While the covers of my math books said "Elementary School", I had no feelings or opinion about them.
Innate logic helped me to understand that simpler, basic mathematics, and to master it without any problems, doing the exercises when I needed them, before the control tasks.
Until I entered technical high school, where mathematics was one of the more serious subjects.
The beginning of the first year brought me material from mathematics that was more difficult for me to understand (or maybe it was just the lecture format that was different from the one I had until then?).
That change had a great impact on the grade on the half-yearly test, when for the first time in my life (and the only time), I had a barely passing grade in mathematics.
From 1 as insufficient grades to 5 as confirmation of excellent success, next to my name was written a miserable two.
I hated math!
However, I was also angry with myself, because I knew that I had not put in enough effort to expect a higher grade.
After a short winter break, the second semester started, and I made a decision.
In the future, it will not be possible to study "as needed".
That learning process, like later in life, must be continuous and permanent, in order to have results.
With math, the model for success is clear.
In addition to listening carefully to the professor in class, the most important thing is to do assignments and practice.
Instead of small notebooks of A5 format, for the subject Mathematics I took a larger notebook with several sheets, format A4 in which I left the first few pages blank. I will continue to write down all the important formulas on those sheets, which I will later return to daily.
To make it clearer to the readers of this story why I mention notebooks and writing formulas on the first sheets, I will write when this happened. Back in 1992, when paper was still the most common medium for recording information 🙂
When I would fill one notebook, I would glue the second one to the first one and thus carry with me everything I did from the program that year.
The fields that were next in that period, geometry and trigonometry (the ones that turned out to be my favorite - my first love), I easily understood and mastered by changing my approach.
The professor (the same as in the first semester), could not believe that I was the same one from the first semester of the school year, who had a barely passing grade...
And then my ascent to success begins.
Linear function, equations and inequalities. Planimetry. Stepping and roots. Complex numbers. Quadratic equation and quadratic function. Exponential and logarithmic functions. Trigonometry. Trigonometric equations and inequalities. Vectors. Analytical geometry in the plane. Polyhedra and solids of revolution. Strings. Functions. Limes. Extracts. Integrals. Combinatorics. Probability and Statistics.
Second year.
I am becoming one of the better mathematicians out of the 35 of us in the class.
Third year.
Tasks from Vene's well-known collections are no longer unsolvable for me and I sometimes did them before the program.
I have some anecdotes from that period, which I always fondly remember.
They are proof of my success and what can be achieved with practice and commitment.
Mathematics became such an "easy" subject for me, that on the control tests, in addition to the combination of tasks that were assigned to me, I had a lot of time left, that I solved the other combinations as well.
This was especially useful for my classmate, who was not a favorite subject in mathematics, and who benefited from my quick solving of all problems.
During the second and third year, when we were given assignments that we solved "on the blackboard", in front of the professor and the whole class, I regularly showed up to solve them and thus "saved" other friends from having to do it on the blackboard.
In those years, next to my name in the journal with grades, as well as on the papers on the control tests, the highest grades were written. All high 5.
The grades I earned through dedicated and hard work and daily math practice.
When my friends asked me, "How are you so good at math?", I used to tell them:
Repetitio est mater studiorum
​(Repetition is the mother of knowledge).
Practice the problems from the collections more often and you will understand them better.
They were not enthusiastic about the proposal, probably because not all of them were ready to devote themselves to mathematics at the same level as me, and none of them were jealous of my success.
It was only important for them to get the correct solution from me, on the control tests (classic rewriting that didn't bother me, but it didn't bring them anything good, except for a slightly better grade at the moment) 🙂
Beginning of the second semester of the fourth year. The final of my four-year education.
I still regularly practice mathematics, and for me there is nothing unknown in the classes, but I am not too active, I do not answer when the professor calls for volunteers to solve problems on the board...
One day, the professor enters the classroom, with the chalk he always carries with him and keeps it on the table, writes an assignment on the blackboard (one of the more difficult ones) and sits down to write the lesson in the diary.
I have already solved the task in my notebook.
While writing the lesson, he addresses me: "Duskobgd, lately, although you are good at control tests, you don't show up for classes. I'm not sure that you'll have the best grade, just like before."
"Professor, it doesn't have to be the best, just a 2 is enough, so I don't go out for remedial exams," I told him jokingly and made a few friends laugh.
"Come on, get on the board, let's see if you know anything or if you're cheating on the tests...".
I go to the blackboard, take his special chalk from the table and on the blackboard, while he does not look up from the diary in which he is still writing the lesson, in a few short lines, I state the abbreviated procedure to the correct solution of the task.
I don't return the chalk to the table, but put it with one "click" into the space where all the other ordinary chalks are kept.
Prosefor stops writing, while slowly turning his head towards me, with a slight smile on his lips, he asks: "What happened, you don't know how to solve it?". When his eyes go up to the board, the smile falls from his face, he becomes serious and says me: "Duskobgd, as far as I'm concerned, by the end of the year, you don't have to come to my classes anymore".
He takes a pencil and marks my grade in the diary with the big number 5.
"Professor, I will still come, because I have to help other friends with mathematics", referring primarily to control tests...
I finished high school, entered university and continued my education.
And then another anecdote follows 🙂
My best friend's brother, two years younger than us (while the two of us drink beer and wait for the broadcast of the Champions League soccer match), nervously walks around the apartment cursing math and Vene's collection.
"What task is bothering you?" I asked him.
"Ah, so the solution is:
"Impossible for that to be true," he said.
"Check in solutions".
After flipping through the solutions, he commented, "There's no way you've memorized all the solutions. You really know this?".
"I know my friend, I learned math so well that I can solve problems by heart 🙂"
If you have the will and desire to improve something, to become good in some area, you have to invest extra effort in your improvement. Very often it is not enough to invest only time, sometimes it is also necessary to invest certain sums of money for various courses, seminars and lectures...
But if you have a vision for the future, it is clear that it will not be wasted time and resources. It is very likely that by investing in yourself, you will later reap the fruits of your improvement.
Even when that improvement is related to something you love, you have combined benefit and pleasure.
Because by investing my time in extra practice and learning mathematics, which I didn't like before, it led to the fact that I fell in love with mathematics and in the later years of my schooling I had a common language with it and was very successful.
