Living in a world without numbers

Tutoring

Throughout my years of school, I've done countless months and days of tutoring. As far back as 1st and 2nd grade, my parents enrolled me in an intense tutoring program called "Linda mood bell."
I remember sitting in the car day dreaming and singing as we drove an hour away to this place.
And I have to admit, it was fun.
We played games, it was comfortable, I didn't feel like I was at a tutor, I felt more like I was in a really fun classroom.
I used to roll around on the ground and laugh while answering questions and nobody scolded me or told me to get up, they just smiled and continued with the tutoring. We even got prizes at the end of each week depending on how many "stars" we got. It was fun. Truly fun.
Of course this was in the middle of summer and I got upset when I had to leave my cousin and brother to go do math. But at the end of the day I felt happy, I felt like I achieved something. Of course I didn't really know what I was achieving.

But of course, summer comes to an end, and so starts school. It's hard remembering what work you did 3 months prior. That's one of the reasons my mom signed me up for Linda mood bell in the summer. So I would be more refreshed for school. Thanks to Linda mood bell I remembered some things, but I quickly fell back to my usual haze of forgetfulness.

I did Linda mood bell again the next year. But once tutor became more of a chore than having fun I started to dread going.

I eventually stopped that for a year. Then, I continued, except the Linda mood bell teacher came to my house instead of us going there.
I don't remember who this person was because I can't distinguish each tutor I had with different time periods..but here are the descriptions of the ones I remember:
-A blond pregnant lady
-An old red haired lady that wore a lot of rings
and
-A guy (that's it)

These three tutors all came and went within a year and a half. They were all relatively different.
I only remember one very useful trick I learned from the blonde pregnant lady. Basically, to learn your 3, 2 and 4 times tables, you count on each finger the number you want while counting the separate  parts of your finger. It's hard to explain but it really helped me throughout my life. To my classmates it probably looked weird, but as long as it helped me I didn't care.

The next tutors I had weren't from Linda mood bell at first. I started to have this online Skype tutor who worked for a different tutoring facility. He was young and cool, and sometimes I even looked forward to working with him every week. But, as time wore on I started to not like his sessions as much, and for my birthday that year when I was around 10 or 11 I asked to not take tutor anymore. It was what I wanted most then, my rebellious mind was sick and tired of people trying to help and teach me "useless" things. I wanted nothing more than to never be sat down with a tutor ever again. 

I was in the kitchen, it was a dark school night and my mom signed me up for more sessions with my Skype tutor. I was persistent in what I wanted, freedom. While my mom was arguing with me, I scooted off my chair and walked to the pen cup in our kitchen, I grabbed the weakest pencil I could find and held it firmly in my two hands. My mom looked at me with her hand on her hip, a sign to put the pencil down. I didn't respond to this gesture, instead I smiled and then,

*snap*

I broke the pencil in half. 

Right then, my dad walked into the room. Him being his economical self was mad because it was a "perfectly" good pencil I ruined, my mom on the other hand was mad for a different reason.

I ran up to my room and closed the door, hoping my parents wouldn't come up and check on me.

That broken pencil was how little me could express herself.