Geometric Horror

Day: Unknown

Reaching for my backpack, I feel frightened and overwhelmed. I don't want to do this. I mean, there's a great anime right above me on my tv screen: how could I turn away from that?

"You've got to," a voice in my mind urges. "You must."

"But I don't understand anything. This is quarantine for god's sake, why should I have to do this crap?" It makes no sense to me. All it takes is the swipe of the remote, a small leap onto the bed and into the warm covers and I'm there: comfortable. No stress, no work, no pesky school. Nothing but the television in front of me and the grand animation of Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign on Hulu. It's right there.

But you're supposed to be good. You're supposed to be the one who passes, the one who is brave and determined. You're supposed to do the freaking math.

Except I don't understand it. How am I supposed to teach myself geometry? How am I supposed to reach down into this cherry blossom pink Steve Madden backpack, take out a jumble of letters and numbers and attempt to teach myself intricate riddles of the geometric ways?

Fear grips at my spine. I reach in anyway. My hands prickle with the sensation of my binders between my nimble fingers. What if it turns out horrible and I fail?

"You'll fail anyway if you don't," the internal voice whispers.

Yeah, that's right. It's fine. I mean, as long as I make better than a zero right? I've got three things left to do on Google Classroom and I can do it well enough on my phone. And why not use some google to help out too? Well, maybe that'll work. Except using google is against the rules.

Ah, shucks!

It'll be okay. I take a deep breath and grab a purple ink pen out of my backpack. Maybe it's not smart to use a pen for math but it's not like I feel like searching through the book bag for a pencil that I probably don't even have.

I'm going to have to reteach myself the distance formula, I realize. Oh crap, oh god, so many numbers and square roots and exponents and letters. What will the letters even mean in the formula? I can't believe I've already forgotten that.

Well, it's not like they should expect me to memorize that thing near the end of the semester, right? I mean, I learned it before in the beginning and I thought it was easy enough. Besides, I'm one of the smartest people in class. The only problem?

I'M FREAKING OUT!!

Last time I tried this, I almost broke down in tears, I was so frustrated. I find myself suddenly grateful to even have a teacher to tell me how to do it although I'm sure I could seriously gain something from learning some things on my own. After all, it's not like I haven't attempted it before. I've tried to learn Spanish. The only problem was Duolingo never taught me the grammar as much as direct translations. The actual class was far more educational and interactive.

But Spanish isn't even the problem right now. This is Geometry. It's not ever been difficult for me to learn something so no wonder I freak out when I feel like I can't. Intelligence feels like the only thing going for me and if that fails, what else do I have to give to society, what else could possibly give me any worth?

I open the binder, feeling only the barest bit hopeful. Hope is fragile. If I start hoping for the best and get the worst, I'll only feel that much more terrible. I'm at home, so it isn't like I have to fake a bunch of confidence and then get done and say it wasn't any work. At home I can relax a bit.

I flip back towards one of the first lessons in notes. As I flip through the pages, my stomach clenches. If I don't find this formula, I'm done for. Or I will just have to text Ms. Griffith and ask for her help. But I want to try it on my own first if only to test my capabilities. I should most definitely be able to do this with my skills and experience. But the question is: can I?

Well, I guess we will see.

-Ten minutes later-

After much diligent work and the use of a google scientific calculator, I'm ready to finally turn in the work. I realize that I only had one thing to do on google classroom which was a huge relief. It was apparent to me that I may have overestimated the difficulty of the work altogether though there were a few questions I was quite unsure of out of all five. I had to use a graph from the notes for one of them and found that my answer matched one of the answer choices, giving me a great boost of confidence that landed a smile on my face.

I clicked next, hoping for the best.

"Rate from 1 to 3 how well you think you did."

I put 2. I wasn't sure I passed, but I wasn't sure I failed either.

"Do you have any questions?"

With this I answered "I'm kind of nervous about this one because I tried teaching it to myself with only the help of notes. 😬" before pressing the next button once again.

The next button to click is the final one.

This one demands so much of me. This is final, this is it, the moment I have been waiting for and fearing at the same time.

The screen is so simple and the situation seeming to be the same, but not quite so much on the inside.

Just click the button. Get it over with. Get it all over with! Click the blue button.

I want to close my eyes when I do it, I want to clench them shut and count down, to stall, awaiting what is to come. No, I need to see it.

I press "view score" before I can convince myself otherwise.

The numbers that appear on the screen almost bring tears to my eyes.

"Score: 100/100 points"

It's so trivial how all that work actually amounted to something.

It makes me actually miss school.

The End