Calc 3 made me break up with math forever.

The class fills up quickly, everyone buzzing as they take their seats. I’m told the professor will not be early, he will arrive exactly as class begins to avoid questions from students, a tactic employed by most professors in the STEM field. I suddenly feel I understand STEM professors on a level I never thought possible.

When the professor starts in silence, listing assignments on the chalkboard, I get an eerily Victorian feeling that might put the shakes into the boots of any grandparent. Then the professor talks and suddenly, I’m not too scared. Then I look down to type my notes and graphs appear on the board and I don’t know what any of it means. I’m scared. Then the professor looks to the crowd for signs of engagement and my humanities brain smiles and nods and prays he won’t actually think I understand. He doesn’t. I breathe. I actually start to listen.

Wait, is that a metaphor? Imagination? (Particles through a curve but imagination nonetheless.) Writing complete words and sentences?

We’re back to graphs and plotting curves (and almost every bit of space on six chalkboards is used up) 10 minutes in, but it’s making sense? He’s even making jokes. Only one person laughs but it’s funny to me too (I promise – keep making jokes).

He’s erased an entire board—no warning. I pray everyone has their notes. He demands engagement, there’s a one loud voice and a quiet chorus, like whispers from beyond accompanying it. I think I’m understanding it, but he keeps mentioning ‘t’ and ‘pi’ (find pi sign), and it’s distracting for my Britishness.

He asks for an answer. We all master our blank looks. His hearing is incredible. He knows someone whispered something. A genius arises from the back of the room and within moments, I couldn’t point him out in a crowd because I’m staring so intensely at the graphs on the board that keeps changing.

Yet another board gone—no warning again.

I caught nothing off that one.

Another board gone—thank God for orange chalk. I’m somewhat understanding what I’m supposed to be looking at. It’s the orange bit, right?

Second Half:

We’re talking about lines in 2D and 3D. (I heard lions at first but that’s just me. No one else seems to be confused, simply tired and interested in other things). Parallel lines? I know that. Vectors? Kind of.

At some point, he’s trying to address the class again. “It’s not a trick question”—you don’t need to try to trick me. I find myself thinking that the first three letters of the alphabet have never been so repeated to me by anyone that wasn’t a child.

It baffles me how anything that isn’t math catches my eye so quickly—I hear someone walk out to get a drink—an insanely dangerous game.

46 minutes in, he asks about questions or comments. I’ve been doing nothing but commenting in my notes. I stare blankly. He’s smiling, I’ve lost all my humanities kindness, I don’t want to smile back.

He asks if we’ve all seen an equation like the one on the board before. In my nightmares, constantly. But he says everyone should have so I tentatively raise my hand with everyone else and hope that again, he doesn’t take me seriously.

From parametric to symmetric equations, I’ve heard more letters than I ever thought possible. I’ve lost count of how many boards he’s erased. We’ve moved on to 3D. But thankfully, it works almost the same way. Seeing as I didn’t understand the 2D, I lose hope for 3D.

He’s taking a moment, he’s surveying the boards and the room. Apparently, everyone’s quiet today. It’s similar to the noise in my brain. He’s describing two lines by their parametric equations because, and I quote, “Why not?”

Each variable gets a new letter which he has apparently plucked out of thin air. If my memory fails me, as it often does, I would be crying over these notes later tonight wondering what they even stand for.

3D parallel direction vectors—or intersecting ones, I’m not sure anymore. I have to solve for “S” and “T”. But “S” and “T” could be different. Now you tell me! They are skew if neither are parallel or intersecting—as an English lit student, I can tell you that is actually meant to be ‘askew’.

Apparently, there was a ‘t’ on the wrong side—he corrected it—I couldn’t tell.                             

I’ve never wanted to know how particles travelled before. I know now. I don’t know that I ever needed to know.

To the boy on his phone the entire class with his graph paper notebook open and empty, at least close the pen, or the ink will dry.

To the girl sipping water every two seconds in front of me, I’m glad you’re keeping hydrated enough for the both of us and all of the sweat I lost any time he looked at the crowd.

I’m going to be hearing sliding chalkboards and chalk for a week.

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