Lesson #167 The Last Day of Calculus

1. Some advice, as you prepare to graduate ...

(1) Discover your passion, and build your life around it. For it is in doing what you really enjoy that you will experience true happiness.

(2) Dream big dreams and commit yourself to those dreams. Be willing to take some risks.

(3) If you get homesick or experience some difficult times in college, just work a little harder. Concentrating on your studies will help take your mind off your homesickness.
Remember St. Paul's words in Romans 8:28, "All things work together for good to them that love God." Things will work out for the best.

(4) Don't forget to call home. Your momma needs to hear from you.

(5) Keep your sense of humor. As Jimmy Buffet said, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

2. Some blunt advice for Graduates from Bill Gates

Rule 1 - Life is not fair; get used to it.

Rule 2 - The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 - You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 - If you think the teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

Rule 5 - If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes - learn from them.

Rule 6 - Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping; they called it "opportunity."

Rule 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, washing your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. Thus, before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 - Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

Rule 9 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 - Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 - Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you'll end up working for one.

3. Don't worry about me:

"Old teachers never die; they just lose their class."

"Old math teachers never die, they just tend to infinity."

"Old math teachers never die; they just pass into another sphere."

4. My final advice for you is the same advice I gave you on the first day of school:

The three biggest factors in being successful in college are: ATTITUDE, WORK ETHIC, and ATTENDANCE.

(1) "Be Positive."
"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to it." -- Charles Swindoll

(2) "Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration."

"I do not believe in the gifted. If [the students] have ganas [Spanish for desire], I can make them do it." - Jaime Escalante

"There is no Royal Road to Geometry." -- Euclid

(3) You can't learn it if you're not here ...
Go to class everyday!

5. And so I leave you with the words of Buzz Lightyear, "To infinity and beyond!"

6. Some activities:

(1) Mobius Strip

(2) Mobius Card

(3) Card Trick - Arrange the 13 cards of one suit in your hand so that when you deal a card then burn a card, then deal a card, then burn a card, you will get the 13 cards in order:
A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K

(4) Calculus Definitions

(5) Math Aptitude Test