Time to advance
As any person with work to do, they have to wake up first. When I rose, I felt like I was doing a million sit ups. My mouth was hurting from my braces, it moved my teeth… slowly. I thought to myself, ”This is a torture device from medieval times.” I did my bathroom routine and glanced at my appearance in the mirror as I was walking out. I was taller than most students, blue eyes, and light brown hair. I arrived upstairs from my room not surprised to see clutter that composed of papers, my little sister’s drawings, and just too many random objects all over the counters. I packed my sandwich, brownie, soda, and chips in my lunch bag so I could have my “healthy recharge” for the day. I slightly gazed around the house, only to notice the high ceilings and the salient pile again and again.” “The couches, TV, table, and decorations are all in order, all in an organized fashion. With the halloween decorated doors all closed which meant it was time to leave. I opened the front door and got to the car. The coldness of Colorado hit me in the face right away. I shivered with goosebumps right away. I scurried to the car, trying to not get frostbite on my fingers. That day was the day that my life would change. I was so trembling with nervousness because of the concepts and just switching to a new and superior class during the year. “I didn't think my world would change right away but I will always focus and conquer,” I said as I ran out the door. When I was writing this story I was focusing on the most important parts to make them well written. I returned to my train of thought as the cold wind struck my senses. I thought that I wouldn’t last two minutes. My step-dad started the car and we were off.
I remembered the day that I got accepted, I looked back avoiding all of reality. Then suddenly, I made it to school with a plain expression that looks equivalent to the faces of other students, eyes focusing on the ground and no smiling. It was basically a I-don't-really-want-to-be-here-look. I was so far back that I got the clearest look at the front of the school. The sign was in white but then coloring the last word made the animal name stand out: “Hawk.” I took a deep breath and said, “Just another boring day in eighth grade.” My journey was off at a dull start. I got through my 3 classes in the morning that last through 10:00 am. I waited for the bell to ring, I was urging to go to science and not to brag, but I at least try to learn something new. Eighth grade science was so easy that I could sleep through the whole class and tell the teacher what we went over. This was a time where I was a super-stressed student and I cared a lot about my grades with all that stress, it felt like I didn’t even close my eyes for two seconds. What I would do to make time pass was just sitting there whispering to my friend or draw a pixelated image on graph paper. I am pretty sure everyone knows that a lot of things can lose excitement or any feeling really. Well, that is what happened. I was relaxed and I didn't worry as much. I was getting ready for my free time in science.
My science class was a pretty generic one. It had the teacher explaining the concepts, doing the worksheets, and reading from the textbook.
As I recovered from lunch break, from all the fun, from all the free time, from all the work I caught up on. I should say just getting ahead on assignments and studying for surprise quizzes.
After a couple more classes, I start to feel tired and drowsy. I was on to my third to last class: U.S history. We got to learn about the causes of the American revolution such as the uprisings such as the Boston Tea Party and getting angry about the acts or laws. The acts that I remember were the Stamp act and the Quartering act. Things were getting excited in the room but it turned out it was just me; then reality kicked in. I felt so tired that I could’ve passed out as I was walking to math, right in the middle of the floor. I didn’t know this day would be the day that he would let me into advanced math. This was how I felt most days of the school year.
I headed to math just barely grazing each tip of my shoe with the floor. I walk in the door and the air, just the right temperature, hit my face and I sighed as I walked in. For the daily routine we started with a warm-up that was usually presented on the board.
I walked into the classroom and the temperature of the room gave me a relaxing feeling. We got to play a math game that day and it was called Speed. It was a simple game. It was similar to solitaire except you needed a second person to compete with. As every person that plays a new game for the first time, they play it pretty slow. I was confused because it was called Speed for a reason. Anyway, after we had about ten minutes with the game, we started learning a new (old for me) lesson. It was learning how to solve systems of equations. In simplified terms, it was solving for x. I grabbed my, what seemed to be weighing 20 pounds, book and looked for the next lesson. Just as I opened my binder to write the answers to the problems my teacher called me out to the hallway. Now, if you were a kid that didn’t evolve from fifth grade your first thought would be, “I don’t know what I did wrong.” I did evolve and I know that I didn’t do anything bad for the first part of the quarter but as simple as I can be; I was just confused. My teacher stood in front of me outside the doorway and I started to think of how much history we have together.
By that time he was taller than me by at least 2-3 inches. I also noticed his beard to shield his face from the harsh cold. He always wore a striped polo shirt and khakis as his professional teaching clothes. My math teacher’s name was Mr. Malmberg. What was neat is that he was my fifth grade teacher as well. We still have a good friendship today. He taught us fun card and board games as well as every concept we learned in fifth grade. He taught me a lot of life skills and the board game that we were so competitive was chess. I once took his queen with a pawn. I felt like I would be in algebra right now if I did well in elementary. As I walk closer I feel that I am getting taller than him. He said, “Hey man, I am going to let you in advanced math.”
“Okay,”
“I am giving you this only chance for you to prove that you should be in this class. You are going to start next Monday. This is going to be a big learning curve for you, can you handle that?”
“Yeah, definitely !” I said in an excited manner.
“Alright,” he said as we started to walk back into the classroom.
I headed back into the class too excited to even focus on the problems we did on the rest of the problems. Sadly, I had no friends in that class to share the news with. I recall having “butterflies in my stomach” that were making me jumpy. I finished my “day in, day out routine,” at school and got on the bus to go home.
I walked home so much everyday my subconscious took over or I had my earbuds in on my walk. I didn’t have any homework that day and so I played video games to relax my excited self. I felt so woozy that I felt I was about to sing a song like a princess after an event that went splendid for them. My books, controller, TV, and myself started to sing in my room. My books whistled a dandy tune that all of us could sing to. The reality hit me in the face, I fell silent, I picked up my controller and started playing Call of Duty for around an hour. I couldn’t wait to tell my Mom and Dad the good news. I texted my Dad after I played video games and he seemed more or less the same on my “big” news. I waited for Mom to get home and I told her the same thing. I remember her being more excited than Dad was, she congratulated me with a big hug. I feel like they were more worried than excited about me because they thought I would struggle in the class. I realized that I got out of the car and said goodbye. My day of being in the new class starts today.
I make it to class with a few minutes to spare and settle down. As I open the door the clouds whistled their cold air at me. I looked at my schedule one more time just to make sure that I had my classes in order. I went to my first class before the bell rang and I found a random seat that was in the right-hand corner of the classroom. I made a huge mistake on my first day. I was just sitting there in the classroom so I could see what class was like, but Mr. Malmberg told me, “Get a notebook out, man.” I felt so embarrassed on the inside. I grabbed my notebook and started to do the warm-up. The first new concept that I learned was simplifying exponents. After the warm-up in the morning, I wanted a new friend for a start and I spoke to my new classmate. His name was Halen. We had a huge topic that started our friendship and that topic was science. I was more of a chemist and he was a physics man. We were really against each other’s specific fields but luckily we had other things to talk about. I never thought this would happen but it did.
He persuaded me just enough to get into physics and I guess you could say that he influenced me to reach the goal of having my dream job. Halen is still a really good friend. My version of describing him is the characteristics of a cat. He was sometimes lazy and he just didn’t want to do the task. We helped each other if we were struggling on a topic or a problem in general. I managed to gather enough courage and energy to get through the rest of my classes. After a few weeks of new content at school I managed to understand more concepts at the first or second try and it made my self-confidence go significantly higher. Oh how much I enjoyed that class! Just me being not apart of a normal class. I have always wanted to be ahead of the normal kids. I made a new friend, I made new experiences with my fifth grade teacher, and I got to learn faster. I wanted to check up on my teacher to see him one once more.
I decided to schedule an interview with my fifth/eighth grade teacher. I was curious and asked him on how I have progressed during the year in that class. He said, “I think the learning curve for you was going to be a steep one initially but within a couple of weeks you were okay because you worked hard enough that it wasn’t a big deal.” He also mentioned, “Your work ethic is unmatched with most eighth grade boys, so last year you worked really hard and asked every time you had a question.”
One answer that was very meaningful to me was when he stated, “Just you worked hard enough to get it done and you were never really a hassle.” All of the eight answers were very meaningful to me but they also state how much I have progressed since then. This classic has made a lot of big influences such me getting more attached to math and learn new ways to solve things. I also learned a couple of ways to get through life from my teacher. One of the ways was just being nice and positive instead of rude and negative to people. The other way was asking for help if you were getting frustrated. I will and always will remember the day that Mr. Malmberg let me advanced math.