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Math/Physics Overload (S&D)

by Cindy Chang
(Stanford, CA)

It was the night before my Math 51 midterm, and I had been studying for days on end after finishing up Physics the week before and my brain was just full of partial derivatives and box/slope problems everywhere I went.


I fell asleep around 3, and soon afterward all of a sudden I woke up in my Math 51 lecture room (something I do often in class...). The professor had asked me a question and wanted me to come up to the board to solve this problem, like I would have to do on the test. It was some absurd looking function that I had no idea where to even begin taking the partial derivative of, and just as I was pondering how to solve it, the green chalkboard opened up and the ground I was standing on broke through so I was falling into the depths of the math building.

I landed on a box...(can you guess?) on a slope. As I slid down, it was like I was in my own personalized physics problem. I could see colorful phrases like "coefficient of friction=0.25" and other parts of the problem flying by me. Then I looked at what was at the bottom of the slope and prayed that the result of the problem was that I wouldn't reach the end, because at the bottom of the slope was a gigantic pool of hot red lava! I freaked out and tried to jump off the box and climb up the slope while I still could. But I accidentally tripped on my own foot as I was frantically trying to escape. I woke up just as I was sliding down the slope to my doom.

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