Freshman

Chapter 13: The Math

As you know me.... I frekin' hate Math. We're just not in good terms right now, nor will we ever be for the rest of my life.

Although, I don't know why, but I've always had a fondness for all my Math teachers since fourth grade. I met a new one here in HTEC, giving me a stereotypical outlook towards Math teachers all around the world.

She asks us to address her as Ms. Margarine. I'll describe her as best as I can, and if ever the real life Ms. Margarine will read this.... please don't kill me.

She was, maybe in her late thirties? She was slightly chubby, as you can tell just by looking at her physique. She had very strict looking eyes, but not as strict as Ms. Cassanero's. She wore pointed glasses, and you can already tell from that, that she was a Math teacher. She was very pale and had very small lips. It made her face seemingly more focused on her hair and eyes. Like I have said– just a typical and average looking Math teaching facilitator.

She arrives at our classroom, carrying a box of markers and a laptop. On our first class together, she was nothing more and nothing less but a machine gun. She shot every single one of us with very fast but simple Math equations like what's six plus seven divided by three or what's twelve plus one minus ten. If she saw you looking either uninterested or drowsy in the midst of her class, she'll randomly call you out of nowhere and will give you a random question. She takes the advatage of your weariness by this.

On some occasions....

"Oldame!" She called. "What are the different kinds of sets?"

Oldame yawned. "Say what?"

"Renz!" She reprimanded. "Find the value of x in this algebraic expression."

"Why should I go looking for x, when it's obvious that it has no value?"

"It has if hou look for it, lazy pants!" Ms. Margarine urged. "Get your butt off that seat and start writing on the board!"

"You! Maine!" Ms. Margarine ushered. "You're looking sleepy again! What's x raised to two times x raised to three divided by negative y?"

"I'm, uh–" Maine sat up. "Just a sec."

"And you! Aria!" She called out to me. "Day dreaming of Jen again? Start solving! What's the value of y in y times eight minus ten is equal to ten plus seveb times three?"

One hell of a teacher, isn't she? No one even dares to sleep in her class anymore except for Mel, for some reason. If anything, I could be up in her entire class without a single wink all day. Some of my classmates are just not that interested or don't even have the brain power to stay awake.

Why? Because it's Math, people. Math.

Ms. Margarine reminds me of my past Math teacher named Ms. Lehm. Ms. Lehm is also in her late thirties, but not as quite as nice as Ms. Margarine. They're both dedicated teachers– seemingly, all my Math teachers are– and thoroughly drives their students to their limits. Testing them until they've reached their target.

Anyway, some of the other small reasons why I liked Math time was because I was always conveyed as a mentor.

In the classes in HTEC, we were classified according to the following– the mentor, the mentee, and the independent learner.

As mentor, being the highest and Mentee being the lowest, we were labeled according to our grades and performance in each term.

See to it as if the mentors were the nobles, the independent learners as the clergy, and the third and lower class as the mentees.

I was mentoring Ej, my old classmate from gradeschool. Across from our seating, there was where Hermione and Vans were seated. Hermione as the mentor and Vans as the mentee.

Behind us were Geo and Petunia, both independent learners.

Our seating arrangement was a little something like:

#Photo

Apologies, this was a horrible representation, but was nonetheless a great effort in my point of view.

[EJ, from class 7B. An old classmate of mine way back in grade school. Somehow by fate, Aganda, him, and I were met in the same school– in the same class. How fun was that?]

[Vans, from class 7B. A dark haired and dark skinned young man who likes to sketch and play videogames 24/7 and is an old classmate of Hermione's back in grade school.]

[Hermione, from class 7B. An old classmate of Vans. Average and cute looking gal who likes to dance and tune to her phone all day long.]

[Geo, from class 7B. A quiet dude, no doubt. He was an absolute nerd in Math however it seemed like he never wanted to join recitation. He would be absent in most days and never show up in a week at all.

Physical attributes! He was pale and slightly chubby in a cute way. He had curly hair like Leo Valdez's in HoO¹ and apparently had the same eyes. His eyes were shining in a very compelling hazelnut brown, if I do say so myself.]

[Petunia, a tan girl with long dark hair. She was one of those people who spoke in TagLish, those people who make the simplest of grammar wrong. Akin to Hermione, she also liked dancing.]

Geo and I became close since he was probably the only person closest to being helpful in the table. We had something in common too! We both liked to draw. Geo's art style was sort if like chibi, maybe? Meanwhile my art style was plain Manga. In the end, he came out as the better artist.

He's a common man who liked to fool around with jokes and simple punch lines.

"Hey Aria," he'd call. "What's the countty that's always in a rush?"

"I don't know, Fastarctica?"

"Nope!" He smirked. "It's Rush-ia! Haha! Get it?"

"Ha-ha," I mustered. "Good one."

"Now what did the crab say to the shrimp when it didn't share its grub?"

"You're greedy as hell?"

"You're so shellfish!" He conveyed. "Haha! Get it?"

I sighed. "Whatever, vampire face."

"Oh, I know my jokes aren't great...." He looked sullen, and suddenly–

"My jokes are–" He tore a piece of paper. "Tear-ibble!"

"Geo!"

This dude's one hell of a riot, I can tell you that. I fashioned him as cute and cunning, smart yet funny. He's one of a kind.

What I didn't know was when this guy started to develop feelings for me which we'll soon learn later in the story.

Author's Note:
Calling out the Ms. Margarine in real life. I hope you can forgive me after this, hahaha!

Thanks for reading!