Shame on me: Math problems

So... starting from today and if I have time and am not lazy to write, I'm going to share about my learning experiences in my final year in college (hopefully).

It kind of saddens me a bit that I only attempted to do this now. It saddens me that I will only get to blog about my student life for a few more months. It saddens me that I didn't create a blog years ago. It saddens me that I fill my mind with saddening thoughts.

Okay, enough of that.

And RE-learn it. Ugh.

This morning or about lunch time, we had out first Math 27 (Analytical Geometry and Calculus II) meeting. Our teacher seems nice and cute (literally), which reminds me that she herself requested for a change in classroom assignment because in the originally assigned classroom, the blackboard was too high and she won't be able to write well on its surface. Basically, it was a mismatch. When I forwarded her message to the class, my classmates didn't believe the reason at first for it sounded like a joke, but actually wasn't. Oh my. How honest can she be? Well, I like honest people the most (I actually prefer them than people who often tell jokes amidst lies).

After taking our attendance, she introduced the topics we will discuss in 16 weeks. After a little bit of random talk, she immediately tests our knowledge and memory with a short but recorded quiz. :( Yes. A quiz. A surprise quiz. It came without warning. We reacted! We overreacted and whined like primary schoolers who refuse to take their afternoon nap. Add to that the fact that she seemed happy at the thought of giving us a quiz made an impression to me that she really must be nice. :) But her pure smile camouflaged with the funny grins we were showing to each other and the chuckles we let out, as we surrendered and equally seemed to be clueless of what to do.

The quiz consisted only of 4 items to answer. The air wasn't heavy. There wasn't much pressure than I thought there'd be. It was like a funny scene in a movie-- or a scene in a movie that appears to be funny for the actors only.

Suddenly, she blurted out a condition as if she saw through our inner pain and struggle. "Less than 2 points and you'll dance in front of the class or as a class", was the threat she let out as the quiz was going on.

"We'll do the dance instead, ma'am!" joked the class. It was too easy to give in to that condition. Oh, we all had smiles on our faces despite the uncertainties that lingered in the room. We were just laughing it our calculus misery.

We were given about 15 minutes to answer it. To be honest, it felt too long for a short quiz. But we didn't have other options other than to squeeze our brains for any vital technique we can manage to recall. Sadly, I used up the time and wasn't able to optimize the only choice. :)

It was exactly two years ago that we [our batch] last had a math course! Math, in this case, is the pure math that we learn and not the applied maths like those we have used in the food engineering, food processing, and food sensory evaluation courses we took within that duration. We took courses that used math, but we didn't really feel like we did any math at all. I admit my mind has rusted after two years of understanding and learning Calculus I. I don't entirely blame the curriculum, but I just hope that the next batches would be able to do math as often as possible so that their brains won't forget what they learned in the previous semesters. The two years was just really costly for my brain.

15 minutes up. She collected our papers and revealed the answers. I got 1 out of 4. I'm pretty happy with that. From the responses of my classmates, it seems like we owe our instructor a class dance.

Despite all this, I still look forward to what we'll learn when we properly start the lessons. :)