Thursday, June 2, 2011

Exams, Day 2

FST is the affectionate, shortened version of the title for this course; it stands for Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry, and one can clearly see the reason for the desire for some sort of abbreviation. The remaining scholars have begun the measly three-page test; seniors have already departed weeks ago and three scholars asked to take this exam early for various reasons. One girl just stopped showing up months ago. The room is silent save for the muted sound of my typing (not the clickety click stupid noises computers make in the movies) and random sniffles and coughs. These juniors have all recently presented a lesson for their fourth quarter project and done wonderfully...to-day we will see how much they remember and can regurgitate. Nice kids, all. Trudy is brilliant and asks questions about things days before we 'cover' them in class.Danny is polite and mostly quiet but will laugh insanely at any spontaneous random time. Chicken moved up here from New Mexico and has made friends with everyone by virtue of his friendly demeanour and quick wit. He's quite a gifted scholar also. Ni-Ca is quiet but asks real good questions and is one of those tough students to read because she never responds after I answer the question...like " oh, ok, i get it" or "ooooo don't get it, try again", or even "i'm sorry, your ridiculous choice of color combinations in your outfit really distracted me, could you repeat that?", ... something, please!!
Bradly is a great thinker but tries too hard with the puns sometimes. He's got himself the King of all Calculators and has taught himself a good deal about how to use it when doing functions, trigonometry, and (of course) statistics. Tyrone would rather be somewhere else and lets me know this daily, in spite of a decent math's aptitude. I made him promise if he got through this year in good shape that he'd never take a math class with me again. Madjesty is brilliant and asks tough questions that I can't answer sometimes. She used to get mad when she didn't understand something (kind of like how I do when there's no more pizza left, or if the Tiger bullpen gives up a game), but she's been more civil of late. Justly is a runner and really nice. She used to come get help like every morning before school and the grades reflected her increased labors. Amity is also very bright and could teach this class but occasionally just doesn't do an assignment or two. (I've found this to be the case with brilliant folks as well as with folk of average intelligence: we all choose to be either lazy or dilligent, and some of us choose both!). Lindy is studious, pays attention to detail, and is fun-loving. The work she turns in is some of the best in the class. Bile is another extremely gifted mathematician but is extremely lazy. He consistently does the absolute minimal to get by, but can get average grades without really trying (which seems to satisfy him to no end).  I look forward to working with most of these scholars in the future, Lord willing.

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