My Life Will Go On (8)


My high school life was ease, and happy. However I failed minor tests, or did not have good marks in every subject, I did not care. I always forgot spellings, and meanings in English. I could not remember the important dates, and years in History. I could not memorize lines, and paragraphs in Geography. I still was not interested in Science. I still was clumsy in Mathematical figures. I always heard what my teachers compared my stupidity with my twin brother’s smart, and intelligence. 

(I decided to show my mother first, and she will decide what to do next.) (Illustrated by Maung Yit)

In my ninth-grade, I got zero in mathematics in one of the minor examinations. Teacher gave all the paper to all her students. It was to be returned with the parents’ signature especially from their father. I was afraid to ask for the signature on my paper to my parents. I could not face the reaction when my paper would be at their hands. I thought many reasons to give my parents. My friend, who got zero in mathematics as same as me (no more no less), suggested that I should have to tell my father that nearly the whole class got zero in this mathematics test, then maybe he would not blame me for being one of the majority. (But I already knew that he would never blame me.) She supposed that because of my father was a lecturer in mathematics, he taught me a few things. I knew I was so careless in working with figures. For example, in the problem, I knew exactly what to do – I must divide these two numbers, but I got wrong in actual manipulation. It’s the same in other problem.

 

(I was still as stupid as I.)
  
My friend said that I was better than most of them including herself, because she just read the problem and don’t know what to do, don’t even understand what it said. She encouraged me that if only the teacher gave marks for understanding the meaning of the problem and knowing what to do, I was sure I would have got something. I thought, ‘That’s just it. It is only the right answer that matters.’

Comments