my fifth period enigma

this isn't just about what happened. it's about truth and looking into people and motivation, and basically understanding. and high school.

So, why is it that the last minute of class always passes by so slowly? Especially in my New Testament class, for instance. (No offense, but you can only take so much of the Gospels.) And when that bell finally rings, we sophomores, too eager for summer to care about grades anymore, trudge off to our next classes. Well, I don’t. Blow off my grades, I mean; but I just have nothing else to prove. This is why I get nervous on the way to my fifth period Algebra class. I’m just no good in there, I can’t even make my teacher, Coach Washington, crack a smile, and that’s pretty much my talent. But there’s a strong probability (No way, I actually understood something in there!) that it’s just her I don’t get. You see, Coach Washington (who will from this point be referred to as Cwash), she’s just not the easiest person to get.
You see, she just doesn’t feel.
It's called stoicism, I learned about it in English class. At first I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where I had seen it before, although I had seen it nearly every day for the past seven months in my Algebra class. Apparently it’s where one lacks any sort of emotional quality. That just seems unreal to me. From my standpoint, emotions are a pretty vital element in the art of communication: they’re as important as words, and when one refuses to speak, emotions are the only road to the point. So how can you understand a bland-hearted woman who seldom opens her mouth, and only to say, “Will you just shut up?”
I doubt it is possible. Trust me, I’ve tried. Sure, exterior impressions can tell you a lot about a person. From sitting in the second-row seat in the middle of the classroom I learned that Cwash has an addiction to Nikes (I’ve only seen the exception once, a pinkish pair of New Balances) and even sets her outfits to match them, wears her hair in a certain style for set increments of time, favors her students that bring her chicken biscuits, and will never be caught in dressy-casual attire. Therefore, she seems pretty laid back. You can also learn a lot about someone from actions, movement, the like: slouching over the podium, refusing to go back a slide on the Smart board for a student (usually me) to get a better look at the problem, cold states, they symbolize boredom. And then she makes these funny noises with her mouth: I just can’t figure those out yet. I asked questions: all I learned was that she only liked the 4th of July because she got to eat hamburgers and that she didn’t like being investigated, so I had to back down as she waved a potential detention in my face. How could I psychoanalyze this woman if she wouldn’t even talk to me? I would never be able to help her, to understand her. It turns out that this was not the only undefeatable challenge I would face.
I sat in my desk, dreading the test that would soon drift towards my desk. The Nike Airs approached me, and then, there it was. Another F, accredited for what she called, “careless mistakes.” I didn’t care how careless I was, I knew it just meant I was stupid, I knew it just meant that I wouldn’t be able to take another honors math class. My sophomore transcript, stained by my poor math skills, I feared, would prevent my acceptance into a choice college. My parents lost their faith in me.I made myself quit tennis to bring up my grades, even though the sport was my sole reason for living. I’ll be honest, it really hasn’t worked, which only made the situation worse. And I couldn’t ask Cwash for help, because every time I try to speak, my phrases get jumbled up. Believe me, I tried. Online tutor, real tutor, extra practice, I could not raise that 64 that haunted me constantly.

Meanwhile, Cwash’s stoicism that I envied perplexed me, for I couldn’t comprehend how she couldn’t be emotionally affected. All I ever dealt with were emotional issues, it wasn’t fair how she was void of any emotion. Sometimes, I tried to under her solely so I could mimic her in awkward situations. I wanted to get her when she couldn’t get herself, as odd as that sounds. I thought I could muster up the understanding to help her when she couldn’t help herself. I guess I wanted to see myself when I looked at her. I wanted to find a deeper meaning in that cold stare. It wasn’t like she was unpredictable. I figured out her assessment schedule: when she was extra-quiet or irritable, we had a homework quiz; within two weeks of learning something, we would be tested on it. With this knowledge and my handy using-other-people skills, I was sure my grades would rise. I knew only time would tell, and I anticipated the grading of our chapter eight tests.
Summer break was within reach of our outstretched arms. Our tones changes to lazy, like Cwash’s, to worried, as the exams crept up on us. Our lazy sophomoric nature blew us in the brains; questions that once could be answered by lightning-like reflexes now traveled to us in a fog as we searched our overloaded minds for some sort of a hint. It was like we were slowly killing our future, slowly draining our capability. We longed for sunshine and sand, long sleepless nights, the vans Warped Tour, new opportunities to get wasted, and the inevitable promise of the so-called summer love. With these wonderful promises, how could we care about our future? But the reality approached us, we had to face that fact that exams were inescapable. So we panicked. In turn, our teachers broadcasted terrifying news: they had gone easy on us all year, but the exams would not. In fact, we were expected to know everything shoved into our brains :the superfluous amounts of equations, events, grammar rules, hidden meanings in religious text, compound names and properties, and most importantly, how to keep our sanity.
Seventy-nine. C plus. C plus! It wasn’t a C or a C minus, which were basically failing grades in my demented mind. It was an Almost B, and not only that, it was an improvement. My grade climbed to a sixty-eight, and Almost C. I didn’t care what the other Perfect people said, because I was proud of my Passing Grade, proud of my Understanding. My grade ROSE! I smiled as that 68 flickered on the computer screen. My father promised an arrangement with a tutor, in the hopes that I would kill my exam. It was the start of something, I was sure, and I looked at math with a newfound courage.

Seventy-four? Woah. Being the performance-obsessed perfectionist that I am, I check my grades as regularly as one breathes. I was clearly startled and jumped in my seat. My quiz! What could I have made that would catapult my grade six points higher? Click. Oh man oh man oh man...
25/25. I MADE A FREAKING 100.
Hundred!
That means perfect!
How could this happen to me?
Should I start believing in luck again?
NO WAY. NO WAY!
I'm ashamed to say that I squealed like a prep.
It was strange, feeling perfect. Of course I knew I wasn't, but th feeling was strong. I felt elligible, select for things to turn towards my favor. Perfect. I knew I wasn't, but did I care?

There are some things that one must accept, and some changes one can enforce. I learned that if I put some effort into my math career, I'd get a reward. We learned that we had to abandon our sophomoric nature: how else could we adapt to junior year, up to college, up to death? Staying the same would do no good in the long run, no matter how afraid we were to take responsibility. We also had to only be responsible for what we could handle: grades, our own feelings. To my surprise, even Cwash seemed more vivacious. In the period of frenzy before final exams, she glowed at our misfortune and the promise of summer. I could finally solve the enigma: Coach Washington was a person, no matter how stoic she appeared. Understanding others is a tough challenge: the harder you try, the harder it becomes. Once I've lived long enough, hopefully, I'll be closer to the answer. Perhaps, one day, I will understand her.

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Dang, this was very entertaining! I did not take New Testament until my freshman year of college (it was one of my humanities) in earning my Bachelor of Arts degree. Algebra is not as tough as chemistry but you have to learn one to get the other one. Balancing equations; agebraical, chemical or psychological can prove a daunting task. I like that you tried to invest some effort into understanding and accepting your instructor as a person. Some instructors emotionally detach themselves from their students but in my opinion, the best ones don't. There are a great many life lessons that don't come from books and although sociology is a subject, it is also an ongoing experiment. This was some very good writing. I enjoyed.