I have a Nemesis and her name is Olivia. She has been the bane of my existence this week as I have attempted to help Charlie prepare for his maths exam.

Olivia has been knitting a scarf while her grandmother knits a jersey. Not content with this cosy, crafty bonding time with Grandma, Olivia really wants to know on which nights her scarf will be longer than Grandma’s jersey. She must know!

I suppose I know what it feels like to get a little competitive. Linear graphs and equations hold all the answers, and Charlie and I wield them on her behalf.

Then Olivia sees a beautiful Mystic Rose pattern in her teacher’s office.

Rather than marvel at the beauty and complexity of it, she will not rest until she knows how many lines are in the pattern. Feeling a bit sorry for Olivia and her somewhat clinical soul, we reveal all the mysteries of the mystic rose using a quadratic sequence.

Olivia is a bit dry and takes a long, cool drink from a water fountain. She insists on finding a graph that will match the flow of water. This is getting irritating. Does she have to reduce everything down to an insatiable thirst for numbers and parabolas?

Yes. Yes, she does.

In what is absolutely the final straw, Olivia wants to model the shape of her ear.

You heard me!

Incredulous, we manage to ascertain that an exponential graph will help, but by now both Charlie and I have lost all respect for algebra and its supposed "real life applications."

I seem to remember someone in high school promising me that I would never have to use algebra again. How wrong they were. Here I am, 26 years later, drumming it in to my poor boy's reluctant brain.

Inspired by Olivia, I decide to map out my own experience with algebra.

The y-axis represents Freedom from Algebra. The x-axis represents my age. Note that the vertex representing the kids' high school years dips much lower than the vertex which shows my own high school years. This is because of the realisation that for several years I will have at least two children in senior high school, going through algebra. This graph has helped clarify a lot of things. I kind of like it.

So, thank you, Olivia, for helping me to value this constant in my life.

Holy Envy

No Butts

In a bit of a pickle

Press Forward, March Onward

When Rights Go Wrong

Discovering jiggle-chunks and other good things in Urenui

REALigion

Green and growing things

When a Calm Woman marries a Horn Honking Man

Algebra is my constant

Laura