Carol continued,

"My math instructor was also sort of a geek, at least in the eyes of most of the students. He had long hair, a pony tail, sort of an old hippie. He was different looking. This was basic algebra, so it was often just basic boring formulas and stuff, but he made an effort to make it interesting by showing us special problems on the board that were advanced for us, but they showed us how math could be used in the real world. One day he was doing this and started writing formulas on the board. Then people in the class started snickering and rolling their eyes. It was like junior high school! It's not cool to want to learn, to laugh at the teacher's jokes, to be accepting of your teacher."