How I survived mathematics

Up until the 9th grade I had awesome teachers ... understood everything during class and did most of the homework really easily. Then came the bad teacher ... OMG ... I didn't get a passing grade in 3 of the 4 years of college? high school? whatever you call grades 9 through 12.

Psyhically I was already done with people. By the end of 8th grade I think ... it was enough for me, I wanted out... but continued for some reason... probably because of my parents.

I was always good in math, BUT in high school I only focused on programming, as the IT teacher was awesome and the math teacher was shit. I always got maximum grades in IT classes and even the bad math teacher saw that I was really good... so that's probably why she let me through the summer exam.

In 2003, my year of graduation, after the official graduation I passed math in the weirdest way. This wasn't just weird, but profoundly illegal.

I failed the written test and the oral exam, the bad techer gave me the hardest problems to solve, much harder than we used to solve in class. That was a garbage move on her part, BUT I failed ... went home, and hoped for the best.

Later I found out that I passed and the story behind it is that the techer already closed my case, BIG FAIL, "repeat the year, you loser!", BUT when she went down the stairs, she changed her mind, went back up, and corrected my grades to 6 (out of 10) ... which is the minimum passing grade on such exams.

Our Romanian teacher was kinda' awesome

I don't even remember her name ... I just realized that now ... I only remember the names of the bad Romanian teachers ... OMG Isaac Claudia used to ask me if I'm retarded, whenever I didn't have my homework. She kinda' had a point there, I had zero interest in learning that stupid language, never did any of the homework, BUT you don't say that to a kid, repeatedly.

In reality I was kinda OK, all my grades were fine up until 9th grade, when half of the class didn't get a passing grade, due to a garbage teacher we got. She was still young and didn't know how to teach.

Long story short my grades were mostly fine up until then, BUT I have the deceased Romanian techer to thank for finishing 12th grade. She introduced group exercises, which meant that I didn't do sheet. Arguably I was in a worse situation, as now the group was stressing me out that I couldn't do my part and then the teacher was also stressing me out...so ... it was mostly bad, BUT the way the techer ran things, some groups never got to present their work and that's how I managed to slip through the cracks.

In 12th grade I didn't get a passing grade, so I had to go take additional exams in the summer. That was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. My regular teacher was busy, so my old teacher from 5-8th grades came to do the exams. She hated me, but was happy that day for some reason. There were like 30-40 literary works that I should have studied for the exam, BUT I picked the exact two that I studied in a panic early in the morning before the exam.

I mean, that was really just... very unlikely... how things happened... I was starting with a few sentences and the teacher would continue ... then she'd ask me something, I responded correctly in a few words and she would continue... I mean... that was just a complete 180 my world did that day.

HOW THE TEACHER DIED?

Her memory will always be tied to 9/11 in my mind, as I explained in a previous post. She had bad pneumonia, went to the hospital, she got some medicine and they sent her home. She felt A LOT worse in a few days, she went to the hospital and later died. She got blood poisoning somehow and went unnoticed.

Where were you on 9/11/2001?

I was 16 years old in 11th grade, visiting a girl from my class whom I had a crush on and was obsessed with.

It was kinda' weird, I think I went there unannounced (as I did many times). Their babysitter let me in, I took off my shoes and weint into the living room, where she was watching the TV.

She greeted me and asked if I heard the news, I interrupted her and asked if she's referring to our Romanian literature teacher. That wasn't really appropriate, she was kinda' shook, BUT I was there and talked about it ... I think in the end it was fine.

So back to 9/11 ... as it turns out she was watching CNN in the living room, before I interrupted her with different bad news. I thought it was some sort of action movie, but she explained what has happened.

I was in a strange place mentally back then ... I just quickly replied that "yeah, criminals can do whatever in society ... and maybe will get punished afterwards". I wasn't really interested to watch it, instead we talked about something else ... I kept staring at her boobs when she wasn't looking ...etc... typical 16 year old guy stuff.

AFTER I WENT HOME

My parents were also watching the news, then I started realizing the true scale of what was happening. It didn't shock me, but kept up with the news every day to see the most important stuff ... about 1 year later? a few months later? I remember watching the war on TV, as the US tanks charge into cities and destroy other tanks, vehicles, buildings ...etc... fun times right before becomming an adult.