my love-hate relationship with maths.

I hated Mathematics. It was a spectre, constantly hovering over me, haunting my dreams, taunting my feeble resolve. It was an old, festering wound, re-opening from time to time, infecting my entire body, head to toe. The mere mention of a Mathematics examination would reduce me to shambles. Today? I, out of my own free will, take two MA2k modules, which would have probably tormented my 13-year-old self.

Many a time, the rotten fruits of loathing are borne by seeds of fear and wrath, and truth be told, on every single occasion when I’ve had a Mathematics problem before me, I’ve dreaded working on it, apprehensive that it would expose how pathetically inept I was in the subject.

A few have asked me which major Mathematics examination I found the most challenging, and my response would always be, “PSLE Maths”. Why? It did not make any sense whatsoever. What I hypothesised was that oftentimes, traumatic experiences are likely to exaggerate reality; in this case, inflate the actual difficulty of the paper.

As you may have expected, I did not complete PSLE Mathematics Paper 2. 

It was not the question the majority of the students were stumped by, but rather a silly Geometry problem which had the neurons in my brain halt in their tracks. The sound of my ragged breath scraped my brain, and I was at a loss on how to proceed. It was PSLE; my 12-year-old self could not afford to attain a mediocre score. I was frightened out of my wits. Overwhelmed by the torrent of foreign emotions I was not accustomed to before, I left several questions blank.

The wound exacerbated in the following months before the mass release of results. Each day was pure torture, and I could not meet the eyes of anyone, for my performance was a huge blow to my self-esteem. This persisted in secondary school, where I avoided Mathematics Olympiads; and problems like the plague, neglecting them in favour of the other subjects I had then. I hated that I couldn't excel in the one subject the entire cohort, statistically, could.

Surprisingly, I had not always detested Mathematics. In fact, I took pride in being a little good at it. Back in kindergarten, I attended Abacus classes, where I would thereafter partake in competitions. Perhaps that is why Mathematics has meant a lot to me ever since, and developed my compulsion to be perfect. I had to get a 100 for every single Mathematics test.

And I did, in fact, a few times, in Primary Five and Six. It was either that or achieving a result which put me among the top few in the cohort. I was a simple child. I liked Mathematics because I was somewhat good at it.

So, what brought me back to Mathematics?

It was highly improbable for me to immediately fall in love with Mathematics in Junior College, considering my history with it. Instead, we had pretty much what you would call a love-hate relationship throughout those brief two years. Upon befriending new people, whom I shared invaluable, blissful memories with, I recovered approximately 80 percent of the confidence I used to possess. 

There were Mathematics examinations which were utterly demoralising, compelling me to reconsider my decision to study H2 Mathematics, but my resolve never truly wavered. After all, what fun would there be if the assessment could not propel you beyond the limits you set for yourself? Just as upsetting as it was that there were problems I could not solve, or mistakes I could have prevented, a sense of fulfillment frequently arose for every difficult problem I managed to decipher.

I wanted others to understand Mathematics a little better, and hate it a little less. Thus, I accepted my teacher’s recommendation for me to volunteer as a peer tutor. It is intriguing to identify common blunders or conceptual misunderstandings students have toward each Mathematics topic, for I could very well slip up as well, if I were not meticulous. Being in contact with Mathematics constantly had made me realise that the want to find the solution to a problem is no different from a detective’s unsatiated desire to crack a mystery. It is a strange thrill I am only acquainted with now.

I have not fully come to love Mathematics, but I do major in Statistics now. A cruel prank played by Fate, presumably, or a path I had unknowingly carved out for myself. It is a field I am familiar yet unfamiliar with at the same time, but at the moment, I am ready to do whatever it takes to traverse through it.