R U S S O 18+

R U S S O 1

R U S S O 1

Anastasia chewed roughly on the piece of gum in her mouth, staring at the last question with her vision going in and out of focus. It was the second week of classes, and after spending an entire week cutting slack, a few professors were on the move with assignments. These assignments were posted online for them to see, but this pop quiz that Anastasia's professor handed out to students by the door as they entered class was not.

It took everyone by surprise, and only a select few were chill about it while the majority were freaking out. The professor was pleased to announce that the pop quiz wasn't going to be held against them, as he strived in the moment to see what they knew and did not know. However, that didn't shake the nerves of students because their brains began to shut down and random answers were circled.

Anastasia was in the same boat as them, and she tried her best despite being terrible at math.

She knew she had failed this test, and failed it miserably.

She was zoned out for most of it, her mind mainly floating with her plans that were set out for later. Math was such a bore to her, this sudden wave of tiredness creeping over her every time she had to solve an equation or listen to the teacher go over the formulas.

It was like her mind didn't want to connect the dots, and as she got up to hand in her test, she didn't expect a good grade to be put into the system. Anastasia was a smart woman, but put her in a room full of equations, and you would think this woman never walked to a school to get an education.

There were still a couple students working on their quiz, so she tried not to make so much noise as she squeezed between desks.

"Here ya go," Anastasia said lowly with a sigh, sliding her paper across the professor's desk.

The man looked at her paper before looking back up at her. He noticed she was about to leave, so he called out, "Ms. Bailey?" capturing the attention of his student.

She adjusted her bag onto her shoulder and stopped in her tracks, turning to face him, "yes, professor Quinn?" staring down at the older man who wore a sweater vest, the blue complementing the color of his dark skin.

He pushed his glasses up on his face and said, "I know the pop quiz was sudden," he crossed his arms in front of him, "but was it easy for you or did you have some trouble?"

She could say it was easy—easy to circle any letter out of the four—because she had no recollection of what any of those equations were or how to solve them. She struggled from beginning to end.

"It was something," she said with a forced smile.

Professor Quinn smiled up at her and removed his glasses from his face to set them on the desk. He figured she was having trouble because she was biting down on her short acrylic nail and looking around a lot. He took note that many of the students did that, and he caught one even sleeping.

He didn't want to say he'd give it a week and half of these students would drop the class, but he'd give it a week. A couple of them didn't even show up today, and teachers were used to this happening every semester as people signed up for classes, whether it was intentional or not, and dropped it within seconds.

"Math isn't really an easy subject," he admits with a sigh, "it's a bunch of numbers and formulas; I get how confusing it can be sometimes," she frowns lightly, but is glad that he can understand, "as a teacher, I want to make sure each and every one of my students walks out of this class learning something new every day. I thrive on successful students. So, I would like to mention that there are some tutors around campus who can help, or even myself, after class hours."