(And when I say basic, I mean that I have a high school math education, during which time I was in fact enrolled in Honors Geometry, Honors Algebra 2, Honors Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus, and AP Calculus. I got a 3 on the AP Calculus test. But that does not mean that I am actually good at math, because doing that well was the result of many nights of working on homework for four hours with my father, a lot of crying and shouting at my father, and just NOT GETTING most of my calculus class until the very end, when we reviewed for a whole month before the AP exam. I learned what I had to to pass the class, and then I forgot it. As for science, I always took the regular classes in high school, the basic science classes in college, and then I was done, thank goodness.)
I'm more of an English, history, art, music gal. And really not so much with the art because I can't actually draw (although I'm very good at appreciating other people's drawings and rolling on the floor crying because I can't draw), and really not so much with the history because my brain likes to class from 1700 to 1910 as all the same time period, when it really wasn't (and the only thing that separates that from today is that in the 20's you started seeing flappers, and then in the 50's it was the poofy skirts like with Marilyn Monroe, and then in the 70's women started wearing pants and then in the 80's you had shoulder pads in the jackets (ugh gross) and then in the 90's there were jeans and now in the 20th century you have hipsters, which means that the boys dress like the girls and the girls dress like their grandmothers. I dunno. I don't follow fashion very well, but that's the visual stimuli that my brain goes through when I'm thinking of history. Before 1700, on the other hand, everybody dressed like Queen Elizabeth (women) and Shakespeare (men).).
That leaves me with English and music- and I'm really not terribly good at music anymore, either. I've gotten better at singing and worse at my instruments because this apartment complex has no piano (because it's basically something hatched from a brick egg laid by a giant cockroach) and because I didn't take my violin to college and I didn't want to take my violin to college because a) I knew I would never play it anyway and b) it would take up needed space in whatever ten-by-ten room I was living in.
That really just leaves me with English. And I've gravitated less from the snobbery of "oh, I like to read classics, so I'm better than all you peasants" and more towards the "I really only read when I'm assigned to read something for school because I have no TIME for pleasure reading because I have to work and write so I can practice writing and suddenly TV learned how to make shows I like because Doctor Who and Sherlock and Supernatural and so on so basically I not only have to watch those but also all the movies ever and I have to research them and what better place to do that than tumblr" so I end up spending time on tumblr and making friends with people who watch the same YouTube videos I do and stuff. I don't know. I just don't really read anymore. I write. A lot. But I don't really read all that much.
Which leaves me with the question, "What do I do when I'm bored and/or done with things I need to get done?"
There are several answers to this question. I try to do things that I need to do first, like pay my bills and do my homework and go to the grocery store. You know, grown-up stuff. But then when I have a bit of leisure time, I probably do things in this order:
1) Get on tumblr. This is a very bad idea, and you should, none of you, EVER get a tumblr. (It will ruin your life and crush your soul and destroy your dreams but not in like a bad way, in a way that helps you make friends and become socially aware and enjoy some of the same things with people you've never met.)
2) Write. Lately, I've been writing a novel with my good roommate/best friend/platonic soul mate Superwholockmarauder. It's a novel in letters, and it's also a fairy tale. It's AWESOME. We're planning on self-publishing on Amazon when we finish and making some money off the e-book by a lot of advertising. Advertising is gr9 (which is like gr8 but more). But this won't be actual advertising- it will be us spamming our Facebook feeds and tumblr dashboards with "BUY OUR E-BOOK IT'S ABOUT PRINCESSES AND LETTERS AND POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND IT'S SO GOOD." Stuff like that. I also have other stuff that I write, like Harry Potter fanfiction (which I should not write as it is among the many things that ruin my life on a daily basis) and a lot of stories that I start and never actually finish because I'm great at coming up with ideas and terrible at following through on them. Sometimes I write blog posts. You know.
3) Write poetry. This is different from writing because my poetry is angsty and terrible and not like my stories. I have to be in a specific mood to write poetry.
4) Color things. Usually this is the covers of my notebooks. Lately, the cover of my poetry notebook. I'll probably put a picture on Facebook when that's all finished, so yeah.
5) Kakuro. I should explain about this one separately.
So kakuro is a Japanese number puzzle. It's similar to sudoku in that it is a logic puzzle. It does, however, involve actual math. Sometimes, Americans who are intensely proud of the fact that they are from 'Murica and who don't need no stinking foreigners like to call it Cross Sums, which is a good explanation of what kakuro is. It's basically a crossword puzzle, but instead of words, you fill in numbers. The catch? The numbers in any given row or column have to add up to the number listed in the black space at the left or top of said row or column, and you cannot use the same number twice in a row or column.
It looks like this. It's pretty cool. I haven't started that one on the right yet. (Also, here is the opportunity to appreciate my face.)
I love it because it's very challenging. Like, you would think that this would be fairly easy, right? Yeah, no. It's actually really hard. Even the easy ones are hard. Picture this: you have three blank spaces in your row and they have to add up to 7. Well, I know from experience that there is only one combination of numbers that will fit there, but you don't, so I'll take you through the process.
You can immediately rule out 7, 8, and 9. They won't fit into your puzzle. That leaves you with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Now, you see you have three spaces. If you throw a 6 into one of the boxes, you have to have a 1 to add up to 7- then you also have a blank box. So cross 6 off the list of possibilities. Then you try 5. 5 would work- but the only way to fill the other two squares after you have a 5 is to have two 1s in the boxes, and you cannot repeat boxes. So you can scratch 5 off, too.
4 looks good- the other two blanks would hold a 1 and a 2. In fact, 1+2+4 is the only combination of three numbers that adds up to 7 without repeating another number. So any time in a kakuro puzzle you see three blanks adding up to 7, you know that the three blanks will be some combination of 1, 2, and 4.
"Aha!" you say. "So, does it always work like this? You just find the numbers that fit?"
Yes and no. See, the three blanks, similarly to sudoku, could be filled in as 1-2-4 or as 4-2-1 or as 1-4-2 or as 2-4-1 or as 2-1-4 or as 4-1-2. (At least, I think those are the only combinations. Correct me if I'm wrong.) So you have to use clues from adjoining rows and columns to figure out what order they go in. And then you get lengthier combinations, such as the only five numbers adding up to 35 without repeating are 5+6+7+8+9, and the only seven numbers adding up to 41 are 2+4+5+6+7+8+9. And trying to find what order those combinations go in are messy. And then you have numbers like 21, and with three blanks that could be 6+7+8 or 5+7+9 or 4+8+9. And then, of course, if you get a 45, everything hits the fan, because you have 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 and you have to figure out what goes where and oh, my goodness, is it a mess, but there's something very beautiful about it, too. There's something beautiful and simple and perfect about the way the numbers are put together. Simple addition and logic and inference.
I mean, simple enough. For a dummy like me.
I said I wasn't good at math, and that might be a lie, because math is inherently logical (with the exception of imaginary numbers, which I still don't understand ("Could somebody please teach me something useful, like how to balance a checkbook?" -props to you if you know the movie)), and I find that logic beautiful. I like to look at patterns, not for their intricate mathematical value but for the beauty that happens when you see them in real life. I hate trigonometry- but boy, are the graphs pretty, ocean waves and hearts and the Bat symbol and a few others that remind me that God placed order in the chaos, that all of nature and growth is inherently done with numbers. And we might not be able to see how much food a plant can make in the process of photosynthesis, but you can do the math and add it up. Numbers are an abstract idea- but they would exist even if we didn't know of them.
And maybe that applies to a lot of things. God, logically and nonreligiously speaking, is an abstract idea- but I believe that He would exist even if I didn't know he existed. I believe he exists, even if you don't. Love is an abstract idea, but it would exist even if I had never loved. Darkness is an abstract idea- because it is the absence of light, and how can something only exist as an absence?- but it would exist even if I had never known darkness.
And I have known darkness- I have seen myself for what I am with nothing to lift me any higher. I am, by myself, weak and pathetic and stupid and uncomprehending. I have woken up in the morning and wondered if anybody would even care if I didn't leave my bed that day. I have sobbed myself to sleep wondering if the world would be better off without me, and what a relief it would be if it were, because maybe then I could just quietly slip away to whatever's waiting without bothering or hurting anyone.
But then I must remember that I am a creature of light, and of logic, and of love, created by the Lord; "the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Sometimes I think that I am the darkness, that we are all the darkness, that humanity is a symptom of a terrible disease- but I am not of the darkness, because I understand that I am separate from the darkness; "I think, therefore I am." The Bible and Descartes, two separate entities from entirely different viewpoints, and both of them reminding me that I am made of light and logic and love and that when you put those things together, somehow, miraculously, they turn out differently every time and that is where our souls come from. Our bodies might be mathematical, requiring so many cells to function and knowing exactly when to make more cells (which is always) and reminding us when to sleep and eat and rid ourselves of waste- but our souls are something different- something higher- something better. Humanity is not a symptom of a disease- it is a product of light, and logic, and love. I am light and logic and love, and you are light and logic and love, and we are all light, and logic, and love.
Peace be unto you. Have some jam on your toast tomorrow morning and think of me fondly, and then think of yourself fondly, because you're made of light and logic and love.
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