The Virgin Mathematician.

As I start this new semester, and a new Calculus class, I look ahead to what I want and a firm resolve has settled within me. I want my degree more than I want any man on this planet. No offence men, you all can be very wonderful husbands, friends, and lovers at times, but you can also be very "distracting" as a friend once told me.

So like that illustrious queen of so many years ago, I shall forswear of a gentlemans intimacies until I have at least a Bachelor of Science degree. Although I will not don the white face paint that Queen Elizabeth I wore, perhaps a lace collar interlaced with mathematical equations would be appropriate.

"Isaac Newton, the Last Sorcerer"

by Michael White

I just finished reading this wonderful book about Isaac Newton, and personally I found it a page turner. At times a vain man and with such an intellect, Newton could be very devious, but one who was meticulus in his methods and tenacious in his desire for the truth.

Unknown to many Newton came very close to the Theory of Relativity and to an understanding of Quantum Mechanics.

This book protrayed a true picture of the man, not leaving out his devling into Alchemy, as many biographers wish to omit.

Well researched and well written, the biographer must have taken Newton's own phrase to heart, "I am a friend to Plato, I am a friend to Aristotle, but I more of a friend to the truth."

Re-Emerging

I am re-emerging. The truest part of myself that has been pushed down for so long is again coming to the surface.. And as I re-emerge, I am becoming someone I haven't seen in quite a long time.

I find that I have an appreciation for the music that touches my ears that I have never had before. When I was young, the classics were an escape from what was going on outside my bedroom door, enjoyed, but not fully experienced. All those years ago, the classics were my refuge from emotions I did not want to feel, and experiences I now find I do not wish to remember. But now, in my leisure from a tormented life, I find that the music isn't just a refuge, but now I inhale the music and almost experience the emotions of the composer as he was writing the music. I can almost feel my fingers on the harpsichord playing the notes of Bach as I hear them.

I look back on my life and pray that I have been a good servant. I know there were times when I was not, and those times will haunt me, hopefully to impart a lesson to a mistake not repeated.

For the first time in my life I can live my life for me, an unusual prospect, seeing I have been a caregiver for most of my life. And as I re-emerge, the question arises, what does Adele want? The answer comes easily, "To learn."

More than the prestige or any honors I may receive from getting a Bachelor's in Mathematics and beyond, I have a desire for the Mathematics itself. And not just Mathematics, I find my hunger for knowledge extends to the other sciences as well, Physics, Chemistry, Botany. My hunger for knowledge has long been repressed by the needs of someone else. I have no regrets for the choices, for I can look back on my life with honor and know that I kept my word to those I gave it. But now at 44, it is my time, the time for me to finally achieve my dreams.