The Logic of Like

(Warning: the following ramblings involve a high probability of dangerous to near-fatal overflow of possibly quite putrid cheese. They also have about zero relevance to CSC165, because on (frequent) occasion my brain wanders away from the astoundingly brilliant thralls of logic (so... whoops). Prepare yourselves accordingly - I'd suggest with a well stocked wine cellar. Well, except for you unfortunate underage firsties...which may be the majority of people in this class. Ah well, not like you'll read this anyway, but still, sucks to be you guys!)

So, I missed the mark by about 2 hours (because every sane person'd rather code stupid CSC148 projects than go out and get drunk with people right? Though I shouldn't complain, since I dabbled in both today), but Happy Free-Chocol - er...I mean Valentine's day! That one. (But also "Free Chocolate Day." And also "Sh**Ton-of-Consumerism Day." And also probably many, many others.) Yes.

So, I've got a story.

Unlike what an apparent majority of people and TV shows like to say, I actually had a great experience in High School (and no lockers were harmed during the course of my adolescence.) It probably helped that my parents shipped (well, bussed) me off to a private school for a few years, which had an impressively competent (and interesting!) set of teachers.

My favorite was probably the math teacher. For being completely grey-haired, he was an incredibly chipper and completely dorky guy (on the rare occasion that it snowed more than a centimeter in winter, he'd take his preschool-aged kids out and make TI-83 calculators instead of snowmen (complete with graphs!) and then - predictably - take pictures to show to the gaggle of estrogen-laden teenagers in his Calculus classes. "Right on!" (yep, he also talked like a wanna-be surfer. Don't ask why. Nobody knows.))

Anyways, it was during one of these glorious Calculus-ignoring occasions when he nonchalantly pulled out an unhealthily-pink napkin heart-stamped containing illegible scribbles out of his pocket, leaned against the table at the front of the classroom, and imparted the following story to the amassed flock of girls about an event that had happened at his daughter's preschool the other day.

On the day in question, he'd arrived to the school early, and found that his daughter's class was in the process of reading a story. He figured he'd wait, since there were only 10 more minutes or so, and went to sit down in a nearby corner to twiddle his thumbs for a bit. It was after a few minutes of sitting that he noticed one of the boys in the class - a friend of his daughter's - edging closer, and finally coming to sit down next to him. 

"Hey there, buddy, how's it hanging?" He tried, only to get an enormous soul-wrenching sigh from the boy. 

"Mister," the boy said morosely, "how do you know when you like someone? Cuz I think I may be half in like with your daughter."

"Half in like?" He asked. "What do you mean by that?" (and, ever the opportunist, fished out the gaudy pink napkin and a pen from his pocket to transcribe the sure-to-be-amusing response.)

"Well," the boy began, thinking deeply, "I like playing with your daughter at recess the best, and when I'm with her and she smiles I get a warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy. It's getting warmer every time I see her. I don't think it's full like yet, only half like, but  I think maybe that'll change one day. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that's how I feel." The boy finished, and quickly shuffled away as class ended and children dispersed, leaving my professor quite speechless.

"And that," my professor concluded to the enthralled mass of girls in Calculus, "is probably the best definition of 'like' and 'half like' I have ever heard, and it was said more concisely by a 5-year-old than any adult ever could!" (The girls, predictably, sighed and squealed like the fangirls they were.)

Cheesy as it is (and man is it! It's almost painful writing it), I still remember this story every Valentine's day, and like my prof, all I can think is "Well said, little guy. You'll go far with that logic." (It certainly won over every girl in my class! Hats off to the future him for his luck with the ladies.)

Valentine's isn't special (though it does involve chocolate, and that - if nothing else - has merit.) Even so, hope you all had a good day (and happy chocolate hunting tomorrow - yay sales!) Cheers.