While grading homework for my Dynamical Systems class — an assignment that admittedly involved quite a number of involved calculations involving complex-matrix eliminations and the computation of Jordan bases — I found this hastily inscribed on the back of one of the problem sets:
I hate arithmetic!
It really makes me mad
Because I get the answer wrong
Every time I add.I hate arithmetic!
It really chaps my ass
Because I have to do it right
If I want to pass.I hate arithmetic!
I think it hates me!
Too bad I’m a math major
‘Cause I’m crazy now, you see.
So while I’m apparently not inspiring a profound appreciation for systems of differential equations, I am inspiring poetry, so that’s got to count for something.
