"When am I EVER going to use this?"

That is the question every teacher hates, and every student asks at some time (usually in the middle of math class).  And they have a point.  How often do  you really use Avogadro's constant in your everyday life (unless you are a chemist)? In general the point of public education is to give a good foundation of knowledge, broaden horizons, teach critical thinking, new ways of using abstract ideas, applying knowledge learned in the past to present situations... etc. I figured that out fairly early in life, so that was a question I didn't ask often. Plus, I always figured that whatever I learned would some day be useful when the final Jeopardy question I was asked (on which I would wager all $10,907) would be about which US president was given a 1,400 lb block of cheese, and I would win because I knew it was Andrew Jackson. 

The question of real world applicability has popped up more and more frequently the last few weeks in Algebra, and as I was interpreting the question yet again, (this time about natural logarithms), I answered it for myself. I am using right it now. I got a good chuckle out of that. Who would have thought little ol' anti-number me would be using logs and antilogs at work. Certainly not something I had expected when I picked an English degree during my first round of college. I laughed even more as I looked back, and realized that there isn't one class I have ever taken, that hasn't had direct application to either my life, or (more usually) my work. How many people can honestly say that? Of all strange things, even my fencing class came in useful. And here I thought I was just using it to get some easy PE credits.

So, when am I EVER going to use it in my life? Careful what you ask because you might just end up like me, and have to answer "Every day. For the rest of my career."

That makes me laugh.