Math Autobiography
By Fox-Trot-9

Though math has never held an honored place in my heart, I now see how far its bounds extend throughout our lives. Thinking back on those hazy, lazy days of earliest childhood, I remember, back when I was two, the first time I ever laid eyes on a giant popsicle my parents gave me. It was to my liking, and I associated big things with tasty things, till I tasted a tire, which I mistook for a giant chocolate donut.

But such curiosity was not to last. In fact, in elementary school, I developed a sore hatred of math, though not initially. I hated school in general, except for recess, P.E. and Art. In these early grades, the curriculum was simple, just the way I liked it. Addition and Subtraction problems were no-brainers. Multiplying, though it did require memory skills, sunk in with me fairly well. Thus, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions were easy. But the only thing I dreaded was long division. This is what sparked my hatred of math. It looked complex; it was complex. It required the mastery of addition and multiplication. It required patience, which I had little of. It was hideously long. In a word, it was hell. Of course, this was due to my ignorance of rounded off decimal places.

As I grew taller, so did I ascend to middle school. Gone were the carefree joys of recess and free time. Even P.E. lost its carefree way. At this time, I reviewed and honed old math skills, and learned newer, weightier ones. One of them was exponents. It seemed simple, but beckoned from me new ways of thinking old ideas. For instance, any number squared is multiplied by that number. It was hard for me to grasp. I repeatedly multiplied the small two with the bigger base number, which I paid for through my grades. It was even worse with cubed exponents. Still, middle school was the turning point for me and math, a turn for the better. The many formulas, including, Perimeter, Diameter, Area, Volume and Pythagorean Theorem, Y-intercept, and the like, I found to have many applications outside the classroom. I was amazed by the scope of their uses. They opened my eyes to fields of thought and sight unthought and unseen before. Such new insights sparked the curiosity of early childhood.

So, onward to high school, where I learned even higher modes of thought, requiring more effort to grasp. For a little while longer P.E. stayed with me, as was my curiosity in math. But as the math problems got more intricate, and tests became more pressured, I started cracking beneath their weight. Variables within the numerators and denominators of fractions vexed me. Ever-growing steps to longer equations worried me. Additional variables to those equations disturbed me. Translating encoded written sentences into those cryptic equations out-right frightened me. And as I entered the world of pre-college physics, translating, hypothesizing, experimenting, inscribing and interpreting real-world complicated data into simplified results through more cryptic equations gave me nightmares. Still, this crucible of problem-solving didn't go without its rewards. Kites were built in labs and flown, ball bearings rolled through tubes of PVC, eggs dropped in cases of straw on the pavement, hot plate burners used and abused, and untied balloons zipping all over the place.

Then in college came the many horrors of Math 126, as I revisited the problems of Algebra II at greater depth and at break-neck speed. Graphs of even and odd polynomials, from simple Degree 0 to Degree 5 and beyond, their maximums and minimums, their zeros and multiplicities, terrified me. Long division of polynomials, not much better. Short division of the same proved soothing. Complex numbers intimidating but manageable. But the Fundamental Theoram of Algebra and Descates' Rule of Signs was the sum of all my fears, finding the multiplicities of zeros and whether they were positive and negative. Oh! It was like tracking the movements of a fugitive, always one step behind. Then more graphs came, starting with rational functions, then exponential functions, then logarithmic functions! I cannot express the sick horror of looking at an exponential or logarithmic equation, knowing I must solve it without losing my sanity. Then came substitution and elimination of systems of two or more equations. Then the matrix got me, enslaving me to its identities and many operations. I valiantly resisted all I could but was finished off by determinants and the immortal Crammer's Rule.

Thus changed forever, I now delve further into the abyss of sine and cosine, cosecant and secant, tangent and cotangent, and all of their ghastly properties and applications. Math gods, help me!

(The End...)

A/N: Believe it or not, I actually had to do this as a real 'Math' assignment, can you believe that? I turned this paper in as part of my midterm grade. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true! But the teacher was still cool. ( ^_^ ) Anyway, have a heart and review; I want to know what you guys think. And be freaking honest, please!