Arriving home from school I acted very normal as always as I didn’t want my parents to notice anything.
Hence, I pretended that everything was fine, hugged my parents; then did the usual took a bath, changed, had something to drink and went back to my room to work on my Spanish and science homework.
As I started doing my homework, I somehow drifted to sleep then had this strange dream.
I was in my seventh grade classroom seated all by myself in deep thoughts when I noticed the mathematics textbook right on my desk, as I turned the pages of the textbook, I looked up and saw Mrs.
Clemens teaching the class, but when I looked around didn’t see any of my other classmates as it was just me alone in the class.
I turned the pages in the textbook, folded my arms and continued looking at Mrs.
Clemens teaching and could see her getting angry and not happy at all while she was teaching.
I wanted to raise my hand to ask her a question but as soon as I tried to raise my hand, there was some kind of force pulling my hand down almost as if it didn’t want me to speak or say anything.
It was then I looked back at my math textbook and saw a message written in the middle of the page that read “I know you have been struggling with math, but don’t worry everything will be fine, you are a smart and brave young girl, you just have to remain positive, strong and confident in yourself and in everything you do and you will succeed.” I started asking “Who are you, what do you want from me, why are you helping me?” A strange mix of voices replied “You will know in due time, remember I will always be with you.” At that moment I woke up from my sleep in a state of shock, my face, and my palms all sweating like crazy.
I got up from my chair went to the bathroom and just to make sure that I was not crazy, slapped my face three times, splashed cold water on my face, looked at myself in the mirror; there was nothing wrong nor was there anything strange on my face.
I walked back to my room slowly sat on my chair and continued doing my homework.
Within the hour I had completed all my homework and went downstairs to join my parents for dinner.
As we were having dinner the usual conversation on how school was going was the topic of our dinner discussion.
With a good pretense, I replied “school is going very well, classes are all good, lots of projects, group work and presentations and the after school activities are also going great.” I summed it up quite well because no more questions were asked which was a relief.
I was just not ready to talk about anyone or anything that had been happening at school.
I wanted to solve all my problems on my own, didn’t want anyone to worry about me or the problems I was facing.
At this moment, I could only trust in telling Jaime and Chris because I knew they would never reveal or sell any of my secrets or problems to anyone.
The next day at school I was very quiet in Mrs.
Clemens class as she was introducing the schedule of the day and just when I thought our first class was going to be English Language Arts it turned out to be social studies then the second lesson was mathematics.
During our social studies class we had been introduced to the Ancient Civilizations which included Mesopotamian civilization, Indus Valley civilization, Egyptian civilization, Ancient Greek civilization, and Chinese civilization, Persian civilization, Roman civilization, Mayan civilization, Incan and Aztec civilization.
The information to be studied was an introduction of each civilization including the history, timeline, the common and shared characteristics of each civilization and what makes them unique etc. This story is hosted at novelping dot com.
I found this topic quite interesting and fascinating but as I was listening and reading the presentation from Mrs.
Clemens, fast facts and information were flowing in my mind about each civilization with pictures including the information that was given to us to read which I had read it in less than twenty minutes and understood pretty much everything including details of each civilization.
I paused for a minute and looked around to see who else was reading the same information but everyone was looking or rather staring at the presentation.
It was very clear to me at that moment that something was not right and something strange was once again happening in my mind and body.
Before the lesson ended Mrs.
Clemens assigned a group presentation where each group was to choose one of the civilizations and prepare a presentation.
Once again I was the only one singled out with no partners, so instead of panicking and wondering who will be my partner, which group should I join or which group will I be placed by Mrs.
Clemens, I lifted my hands stood up and told Mrs.
Clemens in front of the whole class “I will choose to do the Greek civilization on my own, is that alright with you Mrs.
Clemens?” Everyone looked at me, and then looked at Mrs.
Clemens, who then looked at me and replied “Sure, no problem, you can work on your own to prepare and present about the Greek civilization.” I jumped up with excitement saying “yes, finally” and sat down with the biggest smile ever not worrying what my classmates said!!
As Mrs.
Clemens was wrapping up the lesson, I could see all eyes were looking at me while whispers could be heard.
I could hear what they were saying but I didn’t let that bother me at all, as long as I was doing what I was to do in class without causing any disruption or problems with my classmates, what I did or how I chose to do it was not anyone’s concern.
I will say though that was so cool, the way I stood up and spoke, it was courage beyond a doubt.
Mrs.
Clemens concluded by saying that “all projects were to be ready for presentation in three weeks.
My mind went ‘right on, let the games begin.’
Second class was mathematics; although it was already crystal clear this was not my favorite subject I was not about to fail a class because of the teacher and my classmates.
Last month we learned on the extended use of the four basic arithmetic operations on whole numbers, fractions, mixed numbers and decimals.
That lesson was quite simple and brought back some pleasant learning memories of elementary and sixth grade which I loved.
Obviously this was a whole new streamline of mathematics on a completely different level.
I was already shaking my head in despair as was not sure on how far I would make it learning this new unit.
Understanding the terms and concepts was the first step, followed by written and given simple arithmetic.
It all looked like I was learning the Greek language and was already getting frustrated even when I tried to focus putting aside the attitude problem.
However, for some reason and I don’t know how but I was able to fully comprehend all the math terms, concepts and understood how the problems were to be solved through the examples Mrs.
Clemens explained.
Although I had my doubts I told myself “I have to work extra hard to make sure I can understand and pass this math class.
I am not going to allow myself to be defeated.” While saying this to myself, I started remembering the dream I had last night and the message that was written in my math textbook.
It was then something got into my head and my body again that took away my fears, worries and changed my learning attitude of mathematics.
Upon completion of the explanation and doing some examples with Mrs.
Clemens, it was time to start solving some real world problems on my own.
Mrs.
Clemens gave us five math problems to solve, this included that we not only had to get the right answers but had to be ready to explain in steps how we got to the answer with pictures if possible.
I took a good hard look at the problems and begun writing and solving them in my math notebook.
All the problems were solved in twenty minutes; once I was done put my pencil down and started looking around the classroom to see who else had finished and could see four other students had also finished.
I started reading other topics in my math textbook, when I noticed Mrs.
Clemens glancing at my notebook.
She checked my notebook for quite a long time then looked at me; I glanced at her and the other students in my group.
I glanced at her again and asked “Is something wrong Mrs.
Clemens?” She gave me a very interesting shocking look and said “very good” almost as if she had not expected that I was able to solve and complete all the problems in such as very short time.
She turned around walking to the other desks then returned to the smart board.