I think I'll read the book a while again now…January, 1995David:
Congratulations on your oustanding achievement in SPH 4A0.
I trust you will find, as I continue to do, something new and wonderful in this book every time you read it.
Best wishes for success in whatever you choose to do with your abilities.
Sincerely,
Paul McCormick
I was never more than about halfway up the class. (It was a very bright class.) My classwork was very untidy, and my handwriting was the despair of my teachers. But my classmates gave me the nickname Einstein, so presumably they saw signs of something better. When I was twelve, one of my friends bet another friend a bag of sweets that I would never come to anything. I don't know if this bet was ever settled and, if so, which way it was decided.Ah, the English, what a talent for understatement and wondrous dry humor we have. (My handwriting was never that great either; the computer printer was a godsend. And right there with you on biology, old boy—too squishy. "Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys all the way over there.")
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When it came to the last two years of school, I wanted to specialize in mathematics and physics. There was an inspirational maths teacher, Mr. Tahta, and the school had just built a new maths room, which the maths set had as their classroom. But my father was very much against it. He thought there wouldn't be any jobs for mathematicians except as teachers. He would really have liked me to do medicine, but I showed no interest in biology, which seemed to me to be too descriptive and not sufficiently fundamental.