The Weekend Freewrite 4/6/2019 - Part 3 - The Dramatic Twist

"You are the one who is in complete control. You are the one who will be defeating him." This was my mantra for the day, thinking it over and over again, saying it out loud in the bathroom and shower, and in the car during my ride to the contest.

Mom had come home yesterday all hot and bothered about the reading she had had done by yet another psychic. This time, Mom had asked about me.

"Will she ever get better?" was the question my mother had put to the intuitive.

"Better at what?" I demanded, but that was a question my mother would not answer. She did, however, tell me how the psychic responded.

"No. She does not want to get better. Your daughter has come here from another galaxy to decide whether or not her kind can use the earth as safe haven from the ecological destruction that threatens their planet. And she chose YOU to be her mother in this lifetime" My mother, as usual, was going off the handle about this reading. I was a chosen one?! I had then chosen her?! Believe me, if I had had a choice, this woman would not have been mine. Always with the drama! And with the disappointment with me.

I thought I could shake this new reading off as I had the rest, but since today was the day of the Math Olympics and I would no doubt come up head to head with the infamous Jeremy Jones at the end, I took heart in the reading instead. I would win! I was chosen! And for once my mother would not look at me as if I were not of HER kind.

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"Otherwise, you are going to sit there and try and try and try. This will only get in the way of the stream of consciousness you need to float on to see the solution appear correctly in your mind, and you could lose. We need you to win this one Kayla. It's imperative. So show us once and for all that you can do this! I've chosen you and am putting all my faith in you!" This from Mr Frank, my algebra teacher, who felt a need to win way more than I did.

"But hey, no pressure" I thought. So yesterday Mr Frank chose me, probably about the same time my mother was being told I had been chosen. All that was left was for me to believe it myself.

I walked into the gym where the national level contest was to be held. I emptied my mind as Mr Frank had instructed me. I sat and meditated, but did not try at all, just let the problems on the screen ahead drift into my mind and appear there, suspended in my cerebral matter.

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The contest was heated. Jeremy and I each stood out from the others right from the start. The rest were all easily defeated. It came down to just the two of us. The final problem, the one that would either make a winner or a loser of me, was placed on the screen and Jeremy began to scribble. And scribble, and scribble. I cleared my mind for the solution to magically appear there, and nothing came. Nothing at all. I was at a loss.

I tried imagining myself as floating on the air currents in the room. There was a draft from the open window that drew my attention. I looked out the window and floated out to a tree that appeared to be perfectly symmetrical. Suddenly it came to me! The solution was so simple! The group was symmetric, its index was one, and so the answer could be stated in just a few words. I said them and was declared the winner while Jeremy was still scribbling away. He had two pages full of scribbles by then. He stopped and stared at me, his mouth hanging open and a bit of drool dripped down his chin.

Looking at me as if I were some sort of goddess. Maybe that psychic was right after all, and Mom could stop wishing I were something else.

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This is my entry for @mariannewest freewrite challenge
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/the-weekend-freewrite-4-6-2019-part-3-the-dramatic-twist The five minute sessions are separated by lines, and the prompts are in bold.

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Recent conversations on steem with @carolkean have put math back in my head. The solution here is part of an actual solution I once dreamt back in my college days. I had spent a full week trying to write a proof and gotten nowhere. The simplicity of the solution I dreamt made me ashamed that the problem had taken me so long to solve. But the day after I sheepishly handed in my one paragraph proof, I was called to my professor's office and told that my proof was brilliant and shorter than the next best proof by several pages. The simplest things are the hardest to see. So thank you for this memory. It's been swell to revisit.

The image is mine of a puppy chewed (and likely peed on) book I came across while I was looking for my Hungerford Algebra book. Just look at all the topics Russell wrote about! My apologies the photo is so bad. Not my thing!