Meet Hadley Green: History of Math Columnist

Meet sixteen-year-old Hadley Green, clay’s first-ever History of Math columnist! This year, Hadley is a junior with three younger siblings–one of whom will be taking German 1 this year. However, she is not related to the International Correspondence columnist Benjamin Green. Hadley lives in a gorgeous Mississippi college town, surrounded by trees, fields, and low hills. Her only TPS class this year is French 3, but she is quite excited for it. According to the MBTI test, her personality type is consistently INTJ, and she confirms that it encapsulates her well.

Hadley’s main hobbies include reading old books, playing violin, doing math, and exploring languages. She claims to be a horrible singer, but her go-to karaoke track is “Veni Veni Emmanuel” in original Latin–no less–but her second choice would be “The Lakes” by Taylor Swift. Hadley has always enjoyed reading clay and decided to apply to become a columnist because clay came across as quite a fun experience for the staff and because she knows she needs more writing experience, especially on a strict schedule. She’s looking forward to sharing one of her passions, math history, hopefully making it interesting even for the non-math people. 

Hadley revealed that she has a rather bizarre phobia: bananas. In her own words, “I actually ate them readily when I was little. Then, within the space of one year – my kindergarten year – my love turned to disgust. I’m really not sure why but I began to absolutely hate the texture, smell, and flavor, even the sound of someone eating it. For some time bananas were just my least favorite food, but my tolerance has grown less and less. My banana-loving family members may have aggravated my hatred, and I’ve been chased around the house at least once by a younger brother holding out the fruit. I shudder at the thought of that dreadful mushiness on my hands, and the smell practically makes me gag.” On the other hand, Hadley’s favorite food is unquestionably sushi, and her favorite sandwich is anything vegetarian with good bread and melted cheese, even plain grilled cheese. However, besides bananas, her least favorite food is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (she is extremely conservative with mixing foods).

A fun fact about Hadley is that she texts with one friend almost exclusively in Latin; originally, they did it to prevent her brothers from reading the messages, but they continued simply because they could. Finally, she has a hilarious inside joke with her family, called a “foogyoo moment.” She says, “In high school, my dad was under the impression that the word ‘fugue’ was pronounced ‘foo-gyoo’, having read but never heard the word. When a teacher pronounced it ‘fyoog’ one day, my dad raised his hand. ‘Actually, I think it’s pronounced foogyoo,’ to which the teacher responded, ‘[His name], you know a lot of things but not this,’ which was followed by roars of laughter from the whole class. My siblings and I take after our father by reading a lot and mispronouncing words from time to time. When we do so, someone generally brings up this story.” Welcome to the staff, Hadley!