When I was sixteen I went to a dance in our town. I was a pretty awkward kid, gangly and scared of girls. Dancing was not my idea of fun but staying home was even worse. My clothes were not cool and a little baggy on me, and my hair was so big it made my head look over-sized. Luckily My sister would always come with me to these dances and try to help me loosen up, but most of the time I would only dance slow dances with her friends (fast dances were completely out of the picture) and then mingle by the fruit punch.
I remember one dance in particular where I felt a little uneasy and fearful of all the girls. I was sure if one of them talked to me, or wanted to dance, I would either st-udder profusely or drench her hands with my sweaty palms. Once again I found myself questioning why I had ever agreed to come to another one of these dances where the only people that seemed to be having fun were either popular or a little too giddy for their own good. While I was reveling in my boredom and loneliness I noticed a large jar of jelly beans sitting on a table by one of the walls. Curious I meandered over to take a look and found that there was a basic competition for the jar of jelly beans.
All you had to do was guess the amount of jelly beans in the jar and the person who was closest would win them. Being the nerd that I am I thought what a piece of cake this will be, I will just use math to solve this mystery. Ok, so I may have added that rhyme in there for fun, but nevertheless I really did think it would be easy. So I picked up the jar and though that if I was to multiply the total amount of jelly beans I could count vertically in jar, and the total number of jelly beans I could count that covered the area on the bottom, subtracting about one half a jelly bean for every level of beans in the jar to account for empty space, I could come up with a fairly accurate number to represent the total.
So I pick up the jar and start counting when I hear a girl next to me say in effect "what the heck are you doing?". Not being cool or confident enough to have a witty reply I just mumbled "uh... math". I then nervously told her of the equation I had come up with that I was sure would give me an accurate enough number to win the jelly beans (in all honesty I had no idea if my equation would work I was just bored and wanted something to do). After my explanation was over she started to laugh calling me a funny but nerdy guy. Well I was used to this kind of perception of me from others as in fact I was kind of a nerd, but regardless of this I still didn't like her assertion. Nevertheless she ended up dancing with me and we began to become acquainted. (This next part is my favorite part of the story)
Towards the end of the night I began to ease up, and have a little more fun. This girl introduced me to some of her friends, and I actually started to feel a little confident. As we were all sitting at a table talking one of the chaperons got on the microphone announcing it was time to give the jelly beans away. Now of course I had already forgotten about my earlier nerdy actions and I was praying quietly that this girl would not rat me out to my new friends. No such luck. To my embarrassment she quickly filled everyone in at the table how I had used math to calculate the number of jelly beans in the jar. Now the pressure really was on, I was either going to look like a wannabe nerd who didn't know math or a real nerd who had nothing to do but beat the system at a supposedly random game using sound logic and reasoning coupled with mathematical formulas. Either way I was fried.
When the speaker said "The winner is Joseph" I just kind of sat there and thought "did I really win?" The surprised and impressed looks at everyone at the table assured me I had won so I went up and collected my prize. Still dazed and not knowing what to think on the way back to my table I was interrupted by the cheering of my new friends. All the preparation in the world could not have gotten me ready for the instant popularity that came with being such a geek. I didn't know how to handle the attention so I would just say "thanks... you want a jelly bean?". Come to find out my ability to find the area of the jar was quite cool and very hip.
This experience was a turning point in my life when I went from uneasy nerd-boy, to confident nerd-boy. So never underestimate the power of math or education. You never know when your brains will turn you into the instant cool kid on the block (even if it is just so they can get some free jelly beans). I don't think I have talked to anyone from that night at the dance for years now, but I can still remember their cheers when my somewhat geeky methods won the prize. Thanks for the confidence boost guys.
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