Dave Almost Gets to Be Smart

I recently learned (when reading The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski) how noise-canceling headphones work . . . apparently they have microphones on the outside of the headphones that record the ambient noise around the headphone user-- then the headphones actively generate equal (but opposite) sound waves which reverse the polarity of the ambient noise . . . and I was excited to share this newfound knowledge with my Creative Writing class (after I told a girl to remove her giant noise-canceling headphones and enter reality) BUT I forgot something important-- so when I asked the class "Does anyone know how noise-canceling headphones actually work?" the majority of the class looked at me in bewilderment, aside from one girl, who raised her hand and reeled off the answer that I was so excited to tell the class . . . I had forgotten that the valedictorian is in my Creative Writing class-- she locked it up earlier in the year and so was slumming in an elective-- and becoming valedictorian of a giant high school like East Brunswick is no mean feat and it shows . . . she certainly took the wind out of my sails!