MY TI-89

calculator is smarter than I am, and thus it mocks me on a regular basis.

It knows exactly what is wrong--and tells me exactly what the problem is before it will compute.

It gives me error messages like

"Missing parenthesis"

And makes me fix it.

I figure that if the g-calc (graphing calculator) already knows what is wrong, then it can fix it itself, or at least carry out the mathematical procedure while ignoring the typo.

But hey. It shouldn't waste it's time on silly things like that when it can make me do it instead.  My TI-89 is busy making 3D graphs, outputting indefinite integrals, and solving differential equations.

That's right. You heard me. 3D graphs.

The boy down the street hates it already.  As soon as I opened it he commented, "Oh man. I'm never gonna get to see you again."

I live such a hard life.  My friends and family just don't understand what a cool thing this is.  Until I took it to the engineering lab...

I have never seen such a warm welcome for a piece of technology.  There were oohs and aahhs. People congratulated me.  Others gave me advice on how to evaluate integrals or factor polynomials.  Some testified how it had changed their life.

I felt like I had given birth and brought in my newborn or something.

In any case, I think this marks a special day--the day that I can confidently forget the quadratic equation and still function in my major.


My calculator IS Jimmer.