My skills in mathematics were first evident when I was in my early childhood years.

Way back when I was in kinder, the basics were taught by our teacher. Though I was the shy type in the class, I never failed my beloved mentor in recitation and class work, especially in math.  True, it was just basic arithmetic that was plugged in into our tiny minds back then, but I was already good for my level at least.

After a few years of learning through games and songs, I stepped onto my elementary years, which opened another chapter in my adorably young life. I then discovered that I was  good at numbers. My mother, being aware of my interest in the subject, further nourished my skills through flash cards and exercises. As I advanced thru the primary grades, I continued to shine brightly in math. Considering my youthful age, I was already burning the midnight oil for my studies. I excelled in math, and got very satisfactory marks in other subjects. Grade 4 it was when I was one of the selected few who were asked to join the LEVAMEN program. It is a mathematically inclined program for young individuals who stand out in math and designed to enhance their math skills.

My parents had seen in me my heart with numbers and seen my potential to be a math genius. They then enrolled me to KUMON math, a program that boosts skills of enrolees through exercises under time pressure. No questions asked, I obviously had a jumpstart, and was able to reach a high level in a short matter of time. Off course I took the opportunity to sharpen my mind and made sure that not a single peso of my parents was wasted.

In my fifth grade, I decided to join the Young Mathematicians Club. For one year, I had fun racing with others in trying to solve the problem first and be rewarded with compliments. Fun wasn’t all I got from the club, but I got the knowledge, the techniques, the wisdom that I need to be able to do good with numbers. Moreover, I surprisingly won as the clubs’ Most Outstanding Club Member.  The trend continued on thru high school. In my freshman and sophomore years, I just played with numbers and with polynomials, etc. “Algebra was so elementary” I always said to myself. “Nothing in mathematics can pull me down”. Most of the time, I scored sky-high in examinations and I usually got the highest marks. However, the greatest disappointment came to me on my junior year. Geometry came in to my life, and thinking that it was just shapes and figures, I kind of underestimated the challenge. Geometry wasn’t that just easy. All those proving and theorems gave me a pain in the head. But I never let those headaches get into me; I strived to understand and to learn about those concepts and lessons. Now, in the past three quarters of my senior year, I am working hard to be a great student, not only in mathematics, but also in all the subjects.

Mathematics is really my passion; my love to solve problems, my admiration for equations, and my fondness in learning something novel with formulas in mathematics exhibits it. I envision myself to be a future accountant, soon to handle more numbers, and soon to live a life permeated with the lifelong knowledge and wisdom gained from years and years of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.  I would prove myself worthy of the talents bestowed to me by God by being a successful man in the future, applying the lifelong graces brought by my hard work and perseverance. And it all starts with knowing that learning math skills is cool from the get go!

(Video from youtube.com; posted by  nonameno5 01.23.07)