runouw.com

I don't know really why I am making this thread, I guess I just have a story to tell. I could have posted it in the things you want to say, I dunno. I just want to tell this story, because it is probably one of the happiest in my life.

For a lot of people, I am a maths junkie, I just love math and I am obsessed with it. That is pretty much the case, but I want to explain you why. You see, math to me isn't like volunteering and the like (things I love with all my soul), it is something more.

A lot of people might be suprised that I wasn't that much into math when I was younger. When I was in 7th grade I loved zoology and biology. And not just looking at pictures of animals, I loved reading about their habitats, their relationships, their clasification, and I esepcially ejoyed learning about evolution. I adored natural museums and the like.

In 8th grade I entered secondary school (here it is 1-7 primary, 8-12 secondary), and I didn't have any biology, but I had math, and the worst math teacher ever. While before then I had been inidferent towards math, she made me hate it. Every. Second. Of. It. She was mean to students for making mistakes (then she made the exact same mistakes herself), she couldn't explain for ♥♥♥♥. Even though I had a pretty low fall durin gone part of the semester, I ended up coming up pretty well mark wise, but the impact was there: I hated math.

9th grade came along, and this teacher was the opposite. 180° opposite. -a opposite. Sine*Hyp oppo- okay you get it. She was the real deal. Smart, clear, made us think, and all that good stuff. Funily enough, I had the highest average among my class, but she still forced me to redo a test I didn't do so well at, which is unheard of here. And then I decided "yes, this is cool".

Here is where the story gets intresting. During the last year of secondary school, I had a very strong crisis. I had to stay at home for three week straight, and I couldn't do pretty much anything. So what did i do with my time? Started watching youtube channels of course. But math youtube channels, Vi Hart and Numberphile specially. And right htere I feel in love with it. But it gets better, before I went see my doctor, I was bored, so I grabbed a boring number. "30" I chose, so I went 30=2.3.5, right? If I add those numbers up I get... 10, which divides 30! And then I started to explore more and more, to learn, to try to apply what I'd learned.

There was a drawback though, nobody really cared about the stuff I did. I started annoying my family, my friends, even some people here in Runouw, but once I started going to college, suddenly everyone was intrested in the stuff I wanted to explore. The proffesors in particular actually encourged me to keep on going and doing more stuff. They've recomendend me books to follow, and now, I am in a very nice path. I love learning about algebra and all it's crazyness. I am still a newbie, but I enjoy every second of it.

Mathematics isn't just a passion, it's a shelter, a beautiful place I know I can go and play around. And I hope all of you, can find your respective places.

Have a nice day,
LP.

It's not that I didn't care, I just didn't understand.

As someone who probably is much lower in your league when it comes to math (but still loves it), I can safely say I love your story. It's also very agreeable that experience with a teacher on a subject can very easily change your perspective on it.

Graduated with someone who was really, really good at numbers, despite himself denying it. He could look at a formula and resolve it without a problem. When the school gave everyone in the upper two classes a nuclear chem state exam, he was one of the 1% that got the highest average in the school, .5% in district, and less than that in state.

I suck at math, I've said it before but I'm dead serious. If it wasn't for this guy I wouldn't have actually gotten some form of help in Physics, when my practical experiments didn't help with understanding mole value.

So when I see people who are great at numbers, especially you Pat, I'm in awe.

If being a mathematician is what you yearn to be, then you ♥♥♥♥ do it, man. You and all the others, you crunch those numbers to dust and solve our problems, even if it's not to a global scale. And be proud of your talents at that.

You're an outcast until you get to college. That's the part where the life of most nerds like us tends to pick up, really.

Here's hoping you do great, man.

I've had similar experiences. I had a small computer technology class, and that is a subject I wish I knew more about. However, there's not been a teacher pick up the slack that he dropped. The teacher never gave us time to do our work. He barely told us what work we needed to make up if we were absent! The stuff he taught were things I already knew and anyone could have easily taught, or things that no one would understand.

On your story, if math is something that you want to pursue in life, then no one should stop you. Go for it, let nothing get in your way. Let none of US get in your way, for that matter.