Today I Wrote Out My Times Tables on the CDS Whiteboard Walls (Yes, I’m in COM)
A lot of my friends here are STEM girlies, which is good (and ultimately, bad) for them. However, as a COM student, I find that I have a lot of extra time on my hands. So when they ask if we want to go study, I immediately say yes. I always have a little work to do, but by the time I’m done with my work, my friends have typically only completed a few problems. A few weeks ago, we arrived at the CDS Building to “study.” I looked at the whiteboards and asked, “who would even use those?” I stand with this statement. If I was doing homework, I would want to do it in a place where I can access it again, and sadly, whiteboard walls do not make that possible (unless you take a photo, but like… ugh.) My friend decided that she would take a try on the boards and wrote a calculus problem. I turned around, immediately jealous . I wanted to write something! Unfortunately, being in COM, there was no problem I could justifiably put on that whiteboard.
But then, a smile crept up on my face. A devious little giggle rang through my head. I hatched an idea so brilliant it would send the great Aristotle into a coma out of laughter. Something so sinister, so spectacular, so stupid, that no one would believe their eyes if they saw it. Times tables. I joyously jumped out of my chair and snatched the marker and eraser. Gone were the equations of past miserable STEM students, and in came 1 x 1 and 3 x 6. At first, the equations were easy. They flew off my hand in no time, and soon, I had done everything from 1 to 6. I stopped and put my finger on my teeth. Hmmmm. I was having too much fun. I stopped myself and told my friends, “If I finish this assignment, then I get to do the rest.” In case you were wondering, this “assignment” was watching an episode of a TV show. And no, I’m not trying to make a joke here. Sure enough, I finished the episode in a sharp 45 minutes and leapt to my feet and excitedly finished up my work. Once finished, I turned around to my friends with a triumphant smile on my face. I had done it. All my times tables from 1 to 12 were up there, even the duplicates (2 x 6 was there while 6 x 2 was there too, for example). However, instead of celebration from my “friends,” when I turned around, I was met with coldness. “Keep going! Go to the floor.” I was in shock. They wanted more? I checked my assignments to see nothing left, I knew I had no excuse. And so, I got on my hands and knees to finish the deed. And eventually, there it stood, my masterpiece.
Later that day, I imagine, a student gave her parents a tour of the lovely BU campus, which included the disgusting data science building. The student, let’s call her Olga Syphil, took her parents inside the said horrific building. I can imagine her bringing them up to a high floor so they could see the view. And I can imagine her showing them around, explaining how “wonderful” the building was. “In each corner of each floor, there are little study spaces with whiteboard walls so that people can do their math homework together and figure out really hard problems.”
I can imagine her mother smiling and saying, “Wow. That’s wonderful! I’m so glad that your school, which had about a 10% acceptance rate last year, has a data science building where really smart students like you can work together on complex math problems!” And then, they turn the corner to view one of these said spaces, only to see, to their horror, their shock, their utmost awe, the most difficult math problems laid out in front of their very eyes, solved. But not just solved. Solved wrong. 2 x 5 = 11, 6 x 9 = 4, and 7 x 8 = 56.
Sometimes people ask me how I did it. They say, “Doran, who I admire so much, how did you figure out 9 x 4?” And all I have to say to my fans is this: “Stay super freaky, have great vagina, I love y’all.”