Coming to terms with math
This Week’s Winner
Barbra Francisco Sollesta is a freelance web content writer and virtual admin support staffer. She spent the last 10 years providing organizing support for golf tournaments as well as doing corporate communications and copywriting jobs.
Back at my grandmother’s sari-sari store in the ‘70s, I struggled with simple subtraction and endured impatience from buyers who couldn’t wait for their change. Always, and particularly when total purchase had fractions of centavos, I found the numbers muddled in my head. Lola helped by computing out loud.
I was in grade school. I was forgivable.
But my condition persisted and I grew up secretly keeping instances when I sabotaged Lola’s capital and profit. Long after the buyer had left, I would still be thinking how much the cost and the balance were, and how inadequately I let the buyer dictate the change I should give. It was hard to realize and accept that I gave too much. I learned about the existence and difference of honest and dishonest people.
While I struggled, other students enjoyed math. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was a slow learner, the last on the list.
In high school, the situation got worse. Unfortunately, our math teacher had no patience for the dumb. There I sat in all my math classes with forced concentration, knowing full well that nothing made sense. I never understood variables, and was burdened with the need to compute how many hours Mr. X would reach Point A if the car was traveling at 60 kph.
Math caused me tears of frustration. I will never forget the time I cried hopelessly, not knowing what to do with my math assignment. I swallowed my pride and followed Lola’s advice to ask help from our grade school valedictorian. We were neighbors but she went to a different high school. Though we were not enemies, we were not exactly friends and never hung out together. I was not used to asking help for my studies. It was humiliating. She did the assignment for me. I passed the answers without understanding any of it, and never learned if they were correct. I didn’t care.
Sometimes, I regret ignoring the romantic notions of our math wizard. Had I been more receptive, I would have surely gained a mentor and fared better. But we were at odds with each other, our interests and friends as far apart as north and south. I spent the rest of high school admiring him secretly, amazed at and envious of how he could sum up equations like a calculator.
Without a fight, I gave up delusions of graduating with honors. With a 79 in Math during the first grading period, it was futile. If it was any consolation, except for the top 10 students, the whole class got the famous 79. Failing to join the honor roll was even worse for some who managed to make 80 or higher up to the third grading period, only to get 79 in the finals.
So much for academic recognition!
Smile! Smile! I got the Best in Deportment Award. My Lola was proud to go up the stage and present me the medal.
With firm resolve to do better in college, I sailed statistics, coasted through economics, and survived (gasping) modern plane trigonometry. Don’t ask anything about these now, I have total amnesia.
Moving on to major subjects, I came to solid ground and did well in English and literature. And when college was finally behind me, I was ecstatic about not dealing with math at last.
Away from school, I rationalized that life can be survived without mathematics. With the help of a calculator and computer, I got by with budget and expense reports at work.
Applied mathematics meant stretching my earnings to cover living expenses plus a little savings. I managed well enough. Bills, insurance premiums and credit cards were always paid in full and on schedule. Simple addition and subtraction of my earnings and expenses put mathematics on a tolerable level.
Recently though, my mutual-fund earnings put numbers in a different light. Who wouldn’t love numbers if they showed your money going up? The idea of investment was so empowering that I went as far as applying to be an investment company representative to sell mutual funds.
I was eager to talk about passive income and help people realize the wisdom of financial management. Gradually, my interest shifted to the business pages of newspapers and to stock market updates. I read financial gurus such as Robert Kiyosaki (Poor Dad, Rich Dad) and T. Harv Eker (The Millionaire Mind). Forex rates became economic progress indicators.
I was too interested to realize I was actually moving head-on to the disability that I avoided and ignored. Too late and of my own doing this time, I found myself stuck with mathematics. I must pass the examination for investment solicitors, administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). That meant understanding financial statements.
I spent nights studying the fundamentals of stocks, debt securities, GDP and GNP, balance sheet, cash flow, investment risks, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, etc.
I had to understand formulas in financial statement analysis, like dividing the current assets over current liabilities to come up with the current ratio, which measures a company’s ability to pay its short-term debts. The accounts receivable turnover, needed to determine collection efficiency, required dividing the credit sales for the year (entered as net sales in the sample income statement, another source of confusion aside from the numbers already jumbled in my head) over the accounts receivable. There were numerous formulas — cash ratio, quick ratio, profitability ratio, return on equity, gross profit margin, earnings per share ratio, debt to equity ratio.
Interested? Challenged? I was. I am. But as always with numbers, the memory chip that is my brain stalled and refused to process information.
Like high school all over again, I found myself groping, lagging in the review class, envious how others computed fast and raced to announce the answers.
Unlike high school though, I wanted to learn. I persisted. Thanks to my engineer husband, I learned how to calculate for percentage. It was difficult and embarrassing to bare my ignorance but I asked questions and demanded explanations. Slowly, I understood the problems and the computations I must do to come up with answers.
I felt triumphant. For the first time in my life, I was in control of numbers. I was slow. My disability persisted. It will forever plague me. But by accepting my limit and seeking help, I finally learned to stop avoiding and ignoring mathematics.
I hurdled the SEC exam in August. It wasn’t easy. It would be a miracle if I pass. If I fail? Well, I could try again. I’m not afraid of mathematics anymore.
