Another semester, more excuses.

Spring semester starts on Monday. Back to the grind. I am taking math 1010 again (I know, pathetic but true). I was going through all my old word docs on my comp, trying to get rid of all the papers I hope to never see again. Yet I came upon my favorite paper I ever wrote. It wasn't for some English class, it wasn't profound. However, I enjoyed writing it. Auto-biography you might think? No, it was a paper as to why my math assignments were late. I thought I would share it, just because I feel like laughing. Here it is. *Disclaimer* I wrote this in the fall of 2010 which explains the outdated sports references.

My excuses for Not Turning in my Test Corrections

It has been a tough go this semester for me. As I write this paper I hope you will laugh and cry with me as I tell you of the last few weeks of my life, telling of all the triumphs, failures and frustrations along the way. After all is said and done I hope you will graciously accept my reason as to why my test corrections were late and give me the credit you feel I deserve.

First off, can we just touch on how bad BYU football is this year? I don’t know if you are a BYU fan but I have been a BYU fan since conception. And in all of my 23 years and 9 months (counting time spent in my mother’s womb) I have never seen a BYU team that sucks as bad as this one. Our receivers can’t even catch the most elementary of passes. It is the equivelant of having an engineer that doesn’t know his multiplication tables. It’s pathetic. I think I can come up for a mathematical formula for why BYU sucks. Crappy receivers is represented by x and Robert Anae is y, with Harvey Unga being represented by z. The equation goes something like this: (-4x^3)+y(-z^2)=BYU’s terrible offense this year.

Then there is the Minnesota Twins. The Twins are my baseball team for two reasons. One is that my mom grew up in Minneapolis and my whole family roots for the Twins. The other is that the twins won the World Series in 1987, which also happens to be the year I was born. I was born in August and the Twins won the World Series that fall. Now, I am not saying that they won that year because of my grand entrance into this world, but it could have been a factor. It is a very controversial theory that ranks up there along with the Makaveli theory that suggests deceased rapper 2pac is still alive.

Well the Twins did great this year, clinching their division and having home field advantage in the playoffs. But the Yankees came in and man handled them as they have done over the last seven years. It was a traumatic experience to say the least. I am currently seeing a therapist on campus to help relieve my post traumatic stress symptoms from that loss.

There is the Jazz though, they are my whole numbers in a world full of non-simplified fractions. They had an awesome pre season but looked really rusty in their first two regular season games but sure enough they came through on the road against Oklahoma City. They did to Oklahoma what I did to the mid-term, they freaking stomped all over OKC and dominated the whole game, kind of like how I was kicking a** and taking names when I took the mid-term. I dominated that test hands down, putting in a brilliant performance that would have made the weekly top ten of sports center if they counted test performance. What I did to that test is what Cliff Lee did against the Yankees in game 3 of the American League Championship series. Overall, you have to admit that my performance on that test was simply brilliant.

I know that a lot of this has nothing to do with why my test corrections didn’t get turned in and in all honesty, I just forgot to do them. I have been too busy dominating mid terms and tests. I know you get the typical cliché excuses of “Oh, I thought it was extra credit.” Or “I didn’t know it was due today.” Or “Sorry Ms. Hill, but the Cowboys lost again this weekend putting them at 1-6 so I spent all of Sunday night drowning my sorrows with Jack Daniels.” I’m not that kind of guy.

In all seriousness though I have been working insane hours and doing school full time as well. I worked 80 hours in nine days late last month. With that on top of school, it has been hard to get around to all of my assignments. I do however feel I have been doing great in this class. If I had to convert my performance in this class into a batting average, I’d say I’m batting at a solid .435 right now. I have done every test review, done every assignment on mymathlab, and scored no lower than an 82 on my tests. This is my breakout season in my math career, putting up numbers that would shock most of my past math teachers. If there is a most improved player award given in this class, I seriously see myself getting the most first place votes. But I’m not in it for the attention or the glory; I do it for the love of the game. Simply put, there is nothing more pleasurable than dominating test after test, week in and week out. They say that these kinds of performances are what seperates competitors from champions; and I am here to prove I am a champion.

But I’m not going to shoot a hundred percent from the field, even during my breakout season. I’m sure Albert Einstein missed a test correction or two in his day, just like how Michael Jordan didn’t make every shot and how A-Rod got caught looking on the third strike that ended the Yankees season and sent the Rangers to the World Series. All super stars have come up short like I have with not turning in test corrections, but when my student number is retired and hangs from the rafters of the math department, people are going to remember the 99 I got on the mid-term, not the test corrections I forgot to turn in.