At the end of this summer I began packing all of the things in my room to get it up and out of the way. My mother had the reputation of changing all rooms, after the children move out, into storage. I didn’t want my things to disappear in the mess of fabric. I found a large box of stuff from my old and many Girl Scout years. One of the things in the box being a large binder with every paperwork I filled out for every badge I earned. One specifically surprised me, each answer had to deal with math or hockey. I always dreamed of playing in the WNHL (‘cause they would have that when I was 18, was my excuse), but I hate math now.

   I took a test for test anxiety here at college. They found out I have an anxiety for mathematics. I used to love math, what happened? Aesoph happened. Not the mind behind the fables told to small children, but the wobbling bitch of a seventh grade math teacher. She taught me that whatever I did was wrong. I may have got the right answer but I didn’t follow the problem just right so I was wrong. I had to sit face forward in my desk, and not the sideways way I had become accustomed to after a tailbone injury. Any action I did that wasn’t notes, or class work I was trying to disrupt her class. The first time I ever received detention was from her. I by no means excelled, but I wasn’t an idiot. I could be taught a formula or solution and I had it down. I was one of the few students to take algebra in middle school. Then accelerated math classes in high school. But then Wynn happened. She did not show bias to her students like Aesoph, but she was a tough love teacher. She taught that you should get the method and know whenever to apply it, no matter how obscure the problem seemed to be. Kids were forced to go to the board and when the problems were wrong it was pointed out to the entire class and no help was given for correction. I hated being put on the spot, and having problems thrown from left field simply at the teachers whim.

   Psychology taught me that students may struggle in subjects but it is more likely that a bad experience causes them to subconsciously fail. I apparently used to love math. But now I am held back from my studies because it is my most faulted subject. I am currently barely passing the lowest math class offered at my university because after three attempts at the placement test that was the highest class I was able to place into. It does nothing but give me elective credit, and if I fail places me as a “sophomore” after taking a summer course and entering into my third year of college.

   To not so eloquently put it, I fucking hate math!!!!