What an ODD Moment!!

          Has anyone ever experienced one of those embarrassing in-class moments?  You know...the ones that you look back on and say “Did I actually say that in front of the entire class?”...the ones that friends still joke about to this day.  THE DAY YOU MADE A FOOL OF YOURSELF IN MATH CLASS?!? 

I don’t know about you, but I had an EXTREMEMLY embarrassing moment like this during my first year of university.  It was about five years ago, as I began my journey to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry.  During my first year, Differential Calculus was one of my required courses during the opening Fall semester.  Unfortunately I was unable to get into the section that my friends were able to get into because it was full.  The only section that was left open was the engineering section!!  The year had just begun.  How could all of these engineers already know each other and become such a tight knit group of friends this fast?  At that time, I did not know anyone in the class so I felt quite intimidated. 

But then a confidence took over me.  A confidence within me saying “Jenna, all of these professors’ opening speeches have been about encouraging students to ask questions when they arise in class, so as to avoid getting lost or falling behind during a lecture.  So if I have a question, I can’t be scared to raise my hand!”  All of the engineers participated in class so I figured it would do no harm to ask a question or two and engage in classroom discussions as well.

So the time came...there I was sitting by myself in a Differential Calculus University class of 200 people when I noticed something confusing being written on the chalkboard.  Our professor had shown us two equations and was explaining that if we obtain an even answer from the previous calculation we must use the first equation, and if we obtain an odd answer from the previous calculation we must use the second equation.

In my defence, I misinterpreted his reasoning and had a mental block.  Since I was so used to rules being made about positive and negative numbers, I was on a one-track state of mind.  So for some odd reason (pun intended), when he said the word odd I associated it with negative, and when he said the word even I associated it with positive. 

And so the embarrassing moment came.  The previous calculation had given us a value of 5.  Due to my weird and unexplainable association of odd and negative that I was having at the moment, I immediately raised my hand not understanding why he was going to use the equation for the negative number if our number was not negative!  So I said it...loud and clear for the entire class to hear!  “But professor, how did you get odd out of that?”  (in my mind, thinking of the word negative while saying the word odd).  The class fell silent as they stared at the chalkboard that had the number 5 clearly written down, while I was asking how we got “odd” out of it. 

The professor looked bewildered and tried explaining to me, “You know!  1,3,5....odd!”  Multiple students sitting ahead of me turned and stared as I turned red and had nothing else to say!  And there it was!  My first impression to others in a class that had already intimidated me would from then on be “the girl who didn’t know why 5 was odd!”