Dear Stranger,

There's this poster at the uni cafeteria that says "Your only souvenir will be calluses" or something like that. I don't even know what it's for because every time I see it (roughly once a day) I read it as "Your only souvenir will be calculus" and start wondering what the hell they could possibly be trying to sell before realizing that I'm an idiot who can't read.

I've been wanting to tell that story for a while now but it's really not a good story and honestly no one would care about it so I told you because I never have to see you again if I don't want to.

There was a girl behind me in the queue at the caf who was singing,

" I can see a lot of life in you
  I can see a lot of bright in you".

It figured she'd be singing that. I told her that I liked Sufjan Stevens and she looked at me funny. Not the reaction I was expecting. Maybe I was just hallucinating her singing it. It would make more sense for me to be hallucinating it than for her to be actually singing it. I mean that particular song, seriously? Though, the universe does seem to like to fuck with me - like the girl behind me at the bar from Scotland, Ontario. What a stupid fucking name for a city.

I don't think I would have hallucinated it though because I've actually been getting a reasonable amount of sleep lately (thanks to skipping an unreasonable amount of lectures). So she must have been singing it herself. Strange look though. Weird.

I bet if I told you what I study, you'd tell me you hate it. Most people tell me they hate maths. That pisses me off so much. I hate having to tell people what I study because I never know how to react when they tell me they hate it.

"So what do you study?"
*mumbles* "umm, maths"
"Ugh, I hate math. I pretty much failed it in high school".
"Uh, it's not for everyone. I like it though so..."
"Oh thats good for you but I can't stand it"
"Thanks?"

What's the worst is that most people haven't even earned the right to hate maths. I don't believe you can properly hate something until, at the very least, you know a little bit about it. At the best, most people can only claim to not understand any math. That I'm okay with, but hate? No. You're not allowed because you don't fucking know anything. For example, here are some different fields in maths I can think of off the top of my head:

Math biology, math ecology, linear programing, non-linear programming, cryptography, cryptoanalysis, real analysis, complex analysis, algebraic topology, differential topology, group theory, Galois theory, chaos theory, fractal geometry, euclidean geometry, non-euclidean geometry, number theory, linear algebra, vector calculus, combinatorics, set theory, optimization, game theory, numerical analysis, mathematical finance, and so on and so on.

You probably can't tell me what happens in a single one of those (very very broad) fields and yet, in a single sweeping statement you claim that you hate them all. You don't have that right. I can claim that I hate analysis because I actually fucking know what it is.

So dear stranger, the moral of the story is that if someone tells you they study something that you know nothing about, don't fucking tell them you hate it. It's fucking rude and it's inaccurate.