As a student, I was intrigued with numbers. I’d look at numbers and wondered if they could be divided by 3, for instance. I can still remember sitting in our Perth kitchen apartment with the sunlight streaming in doing Maths questions that Mummy prepared – I must finish those questions before I was allowed to go out and play – and mind you, it was school hols then. Instead of hating or resenting it, it somehow made me love Maths even more. I’m not as good at mental calculation as Abah is but I can calculate Scrabble points pretty quickly if I can say so myself.
When I was in Form 2, there was some virus in school and the sickbay was overflowing. I succumbed to the virus too and was ill for about a week. Abah drove down and brought me home to recuperate. When I returned back to school, I found myself behind in class, especially in Maths. I had to learn quickly to catch up with the rest of the class. But I still loved Maths.
When I got to Form 4, I discovered the wonders of Additional Maths and simply fell in love with the subject. I loved it so much, I’d attempt all questions in any Add Maths exams even though we were only required to answer six (I don’t know if I could’ve been good at Physics as I was in the Social Science stream). And I subsequently fell in love with Pure Maths when I did A Level. Maybe I’m just weird that way. (I’m not, however, good at teaching my friends Maths especially Modern Maths).
I don’t, however, share the same passion for the subjects Statistics, Accounting and Finance. These are beyond me even though I eventually did study Accounting later, and I can’t be an analyst at work. Oh I can understand ratios and trends but I can’t analyse static numbers. The numbers would all swim before my eyes but I can’t make much sense out of them.
I can, however, give you my own version of footie match analyses. Like how one billion people globally tuned in on 3 November 2007 to see Arsenal register their third draw of the season. We still top the table after 11 games, thanks to a goal from Gallas at the eleventh hour. To be honest, as the full time neared, I did wonder if I was about to witness Arsenal’s first loss of the season and at home ground too. We do have defence weakness and we must acknowledge and address this pronto.
And Fàbregas is back to scoring goals – he’s scored more this season so far than he had the whole of last season. Last Saturday was the third consecutive match that he’s scored in (he didn’t play in the Carling Cup match last Wednesday) after three consecutive EPL matches of not scoring. Hope he enjoyed his Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Chelshit is now at the third spot, breathing down the necks of both Arsenal and ManUre. Liverpool, the only other team to also remain unbeaten, is now at seventh spot. And Portsmouth, well, they’re actually looking at a possible Champions League spot now.
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