Calculus: The Original Series, or: The 12 Most Important Things in College I Learned in Math 112

Trying to get back into Calculus inevitably brought thoughts of my instructors at Michigan State. 


He gave me a D.  It broke my heart.  But I got a lot out of the experience anyway.  Here is a note I posted on facebook about it:

• I'm thinking about sending this to the professor who taught the above-mentioned class. It was in 1981. He is now approaching his mid-seventies, so I feel some urgency to send it, if I ultimately do. 
• I am not lying about the title or exaggerating it in any way.
• 12 through 9 may seem puzzling, but each of them are answers to the first question on one of the tests throughout the term (10 weeks; this was Michigan State in the eighties).
• 5 through 7 each, in some way, refers to the bar where he and four other guys played in a bluegrass band once a week.  
• These are not all direct quotes from the instructor; sometimes, they are paraphrased, or merely inferred.

The 12 Most Useful things about College, I learned in Calculus (in which I got a D)

From Marxism through Jerry Brown's Bedroom into Conservatism, Part One

What follows is an autobiography I recently contributed to a private forum.  I've wanted for a long time to explain how I got from passing out literature for Communism in college, to writing conservative and libertarian stuff in the 21st century.  Here are some of the highlights:

Calculus and Me I: integrating derivative learning

A few months ago, I decided I had to learn calculus again.

It's not going very well.

Since about 1995, I've hated that I didn't remember the calculus I'd learned in 1981 and 1982.