I was lucky in the sense that I was enrolled in a prestigious school from kindergarten to grade 4. The school has a great curriculum that doesn't dumb down math and science while also emphasizing the arts. Arts and Sciences were equally interesting to me. I made no distinction with my enjoyment of solving arithmetic with creating poems or painting.

Unfortunately, my family went into hard times and I had to transfer to our public school. In contrast to my previous school, teachers can't personally help each student because there were 50+ students per class. I also found out that the lessons they taught are already covered in my earlier years. I coasted through Grades 5 and 6 using my stock knowledge.

When I got to high school, I was used to leaning back on what I learned. This is where I first tasted difficulty in learning the advanced math subjects. Sure, I got good grades in algebra but when it came to calculus, I was stumped. I could not care less about it because "math should be about calculation, not this symbolic mumbo jumbo". My boredom and inability to deal with the challenges resulted in my delinquency. I often cut classes and plagiarism homework. I still can't remember how I manage to graduate from high school.

Now I deeply regret that I didn't apply myself back then.I am now a software developer and a lot of interesting stuff are closed to me because I can't understand the math behind them. I resolved to return studying high school algebra last year. Armed with experience and a new perspective, I realized how much I have missed and how useful math is.