As I'm sure is the case for everyone, each little letter in my 'font' has its own history. The overall gist in my find, I think, is the overwhelming joy I felt on the day I realized you don't have to write anything in cursive. I had the meanest nun in the Bronx teach me penmanship, and to this day I loathe it.
Today, I want to talk about the lowercase 'x'. I don't remember what it looked like before my undergrad days, but ever since my sophomore year, I've drawn them this way. I had a math professor named Dr. Kwangil Koh who taught Modern Algebra who always drew his x this way and I adopted it in my personal handwriting.
I was at an art show a couple of weeks ago where I ran into an old professor from the Math department who told me Dr. Koh passed away recently. I was unhappy to hear this.
As an undergrad, I double majored in Math & Mechanical Engineering. During my time, I found engineering professors to be mostly wonky types. Some generally interested in educating, others not. The ones who weren't mostly wanted to be left alone to their research, I felt. The Math department was very different.
I can only speak to my experience at NC State, although I've heard it's the same on many other campuses. The ones generally interested in educating were small in number, but intense in their passion for teaching. They knew how to tap into the portion of (I believe) everyone's brain where mathematical logic rules the day. They knew where the conceptual pitfalls lied, and they knew the best way to get headstrong undergraduates around them without crushing their confidence.
The other group, however, seemed to be in the majority. These were the mathematicians who acted as a high priesthood, guarding the secrets of the mathematical universe from lowly students. Their arrogance and laissez faire attitude toward teaching was something even my 22 year-old self found disgusting. Looking back, I'm appalled by their behavior.
Dr. Koh was of the former variety. He had a big smile and was patient, and clever, and kind and everything an educator should be. Regardless of what I'm writing, every lowercase x is a brief but sincere mental tribute to the man.
