The One Who Kills Time

Mathematics.

The one subject I kind of hate and love at the same time.

It is fun and fills you with a sense of accomplishment when you can solve the problems. However, it is painfully frustrating to be stuck on a problem for hours. Not just to be stuck for hours but have the method to the answer revealed by the teacher to be painfully simple. It really makes you feel like a real idiot for wasting hours of your life. Not that I would have spent those few hours doing anything more meaningful. If there is anything more meaningful in the first place (lol). I would just have preferred to do something which requires less brain and never fails to put a smile on my face. Like watching anime... no no no. I think I have cried more instances for anime characters than I have for real living and breathing humans.

Wait did Randy just fade into the background? I thought that I was walking with him to mathematics class from the canteen? I accidentally activated my loner skill of walking briskly ignoring my surroundings again. Really need to keep a hold of the switch which controls whether that skill is passive or active.

I look behind to see Randy looking through his mathematics worksheets as we head up. Seems like he's double-checking his work. Not that he'd be able to change anything minutes before the lesson starts... Wait, that paper looks empty.

"Hey, have you finished your math homework?"

"Erm, I'm solving them now."

"In your head?"

"Yup, so I can solve it if he asks me to answer during class."

"..."

I always hated how some people are just naturally so smart. It makes me feel like all the struggling, and hard work of mine is useless. Though I guess me being dumb means that I'd be used less by others. Cause, in the end, I'd be more of a burden haha... ha... I really suck at being positive but whatever. I can take this useless jealousy of mine and burn it in a fire. I am who I am. I'll just be content with that. If I'm not so smart, people expect less of me, and I have less responsibility anyway. That's a much better life if you ask me.

Hey, so I can be positive!

Finally reaching our destination, I open the door to see that everyone is already seated in place.

Wait, am I late? I checked my watch and double-checked the time the lesson was supposed to start...

Damn it! A year into Junior College and I still forgot the fact that breaks here are in blocks of 20 minutes. The class was supposed to start at 11:50 am, but now it's 12 pm. Guess I'm too used to using the bell as a means to gauge the end of a break due to my much preferred secondary school life.

Wait... That's just for me. How about Randy? Did he not notice that we were late either? Well no use playing the blame game now. It's safe to say that we both forgot and there's nothing we can do about the fact that we are late.

"Sorry, we're late sir."


"It's okay, fortunately for you two, I was stuck in a meeting and just arrived myself, so the class has yet to begin."

We quickly make our way to our seats. It amazes me every time to see that my classmates are actually on time. I mean, they do give off the vibe that they don't really care about lessons and are mainly here to talk to their friends to strengthen bonds of friendship blah blah blah. Although, I guess it is reasonable to say they are only doing so because our mathematics teacher is rather strict. He is only nice to Randy and me because Randy is a top scorer and I'm a hard-worker who always hands up his homework on time and visibly pays attention in class.

Wait. Could Randy have taken that into consideration and decided it's okay to be a little late? Or perhaps he heard from his connections that his teacher was stuck in a meeting? Urg, I'm thinking and assuming so many things.

This is such a waste of time.

Anyways, I guess you could say we were being favoured. The class may dislike us. Correction. The class may hate me for it (remember, Randy is popular), but I really couldn't care less. Why? I know they don't recognise my existence enough to dislike me anyway. Even if they did hate me, I'm not one to let intangible things such as other people's opinions or feelings toward me affect me.

Indifference is key. We should not differentiate people based on their social standings. Neither should we forcibly integrate people into a collective whole. Life isn't like some math problem you can solve with functions like that. If you just take everything out of the equation, you won't have a problem that needs to be resolved in the first place.

Numbers are fine individually, it is only when you bring them together into a specific context that they become a problem. Likewise, people are fine individually, but when you bring them together and force them into particular situations, problems arise.

The more interactions between humans, the higher the exponential increase in the potential of conflict and other troublesome issues.

I could probably plot a graph of some sort.

What am I, an analyst?

Hey, I think I finally found a potential career choice!

"Let's go through the homework I set for you guys last week," our math teacher began.

I take out my homework completed neatly on a clean piece of paper with no cancellations. How could I achieve such an ideal state? Through pointless dedication to scrap pieces of paper with too many cancellations and copying the right answer I have attained through multiple trial and error attempts onto a fresh piece of paper.

Truly a grand way to kill time.

This is why the problems set for us to solve by our teacher is more than enough for me. Unlike those geniuses who can complete the homework efficiently on their first attempt, I actually use up a sizable amount of time on my math homework. They use up so much of my time that I'm left with little time to kill on my own doing the things I like.

You could say that I kill a bit too much time doing mathematics homework.

Perhaps I should stop there. If I have time to be calculating time spent on mathematics, I might as well be calculating the answer to more math problems no? In the end, I may be able to improve my skills sufficiently to make life in programming easier. I heard that math is essential for that. I'm not sure how exactly since programming is more of a language from my understanding.

Just so you know, I'm still marking my homework while thinking this. It's just that it doesn't require much brainpower to listen out for what the teacher is saying and checking it against my answer I've already calculated out.

Unlike languages, math is straightforward and methodological. There isn't as much subjectivity that one needs to be discerning to tell if their answer is acceptable. Some answers may or may not be accepted depending on the teacher for English comprehension. On the other hand, for mathematics, as long as you abide by the conditions stated in the math problem and get the right answer without skipping steps, you will be awarded in full.

Thus, maths is a rather good way to kill time since you are usually rightfully rewarded for your efforts. As long as you have a logical and methodological mind.