Commentary on the state of the Republic

My Spherical Trigonometry class is hardcore. Glen, our tutor, is a great teacher who leads us along to the answer without actually making us go there. Actually, the best thing about Glen is that he makes us all interested, he tells a story about math. He'll tell us where this theorem originated, who did it, and a bit about that (supposedly) famous person. And how this completely changed math. (since we're learning theories in chronological order, we completely appreciate newer and better ones).


Glen pushes us and we just push back, darn it! Hannah became sick and Durgen didn't sleep for two nights because of a math assignment. We're all getting pretty good marks, making Glen's grading curve go to " H-E-double hockey sticks". And I was one of three students who apparently did what was almost unthinkable on 'Glen' assignments and got an A.


Most of the time, class ends, and we all just stay there doing work. I would probably think that it's a lot more sad if I wasn't part of it... In fact, we figured that we spend a minimum of ten hours a day on math. (maximum averaged 18, more math than sleep!) And if you look at numbers of people who are thinking about math, it's always AT LEAST 17 (number of people in our class). And we get lovely conversations going at dinner with people who aren't even in the class!


Is it normal to search YouTube for 'triangle'? Most of us have by now had several math dreams, or see Menelaus figures in between people you're having conversation with. (It's also known in our class as the Star Trek Theory. You can see it to the right.) When we meet each other in the hallway, we'll start talking about Sperical Trig. We honestly can't stop thinking about it! So to restate, our class is hardcore.

Well as I said earlier this week, I was looking up propaganda posters for inspiration in style and feeling. I made this because we are all so devoted to our beloved Spherical Trigonometry. In fact, we decided to take a class picture in which everyone had part of a lénart sphere on their head. (A lénart sphere is a clear, basketball-sized glove you can draw on with wet-erase markers.) I think this would be more under 'political cartoon' genre than propaganda, but I still like it:

It's modeled after the American Pledge of Allegiance, with a couple of small modifications... Oh, and that thing in the background is a diagram of Napier's rules for Sines (and cosines and tangents)... This is what I created! I'm excited and amused by myself. Even though I was being vague so as not to ruin the surprise, I even asked Glen if I could boost my mark with it.