After deciding that I no longer wanted to further my education at BYU-Idaho, I took a break. And it was nice. I just had to work and do marching band and I didn't have any homework or weird professors to worry about. I didn't have to hike up a hill to get to my math class nor did I have to stress about making that midnight deadline before the science homework timed out and I got an F.
Being away from the college scene was nice. So nice that I even toyed with the idea of not getting a college degree. I have a nice job - I get paid very well and work with some great people (my mother included). I could make it through life forever working at OneExchange and be just fine.
However, after 7 or 8 months, I actually began to miss school - kind of. Once I decided that Music Education was NOT a good fit for me I didn't know what to do. So I put school off another semester, vowing to re-apply to UVU for the Fall semester.
And I did! I re-submitted my application and was accepted. Then I had to jump through a TON of hoops; go to an orientation, submit my transcripts, meet with a counselor, etc. It was annoying. So annoying I contemplated not doing school for another semester.
But I pushed through the annoying holds and slowly but surely I got rid of them all and was able to sign up for classes. I only signed up for two: math and health.
The first day of math class came too quickly. I wasn't prepared to be in math again. Especially at 8:00. On a Saturday morning.
My professor looked up from his computer and pushed up his glasses as he smiled tiredly. "Good morning." Each of us grumbled out our own "good mornings" which actually meant, "I want my bed."
He walked around to the front of his podium and folded his arms. "What in the world are you all doing here on a Saturday morning?"
I'm wondering the same thing.
"And in a class that's almost four hours?"
Don't remind me.
"You're all crazy."
I know.
After going through the syllabus and Chapter 1, I determined that, with work, I could pass this class.
Now, before you continue to read, you must understand two things: 1) I've always struggled with math. Whether or not that's because I actually worked hard in order to try and understand it or not is irrelevant. 2) I took a math class in Idaho but gave up trying relatively quickly. So, if we don't include the BYU-Idaho math class, I haven't been in a math class since 2012 - that's a LONG time.
The second class was much harder than the first. 8:00 seemed to come far too early and already I didn't care what others thought about my appearance; so up went the hair and on came the band T-shirt, which allowed me to sleep another thirty minutes before I had to leave at the absolute last possible second.
I walked into class and slumped into my chair, still trying to wake up my tired eyes.
"Quiz time!"
Oh yeah. I forgot we do that.
I pulled out my paper and began answering the questions he had prepared. The quiz was only four questions. It was easy peasy.
I got to number 3. The question was: 6^3.
Cool. This is easy.
So I wrote out my work: 6*6*6.
Okay. So 6*6 equals 36.
I wrote it down on the paper. Then I stared. I had to do 36*6 but didn't know if off the top of my head and unfortunately I couldn't use a calculator.
Oh! I'll just do the cool multiply thingy!
So I wrote down 36*6. I knew I had to do 6*6 again, which was 36. So I wrote down 36 (without carrying the 3 up to the top). Then I multiplied 6*3 and got 18.
Sweet! 1,836!
I boxed my answer and moved on to number four. Which was seemingly just as easy as the previous three questions. I confidently turned my paper into the professor and waited for him to tell us the answers.
Everything was going perfectly until he said the answer to number three: 216.
What?!
My eyes widened. It took everything I had not to raise my hand and blurt: "Um. Excuse me? But you're wrong." I looked around at the other students and noticed nobody else was squirming in their seats.
I pulled out my calculator and did the math. The number 216 stared back at me.
How?! I even double - checked my work!!
I re - typed it into the calculator and clicked enter. Nothing changed. I scratched my forehead, trying to figure out what I had done wrong.
Oh. You're supposed to carry the 3....
I don't want to know what my professor thought when he looked at my work to number three.
At first, I was frustrated with my stupidity. How can you forget how to do multiplication after doing it so many times for so many years?! Theyingrain it into your soul!! Needless to say I've kicked myself a few times for that mistake. But on the bright side, I'll never forget that 216 is the answer to 6^3.
After the 'incident', I vowed that I wouldn't tell a single soul about my lack of remembering how to do simple multiplication. However, once my dad asked how math was going I couldn't stifle the laugh. I trifled with the thought of telling him, knowing that he'd get a good laugh out of it.
I stood up, went to the office and grabbed a pen and a paper and then walked back into the kitchen and began to explain to him what I had done on my quiz the previous day.
He laughed.
I laughed.
We laughed.
Then I realized that this was actually really funny. So I told everybody. They all laughed. And I laughed with them.
One of my absolute favorite quotes comes from Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley: "The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache."
Now, obviously I didn't cry at my lack of intelligence in the math department, but I could have chosen to be more discouraged and frustrated about it. After all, that one little answer (or big if you refer to 1,836 rather than 216) ended up giving me a 75% on my quiz.
Life is about choices. We can't often choose exactly what will happen to us but we can choose how we will react.. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of his human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." -Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
In the end this little quiz won't have much of an impact on my life... or my final math grade for that matter. However, I'm always going to get a good laugh out of this embarrassing moment if I choose to. And just like Sister Hinckley said, laughing about it is much better than crying.
Life is full of choices. We can choose to be miserable or happy. What you choose is up to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment