As usual, since I'm on call tonight, I'm blowing off statistics class. I got a perfect score on the second exam, and the material is actually getting easier as we go, provided you have a grasp of the concepts to date. Overall, the class did not do well on the second exam. I've turned down some requests to tutor; I never thought I'd be able to say that about a math class!

In an attempt to empathize with one of the students, I made a clumsy observation (that was still forming as it came out of my mouth) about the difference in my school performance now, compared to high school and college. What I was trying to say was, "It's not fair to compare our performance in this class. I have the advantage of a level of motivation that was completely foreign to me before I started to work for a living." In other words, my current academic state of grace is due to unrelated experience that was inaccessible to me ten years ago -- and almost certainly inaccessible to the other student, today. If I can't be faulted for its absence then, it seems unfair to take credit for the advantage now.

There seems to be something almost Puritan underneath the surface of that. Perhaps if I walked down that path long enough, I'd find myself in the company of my New England ancestors. But I'm back on the truck too early in the morning to give it much more thought tonight.