Every Day in Calculus

 Okay. Today is the day. The day I turn things around and start paying attention. I’m going to sit in the front row and ask intelligent questions and ace the next test.

Wow, the front row is close to the board! I don’t want to get a crick in my neck. I’ll just sit in the middle row and look really alert so the teacher knows I’m engaged.

Okay. Differentiate five x squared. That’s easy. We’ve already covered that. Y prime equals ten x. Nice! You go, girl! Now nod a lot at the teacher so she knows you got it right.

Gosh, this class is moving slowly. We’ve already done all this. Why are people still struggling? Obviously I’m smarter than everyone here. I’m totally getting an A.

I guess it would be okay for me to check my phone while everyone’s working on this problem I already solved.

OMG! That cute boy finally asked out Nicole! I have to text back.

Oh shit. They moved on to a different problem. Whatever, I can catch up. This stuff is pretty easy. Wait, differentiate with regard to x? What? How is that not like normal differentiation. I’ll just do it regularly. Oh man, how on earth did she get that answer?

I should ask a question. But I don’t want to look like an idiot. And what if they’ve already covered it? Then she’ll know I wasn’t paying attention.

Shoot, shoot. Come on. You can figure this out. There’s gotta be a trick, just watch how they do the next problem. ‘Implicit differentiation’? What the hell??

Oh god, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Everyone around me seems to get it. Maybe if I scribble in my notes and look up at the board a lot she’ll just assume I understand and give me points for paying attention.

Oh no, oh no, she’s asking for volunteers to go the board. Don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me. Okay, I just won’t make eye contact. But I can’t look like I don’t want to get picked. Teachers can sense fear. Just be nonchalant. Oh thank God.

Okay, next problem… ‘let s represent the distance between a radar station and a plane and x the horizontal distance. If s is decreasing at a rate of 400 mph what is the velocity of the plane?’

Well clearly no one could solve that. It must be a joke question. Is it April first yet? Oh…oh my. What the- LILY HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?!? How can you be SOLVING this? What do all those letters mean?

This has to be a joke. Ms. Howard is punishing me for not paying attention and she got the whole class in on it. I’m probably being filmed. Shoot, I didn’t wear makeup today. I should roll my eyes so the people watching know I get the joke now and I’m not an idiot.

Wait there’s no way they’d be able to carry on a joke for this long. Someone would crack. Besides, Ms. Howard doesn’t even have a sense of humor! Which means…people actually get this. This is real math. That I will be tested on.

You know what, screw this. I’m going to be a humanities major anyway.