Math Contest

The first time I was presented with a math textbook was when I was in grade 1. I had of course been exposed to math before; my grandparents taught me how use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. But I liked my first textbook, as I flipped through the pages, there was an empty box on each page, a space for a sticker, to signify that I had finished and passed the page. With each page that I scribbled through in a childish scrawl, I added a sticker of a golden star, gleefully plastering it on with the utmost care. Still, this soon became a burden. As I began to continue, the golden stars lost its allure to me, as the repetitive calculations of the many questions of one page dissolved my interest. As the cumbersome pages were finally all written on, much to my dolor, a new textbook, even thicker appeared. Much like the last book, I was first drawn into its fresh untouched pages, but after a week or so, it became a task, in which I came to despise. To my horror, once, in my adventures around the house, which resulted me looking through closets and boxes, I stumbled across new math and English textbooks for the next 3 consecutive grades.

As the years progressed, I became more and more frustrated with math. The equations seemed like gibberish, the actual calculating was tedious and brought be to tears. When the question asked for volume, I would calculate the surface area and I would sometimes think that the interior angles of a triangle equaled 360 degrees instead of 180. The sight of math textbook brought an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

In school, I did fine, though, even quite well, managing to participate often in class and many of my classmates sought help from me. I was categorized as "smart" but not the smartest, good at math, but not the best. Still, I could easily bring home an A on my tests. Still my parents insisted I move ahead of my classmates, as they urged me to become the best in my class.
"But I am already doing very well," I would argue.
"Yes, but why don't you strive to do even better," they replied and handed me even more work to do.
I would grumble and mutter, glowering at the numbers and symbols, wondering what was "even better"

After a while, I became accustomed to the math questions and did them without question, completing my daily quota. I plateaued at the moment, it wasn't hard, so much as boring and dull, Until I was introduced to factoring. I went through go through 3 questions every night each of them taking me eons to do. Every night, when I felt that I had finally got the previous lesson, a new type of factoring question was laid in front of me. At first it was bearable, as I had to somehow find a common factor between 3 numbers. But once I had done 6 of those, I was swept into a dizzy wave of quadratic equations. I would stay up past midnight, tearing my hair out at the dead end I was stuck on. As I reread the questions over, my eyes would droop, making the view blurry. My head would sway, as the silence of the house dragged me into sleep, and my thoughts would become hazy and muddled and only the sensation of my head falling jerked me back to reality. I would once again be stuck on the same question.

But I began working through quadratic equations faster, and they seemed more understandable and even at times, puzzling, instead of frustrating. And after that, math seemed easy. As I entered high school, with all its opportunities and new people, I started new again, feeling a new sense for math.

I was then regarded as one of the best in the class, no longer good, but great. Excited for math class everyday, I found that I could easily move through the questions. And so I decided to join a math contest when it was announced.

Excitement coursed through me as I hastily scribbled my name on the sign up sheet and immediately getting ready. I printed out test questions from previous years and tested the water. There weren't many questions, but I did them all, asking for help and slowly working my way through them. I circled the date with a dark marker on my calender and counted the days down.

On the day of the exam, I had with me an pencil, a ruler, an eraser and an old, cheep calculator whose buttons only responded when you pressed forcefully. I felt my hands sweat as I entered the room, an unopened booklet in front of me. Taking a few breaths, I opened the book and started the first question.

Although my fingers were cold and my stomach rampaged, doing the questions was strangely calming. My heartbeat slowed down and my pencil flew across the sheet as I fell into the familiar habit of doing the math work. The minutes ticked by, unnoticed as my eyes stared at the question ahead. The time allotted to finish the contest were slowly slipping by, and I was stuck on the last question. Breathing deeply, I tried different views, and different equations that might fit into the question, but each different route took me to a far fetched conclusion and was quickly abandoned. Biting my lips, my heart sank as the teachers called out for everyone to hand in their sheets.

It took the markers more than 2 weeks to grade all the tests, making me a huge mess of nerves. It offered me some degree of relief when everyone I asked about the last question did not seem to get it as well. Everyday, I listened expectantly for the announcement of the math contest marks and everyday, I became even more nervous.

And and day, when my math teacher told me that the marks had been posted, I walked timidly to the room where they were kept. My friend looked at her mark first, seeming unable to find it. As her eyes wandered through the sheet that was block from my line of sight, I could feel my heart pound at the thought of my mark. Spotting her name, my friend let out a squeal as she came in the top 10. She moved out of the way so I could get a better view.

My eyes wandered from the bottom to the top of the sheet of paper, feeling more and more shocked as I climbed up. Finally my eyes rested on my name. With an almost dreamlike quality, I realized I came in fourth, and the three people above me were all from a higher grade.

"Wow, you're fourth!" my friend congratulated me, as she followed my line of sight. I smiled uncontrollably as we both giddily exited the room.

When I got home, the first thing I did was open my math textbook. There was no reluctance now and only a happy smile on my face.