I'm Really Good at Math...

In Italy, a class stays pretty much together their entire highschool career. This has many benefits: it allows a class to get really close, you know who to ask for help with homework, it's easy to study together because everyone is studying the same material at the same time - there's a sense of unity. This is good for me also, I can break into one class fairly easily, and it's easier to remember 30 names than 100. However there are many frustrations as well. In Canada, classes are in a certain block, and those blocks are on a rotation. This allows students in grades 10, 11, and 12 to take any class that falls in that block, or to take a "spare" or study block. In this system students can take, for example, grade 10 english, grade 11 math, and grade 12 history, if those blocks fit. Here, however, since I don't want to take Latin or Ancient Greek, I have to struggle to find classes that fit. For example, I could take the second hour of science three, or the first of two hours of Italian two, but I wouldn't be attending all the hours of that class per week. However, I decided that attending three of five hours would be good enough, and joined another class.

I had two main reasons for finding a fifth year math class. 1. I wanted a challenge other than the language. I wanted something that I needed to learn and practice that wasn't Italian. And I'm good at math (or at least I was in Canada), so I wanted a way to prove to people that I wasn't as dumb as I looked. And 2. I wanted to meet new people. I love my fourth year class. People have been beyond nice to me. But at the same time, I wanted people more my age, and just to meet some different people. When we get together on weekends, its usually just the class meeting up, again, so I thought it would be a good idea to get to know some new people.

I show up at the classroom and wait for the teacher. The teacher doesn't really seem to care all that much, and I tell him I'm good at math, so he tells me to take a seat. During a short break I tell all the other students that I'm super good at math, and that fourth year math is too easy for me. The lesson continues, and I dutifully take notes the whole time, while thinking, "oh yes, I know exactly what this graph/diagram means!" and, "that makes perfect sense!! Of course i^2 = -1! Why didn't I see that earlier".

I then head back to my fourth year class. I have a math test during this block, but, no biggie. It's just logarithms. I can do this. Wrong. I take a look at the questions, and they don't seem too hard, until I get to one of them. I can't remember how to do this question. (I can hear Mr Nutini saying to me now, "Study the types of questions, don't do the same type over and over." Sorry Mr Nutini, I have failed you.) It was a type of question that the teacher only briefly explained, then sorta left us on our own to learn, and I still haven't gotten around to buying a textbook yet, so I had only done a few examples. I hand in my test at the end of the block not totally satisfied with my answers. I know I got at least two wrong, more likely four. Four wrong? That can't be that bad.... On a nine question test....