First of all, I don't know how to math.
It's a verb now. Just in case you didn't know.
Besides being a slightly better than average at a small handful of things, not limited to juggling and finishing a rubix cube in under a minute thirty, I still struggle in the art of math. Cause lets be real for a second, even if you cry every time you look at a calculus problem, you can still appreciate how beautifully they look (although blurry...because of tears...and my horrible vision because I refuse to wear glasses).
But of course, like the title suggests, One math problem did change the way I saw math.
Well now that I think about it, more like a series of problems.
Well now that I think about it...here I'll just show you.
I'm sure you have seen a problem like this in grade school:
a) 2 , 5, 4, 10, 6, 15, 8, 20, 10, _______
(solve the pattern in the comments if you feel obliged to)
Okay so this one's pretty easy.
I just thought it up.
But imagine going through elementary school thinking you were so stupid you couldn't even solve simple arithmetic.
And then I see one of these guys and before I even have to think I write down the next number.
I had a break through.
A wave of release, relief. I could see math was now like writing (something I've always been able to do).
It was like a diagram:
Dog is to growl as cat is to ______
Conjunctions were like addition signs, Prepositions and nouns subtraction, a period the solution, it was all making sense.
See, numbers were always numbers for me.
Letters were expressions, they had personalities and feelings.
They could get angry and sad.
Happy and exuberant.
But numbers, well, were still numbers.
Now, as years have gone by, numbers are like letters and letters are like numbers.
5s are easy going, and 7s are still trying to fuck me over.
So if anything, I learned that I'm actually not terrible at numbers.
Of course, AP Calc next year will no doubt find a way to make people look horror stricken at my transcript, like the way people look at a train crash you see on the news. Crash and burn baby, crash and burn.
