Math

'I was just in time when I reach the room for my Math class and there I saw Craig inside the room studying. I sit next to him and he must have sense that someone was beside him so he immediately looks at my side. Unlike yesterday, I don't feel any tension between the two of us. I gave him the adobo that I cooked earlier.'

"What's that?" Craig asks me. It looks like he's not familiar with this kind of dish. I replied to him. "Uhm, It's like braised chicken that is seasoned with soy sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and bay leaf. Basically, it's the national dish of the Philippines and I put my own twist on it by putting potatoes as starch and for added texture and some chilies to make it a little bit spicy."

"Okay, thanks, but why are you giving this to me?"

"I want to properly thank you for what you did to me last night. Craig nodded at me and I immediately told him my other purpose for sitting next to him. Actually, the reason I also want to sit next to you is that I have an idea of what we could do for our project. Do you think we could discuss it somewhere, maybe, after class?"

"Sure." After his reply, our professor entered the room and I immediately faced in front. The professor began his calculus lecture and he explained each term accurately, and I almost cried when he included the hardest lesson in calculus which is The Riemann hypothesis which speculates that the Riemann zeta function crosses the x-axis (the functions zero's) only at negative even integers and complex numbers with real part 1/2. This hypothesis is thought to be the most important unsolved problem in mathematics, let alone in Calculus.

Knowing myself, I didn't understand any of it. I'm surprised that in my final year of high school, I am still able to bear with it. I wrote in my notebook the ways on how to solve the problem step by step. Every time the professor is explaining, my mind was focus, but as usual, nothing is going in my head. Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually like this, It's just that when it comes to math my mind gets blank. I admire others who can understand math easily because even though I try my best, I always fall short.

After explaining each step, the professor was calling my classmates name randomly to answer his questions orally. For those who were called, only half of them were able to get the correct answer.

I was silently praying to the heavens not to let my professor call my name because I have my reasons. (1) Because I suck at math. (2) I was not able to understand the lesson. (3) I don't want to embarrass myself for saying the wrong answer.

"Alicia Williams, if an oil is leaking out of a ruptured tanker at the rate of r(t)=45e−0.04t thousand liters per minute, (a) At what rate, in liters per minute, is oil leaking out at t=0? at t=60? Round the answer to two decimal places and (b) How many liters leak out during the first hour? Round the answer to two decimal places.

'When I heard the professor call out my name, I stand up and immediately know that faith was not on my side. I was hoping that I won't be given the Riemann hypothesis because that one is hard and it would take years to solve that problem. I would even give someone a million dollars if they could solve it. Thank goodness it was a different problem, but I still don't know the answer.'

'While standing, I kept biting my lips, my eyes were glued on the ground and at this moment I am waiting for a miracle to happen not until I saw Craig mouthed something at me. Not many people know this, but I am actually good at lip-reading that's why when I saw him do that I immediately know that he has given me the answer.'

"Sir, the answers to the given problem are 4.08 and 1022.9 liters. I was nervous because I don't know if the answers Craig has given me were all correct, but I have no choice but to trust him. "Okay, good" When I heard the professor said that my answers were correct, I breathe a huge sigh of relief.

I looked at Craig and mouthed a thank you at him. He just nodded at me. After class ended, I went to talk to Craig.

"Craig, earlier thank you for helping me.

"It's fine, but you know that I can't always help you right." I nodded at him because he was right about what he told me and I know to myself that I need to study harder because I can only depend on my success on myself and no one else. Sometimes I get jealous of people who could easily solve any math problem that is given to them.

"This is so frustrating! Why is math so hard when it is easy for other people?" I realize that I spoke it too loudly because Craig said something. "Mathematics is considered as one of the toughest subjects by many students. However, it is also considered the most scoring subject. For others, Mathematics can be the most difficult as well as the easiest subject, but I think it all depends on their strategy and hard work."

'After what Craig said, I realize that he was right. Math will be tough if I set my mind for failure without even trying and that would automatically lead me to give up, but if I set my mind that I could do this, then I know to myself that I will succeed.' Math is not created to make our life harder, it's meant to give us lessons that are a must for us to take notice and understand. Because if our life is like math and it is too easy, no thrill, then something is wrong because you will not be able to experience a satisfaction.

I realize that when I had this conclusion I was looking at him.