y=mx+b

My senior year of high school, I made the mistake of taking AP Calculus. I'm not sure how I placed into the course, as I barely survived Math Analysis in my junior year (and "barely survived" is probably even too generous; my overall grade for the year was around a C+/B-). Anyway, they stuck me in AP Calc the following year and I showed up, ready for anything, and perfectly content to kill 45 mins. before lunch each day oblivious to whatever might be going on in the classroom. The teacher, Mr. Fouratt, a nice enough guy, taught directly to the chalk board, as opposed to the class itself, so between his mumbling up at the front and overall disinterest in any kind of back and forth with the class, it was a fine stretch of time to catch up on recreational reading, grab some shut-eye or leave the room for long stretches. Unsurprisingly, it was one of my favorite classes.

So, the year went on and by the half-way point, some of the stuff I had picked up, some of it was totally lost on me, but overall, things were generally looking good for me to coast through the balance of the year, take my C, and get the heck out of dodge. Sadly, it wasn't gonna go down like that.

In a most unfortunate development, the material started getting a bit intense for my limited skills, which primarily consisted of taking a formula or proof, or whatever they were called, I can't remember, and simply rewriting them as many different ways as I could cook up. The only hard and fast rule that I could manage to adhere to was whatever I did to left side of the equation, I'd sure as shit do to the right side. These basic math chops had scored me many a partial credit dating back to the fifth grade, and, for better or worse, were probably what landed me in the AP course in the first place.

Long story short, we have an exam on derivatives or something and the art of twisting and turning them as the rules of calculus dictate, and I am absolutely dying during the exam, totally dead in the water, fully aware that my tools have been rendered useless. It's ugly. Sure enough, exam comes back the next week and I get, like, an 18 out of 100. Not good. I'm the last one to walk out of class that day, clearly shell-shocked, trying to shake it off and Mr. Fouratt calls after me, "Hey, Massey, y=mx+b! You can't even figure out the slope of a line now? Gotta know how to walk before you can run, man." Apparently, in my butchering of the exam, I'd consistently botched up one of the more basic formulas applied in sorting out the more serious stuff. I'm not sure what exactly I had done wrong, but it was enough for Fouratt to needle me about it for the balance of the year. But at least he'll never get that car of his at the bottom of the lake.

Why even mention it? Well, I only bring it up because Veiled Reference worked from the gate this morning down at Fair Hill. Only part of the work that she missed was the part where she comes running out of the gate. Whoops. Tim said she gave a good size hop, looked around as if to ask, "is there some kind of problem?," and then only got to running once Tim nudged her to go on. Everything after that went fine, she traveled well, but Tim wasn't thrilled that she'll need additional schooling at the gate. Unlike my math skills, it's readily sorted out with a bit of practice, but when Tim mentioned it, I couldn't help but think of my Calc experience. I've managed to hold things together relatively well (I have a blog!), so there's hope yet for the filly, too. She'll work back next week.