Stepping back into a formal learning environment after being away for 14 months feels like eating chocolate cake for the first time. Delectable.

Our very own Christopher is teaching a small select group of students the finer points of mathematics. Actually, the class should be called Mathematical Joy 101 because it is less about “doing” math and more about enjoying math, having fun with it.

There is no pressure and no gpa’s, no grades, no certificates or degrees and what that actually translates into is freedom. Freedom to let our minds wander and be insecure and that allowance of insecurity builds confidence to play and interact with a subject that was once intimidating. But it is actually more than that, it’s community as well. Check this out.

I walk into this quaint room with three education faculty members from Edmonds Community College (wonderful place, edcc.edu, please support them because they support us!) and a few familiar faces from around the institution. Interestingly, we have a mixed bunch of people who are not only super friendly (Marshall, Rory, Muhammed, and I) but who take our education very seriously. When we walked into that small room it wasn’t just walking into a classroom again for the first time in 14 months, it was feeling synergy again.

Our teacher, Professor Havens, wrote a number pattern on the board

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31

We spent a good 90 minutes pretending to listen to him while we furiously scribbled different ideas in our notebooks to understand what the number pattern was, where it came from and why the stupid 31? I knew that it was something to do with a triangle but I couldn’t figure out how, something from the far reaches of my memory was teasing forward.

Then a hint was given, Pascal’s Triangle.

That’s all I’m gonna say.

With Love
Ruth Utnage
(For interviews or media inquiries please contact me directly!)

Ruth Utnage fka jeff 823469 C-510-2
MCC-TRU
PO Box 888
Monroe, WA. 98272

or via Jpay email service (you have to use my birth name, but, please do not call me by it, my new legal name is Ruth)

Jeff Utnage
823469