"Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-- Harvey Mackay

scream and jump onto the nearest chair.  Wait… That’s me with spiders.  How

about this?  You get sick to your stomach and develop a nervous twitch in

your left eye while little beads of sweat sprout on your upper lip.  (By the way,

that happens to me with spiders too.  I have issues.)

          I’ve often wondered if one of those “desensitization therapies” that

psychologists use for things like spider phobias would work with math… 

          The therapy would start with the student being in the same room with a

securely caged math book…  Very slowly, the student is moved closer and

closer to the cage.  After a few days of this, the lid is taken off the cage and the

student is able to see that the math book is not going to leap out and attack

her neck (like that killer rabbit in the Monty Python movie.)  The student is then

instructed to give the math book a name… like Fido or Herman.  This

personalizes the math book and makes it seem friendlier. 

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