My Exam Monster
I’ll never forget my high school maths teacher. In the beginning she was intimidating and sometimes just mean. Her goal was to drive as many students from her class as possible. She believed that only some elite must take maths on higher grade level. At one time it was like Survivor, watching a classmate every week do the walk of shame as he or she switched to standard grade. I didn’t belong in the higher grade class. She couldn’t drive me away. Needless to say I wasn’t her favourite person in the class, but after a year or two she livened up a bit as she realized that those of us that are left are the one’s that are going to stick it through. She was alright in the end, I liked her enough. But she had a few quirks, as you can expect from an old maid that has made maths her life and reads Harry Potter books. There were nice and created some memories. Like the time she stopped in the middle of what she was saying, stared out the window and exclaimed “What’s that?”. We all turned, but saw nothing. Then she said she had seen the exam monster and that we must have missed it. The class went “Oh-kay...”, I groaned. She then proceeded to tell us about the exam monster, how we must care and nurture it with hard work and dedication. She then proceeded to hand out tiny chocolate eggs which were intended to start our own exam monsters growing inside of us. It became a regular joke.
I was very antagonized towards mathematics during my late primary and early high school years. I really didn’t like it and looked forward to dropping the subject as soon as I was out of school. Slowly I realized that I would need to take maths at university level. This was a daughting thought, but slowly I changed my attitude towards the subject. When I started varsity, I liked it. The past two years I had a lot of mixed feelings about mathematics, but in the end all turned out well. I get a kick out of the fact that I’m only one of three people from my high school teacher’s class that took maths as far as second year level.
I’m going to be very optimistic and say it’s all over now. Today I wrote my final two mathematics papers. The Analysis (this morning) went very well, the Algebra (this evening), didn’t go quite so well, but I’m not going to worry about it. These two papers have brought to an end a 14 years love affair with numbers and symbols. The 14 counts everything, even learning basic arithmetic in grade one. Everything, from my first little “count chart” to the last summary of theorems I made the day before yesterday. When I removed my markers from and closed my Calculus (Steward) Fifth Edition for the last time in a very long time, it felt weird. But it’s over now and I think it for the best. Things were getting a little abstract in certain areas. I don’t go flying off the walls when I read about bases in n-dimensional space and underlying suggestion that most of everything is the same somehow. Call me a dirty name, but I prefer applying maths nowadays more (another shock). I have to admit that a lot of what I learned this year was really interesting and cleared up many things, but this very last paper was a sneak preview of how things will change if you continue with mathematics, and it’s not the same as I have always known.
Mathematics is one of the highest tiers of human understanding, reasoning, logic and insight. I’ve had a small glance into the deeper world that is hidden from the rest of the world and it leaves mixed feelings. It is awesome and spectacular, but also... I don’t know, but there definitely belongs a “but” there...
I’ll still be taking applied maths next year. To the casual outsider it might not seem much different, but applied maths is more grunt work while pure maths is considered by some to have more grace and elegance. I really enjoyed applied maths this year though. So I’m not leaving numbers behind as a whole (not possible anyway).
The little bugger has grown quite a bit. I’ll have to put it to use elsewhere now though. At least I know where it came from.
To all my teachers that have had a positive influence on me regarding mathematics, thank you. And goodnight.
I was very antagonized towards mathematics during my late primary and early high school years. I really didn’t like it and looked forward to dropping the subject as soon as I was out of school. Slowly I realized that I would need to take maths at university level. This was a daughting thought, but slowly I changed my attitude towards the subject. When I started varsity, I liked it. The past two years I had a lot of mixed feelings about mathematics, but in the end all turned out well. I get a kick out of the fact that I’m only one of three people from my high school teacher’s class that took maths as far as second year level.
I’m going to be very optimistic and say it’s all over now. Today I wrote my final two mathematics papers. The Analysis (this morning) went very well, the Algebra (this evening), didn’t go quite so well, but I’m not going to worry about it. These two papers have brought to an end a 14 years love affair with numbers and symbols. The 14 counts everything, even learning basic arithmetic in grade one. Everything, from my first little “count chart” to the last summary of theorems I made the day before yesterday. When I removed my markers from and closed my Calculus (Steward) Fifth Edition for the last time in a very long time, it felt weird. But it’s over now and I think it for the best. Things were getting a little abstract in certain areas. I don’t go flying off the walls when I read about bases in n-dimensional space and underlying suggestion that most of everything is the same somehow. Call me a dirty name, but I prefer applying maths nowadays more (another shock). I have to admit that a lot of what I learned this year was really interesting and cleared up many things, but this very last paper was a sneak preview of how things will change if you continue with mathematics, and it’s not the same as I have always known.
Mathematics is one of the highest tiers of human understanding, reasoning, logic and insight. I’ve had a small glance into the deeper world that is hidden from the rest of the world and it leaves mixed feelings. It is awesome and spectacular, but also... I don’t know, but there definitely belongs a “but” there...
I’ll still be taking applied maths next year. To the casual outsider it might not seem much different, but applied maths is more grunt work while pure maths is considered by some to have more grace and elegance. I really enjoyed applied maths this year though. So I’m not leaving numbers behind as a whole (not possible anyway).
The little bugger has grown quite a bit. I’ll have to put it to use elsewhere now though. At least I know where it came from.
To all my teachers that have had a positive influence on me regarding mathematics, thank you. And goodnight.
posted by phantom-99w at 23:03
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