divided by . . . times . . . taking the log .. . . verifying . . . ok . . . that makes . . . oops, forgot to round . . . ok. . . approximately 43.0000000.
• Life sucks, then you walk into math class. Guess what?! Get over it!! This is an elective
• I don’t know how to ask you any nicer to “shut the heck up” than to say, “please, shut the heck up, or I will assign math problems until you understand it.” You certainly don’t want that, do you?
• I’ve noticed that as the years roll by, I’m more interested in bread.
• As time goes by, I become more jaded, more cynical, more fat, and more old. I wish I wasn’t so jaded (and that I could use my comparative adjectives poetically-er).
• Did you hear the great news????!!!!! I bet not, since your mathematical confustication has you screaming at the top of your lungs.
• I’m doing super-bum-ously great . . . but fear not, I’m getting much better.