A squared plus B squared equals C squared Quadratic formula negative B plus minus the square root of B squared minus four A C all over two A The indirect object of the sentence gives the student some trouble trouble is the indirect object of that sentence and the trouble is that I try to care but I just don't Why would I care to find the venomous velocity of the wretched rocket ship in my fictional physics frustrations Meticulous math makes me mind-numbingly miserable Trying to tangent the trigonometry triangles if it's not right it's oblique fifty states in alphabetical order Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas Capitals Juneau Alaska Alabama Montgomery Augusta Maine Montevideo Uruguay Atomic numbers Titanium 22 Xenon 54 Uranium 92 Eleemosynary E-L-E-E-M-O-S-Y-N-A-R-Y Eleemosynary Onomatopoeia O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-O-E-I-A Onomatopoeia remind me why do we memorize memorize memorize when some soul made spell-check readily ready for regular checking It is three in the morning and I don't doze as I sorrowfully scan my textbook and read about The Financial Panics of 1857 1873 1907 because the worksheet is due tomorrow...All of that information shoved down your throat

How do you feel?

Stressed? Irritated? Upset? Frustrated? Overwhelmed?
Like your time was wasted?
Like you never needed knowledge of needless niceties?

I’m sitting in small spaces in squalor slaving
Away at the absolutely atrocious
Homework. I hate the horrible homework.

Now.

Knowledge needs to be known.
Intelligence: it's important.
Education elevates, inspires, uplifts.
Smarter souls succeed.

But this is MY success, MY happiness, MY intelligence, MY ecstasy.

I find MY joy

In the snowy woods or two roads diverged
When I compare you to a summer's day
In old French songs
And in learning how to build beautiful bellows with big breaths

I find MY purpose
In Mendelssohn's agitations,
Mozart’s musings,
The plies and releves.

In passion,
In art.
MY passion is in the arts.

What's important to ME
makes the world more
Beautiful
Joyous
and
Heavenly.
So.

DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DON’T tell me that art or music or theatre or dance is fruitless or unimportant or a waste of time or not worth the money or can’t fit in the budget

There is always always always room & time & money for art.

We need it.

We need it.

We need it.

They keep denying that fact, and when I’m lying shattered on the ground, my public education picks me up and tells me that

A squared plus B squared equals C squared.