After four years of hard work, a young boy graduates the most prestigious school in the world for blacksmiths. He's eager to get started in the real world. With his degree unceremoniously rolled up and shoved into the side pocket of his backpack, he wastes no time knocking on the door of his local smithy back home.
An old woman answers the door.
"Hello," says the young boy. "I'd like to become your apprentice. With grueling work, I've graduated from the most prestigious blacksmithing school there is." He points to his crumpled degree. "But book smarts aren't everything, and now I'm looking for patient tutelage and plenty of practice. Would you be willing to provide that?"
"Perhaps," says the old woman. She goes to a corner of her smithy and brings back a heavy glob of iron without even flinching. "Let me assess your skill. I'm going to go upstairs and enjoy my pot of tea. In the meantime, you'll have one hour to turn this messy glob of iron into the best tool you can. Does that make sense?"
"Challenge accepted!" chirps the boy. He barrels into the smithy. The old woman walks upstairs, enjoys her tea, and solves most of a crossword. After an hour she wanders back down and asks for a finished product.
The boy presents her with a perfect iron cube.
"What kind of tool is this?" asks the woman.
"Well," says the boy. "I had some trouble making a knife blade, but my intuition was screaming at me that I could salvage it. So I listened, and I got this cube. I figured it was okay-- if you think about it, a building block is a kind of tool."
Under normal circumstances the woman would be disappointed-- but she had to admit, a lowly cube is an impressive thing to be able to make. Nature doesn't often work with right angles, and as far as she knew there was nothing in the smithy suitable to be a cube mold.
And it was a perfect cube.
"Alright," says the old woman. She walks to the corner of her smithy and brings back a heavy glob of copper. "Your intuitions are clearly good. I'll give you another try. I'm going to go upstairs for two hours this time-- there's a movie I'd wanted to watch today-- and you have that time to create the best tool you can. Ready?"
"Challenge accepted!" says the boy, scrambling for his tools. The old woman walks upstairs, brews more tea, and watches her movie. After two hours she wanders back down, and again the boy presents her with a perfect cube-- even shinier than the last one, with perfect sharp corners.
"I can explain!" says the boy. I was trying to make the head of a shovel, and I was feeling out where to strike the metal. And well, I struck where my intuition told me to, and I got a cube again. Can we say it's another building block?"
The old woman is about to snap, but retains herself.
"I see what happened here," she coos. "The time pressure is getting to you. My apologies. Here's what I'll do. It's currently noon. You have until I get ready for bed-- usually around midnight-- to make whatever you want. A tool, a sculpture, anything that shows off your abilities. Use any materials you want-- I can just buy more."
Again she walks upstairs to the sound of tools clattering and rapid footsteps. She brews five more pots of tea over the course of the evening, and has a relaxing time. Finally, at midnight, she wanders back downstairs, where she's greeted by a tower made of eight pristine building blocks.
"Give me that!" she snaps, snatching the degree out of his backpack. She unfolds it and reads it very closely.
"I see your problem," she says. "There's a typo. They gave you a blocksmithing degree."
