Do you?)

Just lately
when I'm sitting
at the microfilm machines and I
imagine (as I often do) aliens
coming down from the night sky
to ask me about my whirring box
with tiny lines of
intricate nothing-glyphs,
they ask me why I am not off
in some wheel-ship on my way to
the shores of Maine
to watch the sun rise
over the ocean's
rolling lines
of meaning-full something-gasps.


(I have no
goodorevenpoor answer for them.

My Dissertation on Boys, Bent Space, and the Cause and Effects of Solar Flares

They become convinced that you alone
hold the power over their day/and/night,
(and will have you thinking the very same,
if you let them!) silly satellites.
They never see the most obvious thing:
Any star looks like the sun
when it’s the one you’re orbiting.

Every now and then, I have my moments, or weeks, when I think about dropping my math major.  But, I don't think I could ever bring myself to do it.  Math has taught me too many valuable things, and I know it has much more wisdom to throttle me with before this is all over.

Things I've Learned 

[as a Student of Mathematics]

• If you keep getting the wrong answer, go back and make sure you're working on the right problem.
   
• Know your limits.
  
  --->  If you sacrifice being a human on the altar of being a student, it's only a matter of time before you'll be doing pretty poorly at being either. 
  
  --->  Also, know the limit definition of a derivative.  It's just something you should know.
   
• Problems are better worked out with a friend.
  
  
• Sometimes the best you can do is lose every battle while winning the war.
  
  --->  Take the time to understand your mistakes, even if it seems costly on the short term, and you will eventually begin to stop repeating them. 
  
  --->  Glaze over your mistakes, and when the test comes, you'll be in a sorry state.
  
  
• If someone else's answer doesn't look exactly like yours, it doesn't necessarily mean either one is wrong. 
  
  --->  They could be different forms of the same answer.
  
  
• Some things are variables, and some things are constants. 
  
  --->  Don't forget which is which.
  
  
• When you're proving something, make sure the inductive hypothesis is true.
  
  --->  Every topple from an unstable climb started with an unstable claim.

And I'm sure I'll be adding to this list for some time to come. Feel free to comment with your own mathephors of wisdom.

Mountains

Whisperlike echoes,
frozen
still-frame of a sea.
Tumultuous waves
tamed,
cooled to stone by
some sage wizard
ages past.

Tests

There is one thing I like about tests.  There's no reason to bring your book to class.  You won't risk having your phone on, even on vibrate, so you don't need to bring that either.  Your notebook can stay at home, your backpack is unnecessary; you walk to class bare-backed and strangely, uncomfortably  free.

When it comes time, it's just you and a pencil.  You sit down and are handed the challenge to show, after every extra weight and attachment has been stripped away, what's still left.