The last candle on the cake   von KiraNear
================================================================================
                    Kapitel 1: The last candle on the cake
                    --------------------------------------


Do you know, that the most and biggest surprises always come when you don’t
expect them the most? Well, I had mine on a  Tuesday some weeks ago. It started
as a very casual day, the sun was shining, the students were moaning about the
tests, and the coffee from the old coffee machine was more than bland. Just as
usual. It was a test in mathematics, one of my usual ones, but this time I made
a change. My students from this semester are good ones, funny ones, always open
for a joke or a harmful prank. This time, it was my turn to play a little trick
on them. I know my students, most of them are very talented. So I decided to
change my test a little bit, put an question at the end which none of them could
hardly answer. But I was expecting this, it’s still, after all these years, a
big mystery in the universe of mathematics and even the best experts weren’t
able to solve it. It was like a Gordian knot. It was supposed as a joke, maybe
some of them, probably my students who get their 100% with just an blink of the
eye, were trying to solve it and fail. That’s what I imagined. That’s what I
was expecting. But then, I collected the papers and later, on the evening,
started to correct them. Saw the usual mistakes some students will never know
better, and then I saw Brian’s test. Not an idiot, but mathematics was clearly
never his favourite subject or one of his strengths. I also saw the mistakes in
his answers, as I feared and expected from him, but then ... then I took a look
on the bottom of the paper, when it hits me. Even he, like some of his fellow
students, tried to solve the last question. The other answers were just
nonsense, even I could tell that. But his answer, it was so clean and well
written, also very detailed. Like this was the only thing on the whole test he
actually really put some effort in it. And it didn’t sound like nonsense, at
least for me. But I couldn’t believe this, this was impossible, it simply
cannot be!
So I took my sweet time to correct the other tests and called some of my closest
friends, which are way more experienced then myself. I let them take a look at
the paper and I nearly needed half an hour to convince them, that that student
tried to solve the problem on his own. Not with the help from me or the others.
Also any kind of cheating was not an option, since I always check my students
very strictly before testing them. Even my friends weren’t able to find the
right words about what that young man has written on his paper. That’s why we
sent a copy of it to the best mathematic professors and well-known experts to
take a look on it as well. My students know that I always take my time to
correct their test, otherwise I would have had a really hard time to explain why
it took me almost three weeks until I was able to give them back to them.
 
To my fortune, Brian’s mother called him ill for the day, so I got the chance
to talk to him in person than in front of the whole class. It’s now half past
two in the afternoon, it could be any moment that Brain will open my door and I
could actually talk to him. That he’s not too stupid or untalented for
mathematics. That he actually solved a problem, many and more experts were never
able to solve. That he is actually a genius, only so bored that he never
actually got the motivation to learn the easier things in my lessons? Or is it a
private problem?
The door is opening and I see Brian’s brown, long curls, which are crowing
everywhere around his round, friendly looking face.
“Hello Brian”, I welcome him in my office, after he was closing the door.
“Just sit down, Brian, thank you for coming”, I say and see that he is
looking at me very nervous. I give him a big smile.
“Don’t worry, I want to talk about the latest test with you, but not in a
negative way. There’s actually a very nice and big surprise, I want to talk to
you about. Trust me, it will blow your mind!”

Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)