Operation: "road-math”

It was a page full of A's, B's, U's and so on. I anxiously looked for my candidate number at the British Council web-site from a cyber café near my house. The site was not functioning properly or the computer had some problem. It took me a little while to find my result and quite a while for me to believe it. I got A's in Economics and Accounting and "passed in Maths B" to finish my O levels this January. A pass? Well that may or may not sound weird especially when you're talking about Maths B but that's what operation: "Roadmath" is all about, a pass in Mathematics.

My reasons for being poor in math are complicated and tragic. I had my primary education (up to 6th grade) abroad and then got admitted to Willes Little Flower School when we came to Dhaka. Back in the Bangladesh Embassy School there, I was excelling like a rocket in Mathematics because we were still learning division, multiplication, fractions and the unitary method in sixth grade! Although I had problems getting fractions into my head, I managed to get B's in Math those days. The school was not bad I should say but the mathematics curriculum during my time was unfortunately really poor.

Then after getting into this fateful school in Dhaka, I got introduced to "real" mathematics that I was premature for. From the quick years of class 7-10, I usually failed in the midterms and somehow passed in the finals…
with marks just above the margin. My problems were that I feared math, and I could hardly do simple Algebra. It took me quite a while to get used to the "Private Tuition Culture" over here. At school I expected some help because I was weak but my teachers mocked me instead. I was always the target when a very easy sum was on the board and the whole class would be waiting to hear my hilarious answer and that was one reason I hated math.

Finally with just a year left for my O Levels, I got into the right Math-Sir's coaching whose name I should mention, Mr. Abdur Razzak.

I kind of got the spirit to do mathematics but the problem was that I was still learning some very elementary stuff that I didn't know. I regularly confused simple stuff like middle term breaking algebra. Progress was good enough until I became a little ignorant again…and had no one to blame but myself. I had almost half the syllabus left in October and had not touched a single Year in the Question Papers. I wasted a lot of time planning… how I would finish the syllabus; however I constructed this plan "Operation Roadmath" with the single objective of passing Mathematics B.

Razzak Sir had a great part in the construction of this plan. He requested his colleague to take me and a friend of mine in his batch for just two months and Razzak Sir himself made some monetary considerations for me (how kind of him!). I had set the plan with how I would allocate the two months time in hand and how I would revise in the last moments. So the operation started on November with two teachers teaching me Mathematics B and I then felt like I had the courage to face it-Man was I scared! This new teacher taught me a lot of useful things like Mean, Median and Mode, Histograms, Kinematics, Binary Operations, while I revised the rest by doing a list of Questionnaire sums. I learnt a few things in December as well! For example Graphs. Finally I started the Question Papers.

Everyone warned me about doing this as early as possible but it didn't work out my way. In those freezing mornings of December I would get out of the house in the morning and come back at night. I only revised Economics and Accounting at night and stopped going to those coaching centres. Although life was getting more miserable and cold everyday, I enjoyed the meals we had at the restaurants with my friends at Lalmatia and Shankar and the rickshshaw rides through the fog. I wasn't able to figure out how many years of question papers I would solve, what I would exclude, how I would revise, etc when all my classmates were giving mock exams and finished the questionnaires already. Everything was frustrating and all I prayed for to Almighty Allah was a pass in math. I didn't have enough time for my mock exams and solved only three questions of paper-2 in my entire life (believe it or not)!

In addition, maybe I solved four or five years of paper-1. Then finally the exams were there. I could hardly sleep because of the fear and it was such a humiliating feeling of cold and anxiety or a combination of both that I could hardly concentrate on any attempted revision of whatever I learned. I prayed two Rakaats of Naff'l Prayers before going to the exam venues to ask Allah for some help to make my operation a success. At home I tried to keep everyone concerned, satisfied about my preparation but asked everyone to pray. My mom recited some Surah's and prayed for me on the exam days. The paper-1 exam was okay- I answered about 60-70 percent, because I had luckily revised the Formulae of quite a few important topics just before the exam but my paper-2 exam was terrible, I spent time looking here and there for an hour and called Allah for help.

It is all over now. I am able to write all this because things did go my way and because Allah blessed me. Nevertheless, I'm still not comfortable with the Math-memories and wouldn't be able to write all this without reading the following Quotation from behind my Formula Copy that helped me recollect all this. My quotation on math: "Its like a knife stabbed deep into my chest...in such a way that blood flows slowly, so I may bear more pain, and all attempts of death are in vain. This pain in my heart turns to anger and tears, with it I crawl and shiver to reach the end one day, when time waits for me…and I don't wait for time". I hate it.

By Rizwan

Weird teachers

The weird teachers are back. They are crazier, loonier and certainly weirder than ever. The school I am doing my A levels from by far outdoes my previous school in having a bunch of irksome psychos in their teaching staff.

The math teachers are certainly insane. Our mechanics teacher is the most emotional person in the world. He makes no effort to hide his sentiments- even the ones, which are sure to embarrass him. Watching our mechanics sir trying desperately (and unsuccessfully) to control our class with tears streaming down his face is quite a sight.

I must confess that witnessing a grown man (he is almost 35 years old) cry is quite disturbing. This crybaby also considers it as a part of his job to prove how difficult mechanics is (ironically it is one of the easiest A level units). He morphed the sentence "Mechanics kintoo shoja na"(mechanics is not easy) into an utterly irritating cliché. Before every class test he announces that no one is going to pass but ironically almost everyone gets full marks in his tests.

We also have two weird statistics teacher. One is a wannabe cool dude who wears skintight shirts and pants and talks in a fake American accent. He learned a few slang words and uses them on the students even though he probably doesn't have a clue as to what they mean.

The other is a peculiar guy who wears the same pair of clothes (a faded yellow shirt and dirty black trousers) everyday. His face is always covered with a nasty growth of beard and his front two teeth always stick out of his mouth (he resembles Mickey Mouse).

The physics teachers are also peculiar. The guy who teaches medical physics is willing to devote his life in persuading students to take medical physics. He spent our first few classes lecturing us about the advantages of taking medical physics.

I must mention that his knowledge on medical physics leaves a lot to be desired, as all he does in class is write stuff that is already in the book on the whiteboard and he asks us to copy it down and memorise it.

He doesn't explain anything (I don't think he has the capability to do so) and he spends most of the time bragging about the circuits he designed. The medical physics teacher also has the queer habit of adjusting his belt between his lectures. He speaks for some minutes, grabs hold of his belt and pulls it up and down ignoring the fact that the students are witnessing his antics and trying their best to avoid bursting into laughter.

The other physics teachers are equally batty. One of them loves to hate Bengalis. In the class he lectures on matters such as why Bengalis are not intelligent, what is wrong with Bengalis etc (talk about unpatriotic). He also gives his lecture so fast that it is impossible for anyone to follow what he is teaching. It is rumoured that he can finish the entire Physics syllabus in six forty-minute classes.

We have another physics sir who is just too good a person. He looks extremely intimidating six feet tall and almost that much wide, yet he is extremely gentle in fact too gentle to be sane!

I think that almost all chemistry teachers are lunatics and the ones that teach us are no exceptions. One of the chemistry teachers is old very old. He defines the term boring. It is practically impossible to stay awake during his lectures. He talks in a very low, expressionless voice, which is absolutely unbearable. It is fun watching him get angry, though. When he gets angry, his voice becomes peculiarly high pitched. He screams his head off in the high-pitched voice and really scares the students. We don't irk him much too often in case he has a heart attack and passes away!

Our practical teacher has the worst English accent in the world. Her accent is not only bad it's absolutely hideous. She has the most peculiar way of pronouncing English and each and every word that she gurgles out is painful to the ears. Believe me, nothing is more torturous than listening to her horrible English during the whole chemistry period.

One of our Economics sirs reminds me of the non-green version of the incredible hulk. He is an extremely well built guy with biceps as thick as tree trunks and an inflated chest that bulges out through the gaps of the undersized shirts he attires himself in. Surprisingly this macho man has one of the girliest voices I ever heard. Despite his appearance, he is a very good teacher.

Somehow, someway ,weird teachers have come back into my life. It's just like a déjà vu a rather disturbing one. I have nothing to do but witness their antics for another year. God help me!

By AES

Grouping in student life

In a student’s life, having a friends circle is a very common matter. Since childhood, I've seen that almost all students have an individual group of their own and those groups have a leader too.

The friend circle is often called by the name of the leader (D's group, F's group etc.). The members of the circle are almost of the same category. They go out together, sit in the classroom together, study together, talk together, laugh together and cry together too.

In a friends circle, getting help in any matter is easy as there are so many friends to share with. It's good. But there are also some peculiar matters about these groups. As I've said before, they're similar in mentality. So if one is intellectual in a group, the others will obviously be of that type.

Then the group is called 'The group of atels (intellectuals)'. And there goes the stylish group always putting on similar dresses and moving around with a similar appearance. It seems as if they all buy the same bracelets, rings, earrings, watches or even bags whenever those are released in the market (thus grouping helps the ornaments business!). They go to the same coaching centre too (and thus help this business also).

They're all fond of the same type of music and the same musician. They're crazy for the same celebrity and thus that celebrity is in a tug-o-war ('Nick is mine', 'No, Nick is MINE'.) I sometimes start thinking why people are so crazy for this Backstreet Boys. When I saw him for the first time I just thought for a while: 'What is a girl doing in the Backstreet BOYS?'). There's also the sport-loving group that always talks about how Imran Nazir or Shoaib Akhter or Michel Owen was looking in the recent photo published in the newspaper or what latest news they've found on the Internet about those players (who don't even know that there are so many fans of them in a school of Dhaka, Bangladesh…how pathetic).

There are the story book (rather series of books that remain to be continued) lovers who always talk about what Sirius Black or Harry Potter or Hercule Poirot have said or done in the latest or backdated book. Talking about series of books reminds me of Hindi serials. Yes, there are so many groups found not only in schools but also in colleges and even universities that contain members who can't digest their food if a single episode of a serial is missed.

The members of this group are often seen talking about what Rahul, Juhi or Jassi, Purav or Anurag, Prerana have done in the latest part of that serial. There's another dangerous movie-lover group. The members of this group often start telling someone about almost every sequences of a movie they've recently watched. These groups are not always individual. There are multiple groups also (with a combination of music lovers, celebrity lovers, sport lovers, movie or serial lovers, story book lovers and most of all…intellectuals obviously). Now this group can be called an all-rounder group.

Anyway, as I was saying, in a group all the members do everything together and so they're scolded by the teachers together also. The teachers often scold them by saying: 'you're like cows in the same cow-shed…' and so on. Poor them! Just for being in a group they're recognized as cows and the group is named 'a herd of cows' and they're transferred from classroom to a nasty stinky cow-shed. But most of all the worst demerit of grouping occurs when all the members of the group want attention from each other. I've often seen a person who wants all the members of the group to be attentive mostly about that person only. Then all the members of the group are in dilemma.

But still grouping is running successfully all over the country (hmm, it looks rather like an advertise of a movie). I'll be back when this 'making herd' system will go blockbuster flop. Till then, ciao.

By Fahmina Nahid