You may wonder what one does for a week at a math conference. i too wonder and I am actually here. I personally spent my day sorting the other participants into groups. There was the obvious groups...Gender Neutral, Hairy Armpits, overly enthusiastic....and then there were those that were harder to classify. Quite frankly I think that I was being very mathy by sorting and classifying things. isn't that what the very principals of math are built on? Seeing the patterns and differences in things? I was stumped by a large group of teachers at one point and was forced to come up with pseudo categories including, most likely to have and wear a math shirt, doesn't have a full length mirror. And then it hit me out of the blue...I am a mean spirited person. i am sure this isn't news to many of my friends and neighbors, but I had a moment of clarity this afternoon and it was truly upsetting. Not once did I consider the category, most likely to be a great knitter, or probably rescues cats from the humane society (although I think that one could go both ways) clearly my mind works on the simplest level, that of spite and pettiness. Here I am at the same conference but feeling somehow superior.

In an effort to redeem myself I focused my entire afternoon on being a better person. Honestly I think I did a good job. I bought Super Big Gulps for my friends (even though they only asked for Big Gulps) I encouraged a woman at Target to buy the item she was looking at as it would enhance her bustline. I even spent a good amount of time helping my co-worker with her technological growth. I think I may have redeemed myself but I have posed this challenge to myself...Tomorrow I must re-categorize everyone into groupings with slightly less snarky titles. I shall go to bed tonight thinking of the possibilities and where I can effectively stick the gender neutral grouping...