Math

Today is Thursday and right now it is past eleven o'clock at night. This is when I finally got to sit down and begin to writes lines. I or rather we had a busy day. Actually lately we are having many busy days.

Things are just happening around us that we really do not have much control about and those just eat up our times. It is a good thing that we have nothing to do this way we can keep ourselves occupied with the other stuff.

But tonight was tough.

It was tough because, against my better judgement I decided to help Abigail with her eighth grade math homework. All my life I worked with numbers meaning I can do calculations and whatever is necessary. But I do and did not understand most of the terminology there fore it was hard for me to determine what the questions were.

I learned basic math in Hungary and the American way is totally strange to me. Primarily the simple multiplications and divisions. We did it so simple and the Americans complicated it so much that I can just not understand it at all. Fortunately in my line of work it didn't matter how the stuff was calculated as long as the correct results were achieved.

So, I struggled and struggled but heroically stood my place. At the end I was totally exhausted and was glad when she said she could take it from here on.

The problem is that these kids are very opinionated. I was trying to explain something that I was confident that I knew and we got into an argument because I said it differently than the teacher explained it. So what does a good stepfather does? Keeps quiet and agrees with the kid. If he or she gets a bad grade that is his/her problem, right?

Sitting there and watching her and trying to help her made me think back when my Father was sitting with me and was trying to help me with my homework. I was about 14-15 years of age and had some problem with math. He must have been in the same boat as I was today. He was an engineer who worked with numbers all his life. But understanding school assignments is a totally different animal.

I can now just imagine how frustrated he must have been that after a long day at work he had to sit with me and help. But he did it and I was very grateful for his help.