Geography, Mathematics and Something More

Happy start to the weekend, everyone! Today I'm here to participate in the 307th edition of Weekend Engagement, specifically responding to the first topic proposed by Dr. Galenkp. In elementary school, one thing was certain: I was an average student, far from bad and even further from the best, but I considered myself one of the most outstanding among the average students (though that seems a bit sad now that I'm writing it). From a very young age, I loved everything related to planet Earth and the universe. I was quite the child prodigy, learning about the seasons, countries, natural phenomena, planets, and so on. In fact, during my adolescence, I became very interested in the elements of the Earth in subjects like Chemistry, and I learned about rocks in Geology. Yes, I was quite the nerd, and this always made me stand out in Geography.

Cuyagua, Cata, El Playón

Being one of the average kids in all the classrooms I was in, nobody outperformed me in geography. I always got the highest grades, even my teachers were surprised, because I didn't learn things robotically, but rather I understood the reason behind everything, and I learned a lot of it from my atlases, because they were the kind of gifts I used to ask my parents for, along with telescopes (pretending to see the planets) 🤣 I traveled by plane for the first time in 2024, quite past my age, but that trip to Europe left at night and I took a middle aisle seat. On the other hand, between Venezuela and Spain you only see hours and hours of the Atlantic Ocean and lots of clouds, so I didn't miss anything. But when I traveled to Colombia four months later, my wife made sure to reserve window seats for me, mostly for comfort, but to her surprise, and as we flew over my own country, she went crazy when I started naming beaches, lakes, cities, and mountains that were very easy for me to recognize, even in the next photo I'm showing you, which is actually a close-up of In the one above, you can see the white buildings of Cata Bay and in the residential area of ​​Ocumare de la Costa I dare to point out possibly the block of the house that my godfather lent us every August when we traveled to the coasts.

White Towers of Cata on the Left and Ocumare de la Costa

I was looking through my photos to write this post and came across the following image, which I'm showing you below this paragraph. I also have a photo of Patanemo, a place in Carabobo State that I discovered long after this trip to Colombia, and perhaps that's why I didn't recognize it at the time. But from marking so many pins on Worldmappin, I know the shape of the coastline and even the swampy lagoon there by heart, so I've just surprised my wife again 🤣 Yes, it was my favorite subject, and although my work today has nothing to do with Geography, beyond enjoying traveling, it's still something I'm passionate about, completely different from what happens with Mathematics...

Patanemo and Puerto Cabello

I was, and probably still am, terrible at math; the funny thing is, I'm a musician, and there's a lot of math in music, so I understand it better that way 😅 That said, maybe that weakness slowed me down on my path to becoming a professional at reading music, and even now I still get a little confused with strange rhythms or furious speeds. Despite being so bad, I never had to repeat the subject, much less retake it, but the truth is, I became an expert at cheating on the tests, which is probably why I survived.

Lake La Salina, Goaiguaza Island, and Puerto Cabello

Another thing that has always struck me as very curious, even now as an adult, is that although I loved chemistry and everything related to the elements of the earth and their reactions, and although I also loved physics, which explains the logic both on earth and in the universe, I actually got mediocre grades in those subjects. I even had to retake physics and almost repeat it when I was 15, but I finally passed with the lowest possible grade. There are two things I suspect. The first is that, whatever the reason, being bad at math made it harder for me to solve the formulas for the exercises in both subjects, which is strange because knowing the formula, there shouldn't be any error, especially since I was so passionate about these topics. But then my other suspicion arises: the teacher!...

King Island, Alcatraz Island, Santo Domingo Island and Long Island

Let's start with Chemistry. From eighth grade onward, all the ninth-grade students said the teacher was the Devil, and that her sole purpose was to make sure they failed. I actually remember the woman, and boy, was she scary. But when I started classes, the teacher went on leave. I never knew why, and we did very well with the substitute. She taught with love and understood everything. The original teacher arrived only three months before the end of the school year, but what I did in her absence was enough to prevent her teaching style from affecting me. So, I can't really say much about her. But the Physics teacher... Wow, that man hated me. Yes, there were reasons. I think the nickname RoboCop that the whole school ended up giving him originally came from my small group of friends, maybe even from me, and I don't remember. But anyway, I was just a 15-year-old teenager, and he was an adult over 30 who really did behave like a robot without feelings. The nickname suited him well.

To avoid repeating Physics, my mom hired a private tutor, and I actually did quite well. The tutor always said that physics came easily to me and that sometimes my problem was that I lost focus, but I understood the principles, and even so, I failed the first exam with RoboCop. I spent my entire August vacation studying physics, and even then, I passed with the minimum grade—the only subject I had to struggle with to pass. The worst part is that I liked it, because that didn't happen with math (even though I cheated)... I didn't realize the tutor hated me at the time, but I did over the years, trying to understand the logic behind it all, because now I like physics much more, and even as a child, it was clear that if I hadn't become a musician, my life would probably have taken me down the path of science. That said, I tried to steer clear of science because math is fundamental, and no, I don't like math...

Well, I think I went on a bit in this post, but I always enjoy writing for Weekend Engagement. It makes me delve deep within myself, and there's always a photograph that connects to my writing. I even thought I'd never share these photos on Hive. I hope you enjoyed it. A heartfelt hug to everyone who read and supported me 🙏