This is life.

66 ➤ A feeling

Britney Patterson+

"Chanel you're not helping." Joshua complains. She becomes frustrated and takes the Cas calculator out of his hand and throws it across the room. "Well maybe if you listened to me you would actually get something out of what I'm trying to teach you!" "Not cool. That costed 130 quid! Why would you do that?!" Joshua yells. He gets up from his seat too pick up the device and checks if it is damaged. Before the situation was able to get too heated I decide to intervene. "Let me try." Chanel laughs. "Go ahead, I guess. He doesn't listen." She leaves the room and I sit beside Joshua. "This was meant to be a holiday." He sighed. "Here." I look at the question written and steal the blue pacer in his hand. I write out the equation for him quickly. I find out that 'specialist' work is practically basic calculus. My favourite type of maths.

d/dx [f(x)g(x)] = f'(x)g(x) + f(x)g+(x)

Oh how I miss math. "I already know-" I shush him as I fill in the blanks with the numbers given and do the calculations in my head. Once I solve it I write down the answer. "Oh." "You're working with derivatives and for this question they give, you need to apply the Product Rule. Do you see how that works, now?" "I think I do. I have a hard time applying, that's all." He says. "Everyone applies differently based on how they see the question. It'll stick eventually." He nods as he checks the answer on his Cas. I miss using the Cas as well, now that I think about it. "Your answer's wrong." He tells me. "No I'm pretty sure I'm right." "Oh wait I see what you did. We use bodmas back at home. You have a different way of working out, I think." "What? What's bodmas?" "Brackets, Orders, Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction." He explains. "I see. It's like a weird version of pemdas." "We're the weird ones? You guys call brackets what was it? Parenthes?" "Parentheses." I correct. "Right. And you call order 'exponents'. Strange, if you ask me."

"Oh shut up. What does order even mean, anyway?" "The order of power. Whether it be square or square root or cube-" "-Okay I get it." "Are you two done? God I wanted to relax and have fun not do math." Chanel renters the room, shaking a cup in her hand. "Can you make me some protein as well? I worked out before and my muscles are killing me." Chanel sighs and turns around to exit the room. "Can you help me with this last one, please?" I lean forward and read the question. "So this is testing how far your knowledge with derivatives is, it's a bit more complicated but all it really wants you to do know is apply Exponential and Logarithmic tables with the given forms, here. So without looking back on any notes do you know the formulas for Logarithmic or Exponential tables?" As I speak I write down the second equation I remember from high school. "No." He says. I tap the pacer into the page and he looks at what I've written.

d/dx ln(x) = 1/x.

"Which one is this? Logarithmic or exponential?" He frowns as he thinks. "Exponential?" I shake my head. "It's Logarithmic. Nice guess, though. Apply with the numbers they gave in the example and solve." He does as I say and uses his Cas. "Okay that's enough maths, here you go." She throws the second cup at him. "Thanks Chanel." "Did you finally figure it out?" She notices. "No Britney helped me." "It's basic, though." I said. "That's what I told him." Chanel agrees. "How do you even remember this when you finished school what, six years ago?" "Seven." I correct him. "I skipped a year." "That's funny so did I." Chanel comments. "I only remember because I used to tutor." I explained. "Well I'm done. You smartasses can have fun finishing my homework." Joshua sits back and drinks his protein.

"Joshua we're not doing your work for you." I ignore Chanel's words as I continue solving the tables and equations in the questions of his text book. "Britney you don't have to-" "-it's okay my brain needs a bit of exercise." I tell her. I finish his work within 15 minutes and they look at me in awe. "What?" "That was so fast. It takes me 15 minutes to finish one question let alone a whole chapter." "Seriously it takes me about half an hour to complete a chapter's worth of work. That was really fast." Chanel says. "Are you studying to major in anything right now?" I change the subject. "I just started studying to get a Ph.D. in maths, actually." She takes a drink from her cup and looks away sheepishly. "You never mentioned how smart you were." I compliment. She shrugs. "Seems like I'm nothing compared to you."