That Explains Why I Thought Math Was Fun

When I was in high school I never would have imagined that I would start a blog.  Mainly because back in the early 2000’s I didn’t know what a blog was.  But also because I didn’t really like to read or write in high school.  I was always more interested in Math class than English class.

I liked the challenge of solving complex problems, knowing that there was a specific method or formula that could be used to find each answer.  My grades were always better in Math than any other subject (expect for maybe Study Hall – I was a whiz at pretending to study).

Even now that I have found a love for reading and writing, I still think fondly of math.  But now I think of math much like a childhood friend who moved away to a different state.  I remember the times we had, but we haven’t kept in touch.  I can’t remember the last time I used the quadratic formula or even had to do long division.

For today’s memory Monday, I thought back to my high school math classes and I found exactly why I used to like math so much…TI calculators.

Remember those giant TI calculators? They were about the size of your arm and had what seemed like 100’s of buttons.  They were so much more advanced than the regular old calculators you had in grade school.  TI calculators were big time.

Instead of just writing 8008 in your little gray calculator, TI calculators allowed you to write full curse words and then giggle as you showed your friends.

These genius calculators basically solved the problems for you.  All you had to do was type in the lines of numbers, letters and symbols and the TI would spit out the answer like some type of magic genie.  And best of all, these battery powered magicians had games!

They were essentially iPhones that didn’t make phone calls.  In the evolutionary history of handheld games, I think it went Gameboy, TI calculator then iPhone.

An hour long math class would fly by because you could play Asteroid and Tetris the entire time.  Not only could you play games, but while playing games, it appeared to the teacher as if you were trying to do math.

Well, maybe the teacher didn’t always think you were actually trying to solve the problems.  After 10 straight minutes of smashing away at buttons and then dropping your head in defeat, I am sure your teacher began to suspect that you were up to something.  Either that or you were a little too passionate about Algebra.

Whatever happened to your TI calculator?  If you are like me, you passed it down to your younger brother and showed him how to access the games.

With smart phones, do kids even use TI calculators to play games anymore?  Or are the calculators used strictly for math?

So looking back, what I thought was a love of math was actually a fondness for Falldown & Frogger.