You Do The Math

I have delayed writing this post for about as long as I can and still have any hope of getting it done by midnight.  The holidays for today are not great so I am using it as a bit of a rest day.  No video just a simple post.  I promise I will be back to everything with tomorrow’s post from more links to videos.  I currently have 39 minutes left in the day and these are the first words I have written on any of the holidays for today.  And the time starts…. NOW!
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Today was World Math Day.  At first, I thought it was a day dedicated to doing math problems, enhancing your memory of the times tables, and remembering what it meant to take the derivative of something.  In fact as of 6 o clock this afternoon, my boss who has heard of my blog was quizzing me on the derivative or what not of (X^2+3).  I was actually pretty impressed with what my grown up self remembered from the high school corners of my memories of math classes (before to the despair of my parents, I turned my back on science, math, and well-paying jobs to become an English major).
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But I was completely wrong about what World Math Day meant.  World Math Day was not about AP classes, aging text books, or learning that multiplying anything by 0 equals 0.  World Math Day was a challenge and an adventure that world educators had created to keep learning exciting for new generations.  The premise is simple.  World Math Day is one of the days of the World Education Games.  The World Education Games consist of World Spelling Day, World Math Day, and World Science Day.   The games are played across the world and start as soon as a country hits March 6th and end as soon as a country hits March 8th.  Student’s have to answer as many questions as they can in the different topic areas.  The student with the most correct answers in the time frame is the winner.  As of right now, there have been 278,638,000 correct math answers given today.
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You would imagine that the prize must be pretty great to convince kids from around the world to give up 48 hours of their lives to basically study.  The absolute winner in each age group gets a gold medal.  The second place winner?  More minted gold medals and a commemorative certificate.   So there are 11 students in each age group that have the chance to win any prize of merit.  Many others will receive participation certificates, but I imagine the real allure of this competition is seeing how you stack up against students around the world.  I feel like in school we always used to question our math teachers, “When would I ever need to know how to do long division in the real world?  I can always just use a calculator.”  This seems like such a great way to encourage kids to learn their math skills if only to win out in this competition.  Time to get excited about education again.  It may not have any practical value, but after not having wanted to do math on my own without a calculator for about 4 years, I definitely considered pretending to be a 14 year old so I could enter the competition for this year.  World Math Day: Not at all what I thought the day was about but this way is probably even better.
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Today is also cereal day.  I did not eat a lot of cereal but I did have one marshmallow out of a box of Lucky Charms.  Growing up, my family always had healthy, whole grain cereal.  We did not drink pop but carbonated seltzer water.  My mother even made sure that we even had special ketchup with less corn syrup in it.  The only time I would really get to eat junk food was when I visited my friends.  It was not my house that I was introduced to Lucky Charms but at a friends while playing the original Twisted Metal.  The eating of Lucky Charms was introduced to me in one way: put them all in a bowl, add no milk, pick out the marshmallows, dump the cereal back.  To this day I “think” the grain portion of Lucky Charms is not good tasting at all.  Of course when I actually eat the grain portion, I find that it is not bad at all even if it is not as good as the colorful chunks of sugar.  In college with the healthy eating methods of my home behind me, my friends and I took sight of one of the dorm sized containers of Lucky Charms.  I guess we were determined to put on our Freshman 15 in one meal as we set out to eat the entire container of Lucky Charms.  Too many bowls later we were finished.

I do not know if it is because it is delicious or because it is the only cereal that is associated with any memories from my child hood, but Lucky Charms are easily my favorite.
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Today is also Learn What Your Name Means Day.  I already know what my name means.  It means Gift from God.  My parents had it framed in a picture that hung in my bedroom throughout my childhood.  Really Mom and Dad, tell me how you really feel about me.  Just because I know what my name actually means, does not mean that I wanted to skip out on enjoying Learn What Your Name Means Day.  From my experience, regular dictionaries take decades to change or add new words.  There is only one dictionary I know that is constantly changing and updating.  For this name definition, we have to take this to the streets.
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Urbandictionary.com has a couple of definitions for my name.

1. “a sexy guy that liked the women (NSFW) and has a nice tooth brush” – I did just buy an electric toothbrush.  It even beeps every 30 seconds so you can move to a different area of your mouth.
2. “An attractive, smooth-talking, charming young man.  When you’re with him, he makes you feel like a princess; when you’re not, you know he is making another girl feel the same and not even thinking of you” – Wow.  Urbandictionary putting me on blast. Hate the player not the game.
3. “From the Latin term “Awesomus”, meaning “Awesome” or “Rad”” – nailed it.
4. “Can sometimes be misconstrued as having a big ego or being over confident. Commonly a Leo” – My birthday is in August, and I have no idea where it gets that big ego thing.  I think we should cross out this definition and just stick with the last one.  It is much more accurate.

And finally, Urbandictionary has a word of caution to all of the ladies out there…
5.  “a super hot sexy awesome guy that totally got away. Someone you will never get over.” – They also use this one in a sentence.  “[Messychef], I will always love you and want you back. I only wish I would have told you.”   You have all been warned.
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