Well, it’s been a little over a month and I’m back from Semester B of the High School Geometry course. The completion of part 2 means that I officially managed to complete an entire school year’s worth of Geometry in two months! 

Woohoo! 

And what’s more is that I did better than last Semester, and I managed to complete the entire thing in 21 days (vs. 22), making the total completion time 21 + 22 = 43 -> 17 days less than the allotted time of 60 days! While I thought that completing the course in 60 days was going to be a massive record-breaker if I managed to fit within that time-frame, I certainly didn’t expect to finish everything faster. That definitely broke any and all previous records set by me for the entirety of my life.

But while this Semester ended with a bang (I Aced it with an A+) and I did much better than last Semester, Round 2 definitely had its challenges and difficulties. These reminded me of how important it is to keep going and perservere in the face of a challenge, which brings me to a story of how I did this that will (hopefully) inspire you and provide you with something you can use to give yourself that boost of determination and endurance when you’ll face your own problems.

And as with last time, I have an epic Marvel quote to share. 

This one in particular conveys determination, strength, and endurance in the face of great difficulty in one simple sentence:

Once again, Marvel fans (and mom), you’ll probably be able to tell me who said it, where, and when off the top of your head. Non-Marvel fans, here’s the quick explanation of those three things:

• Who: Captain America (yup, another Cap quote ;))
• Where: many places actually, but he first said it in “Captain America: The First Avenger”
• When: (short answer) in tough situations

Every single time Cap has said that quote, whether that was in “The First Avenger” when he was fighting a bully (before he got the serum) or when he was facing off against the Red Skull (after the serum), or in “Captain America: Civil War” when he was fighting a raging Iron Man, he was in a difficult situation and he refused to stay down when he hit the floor. Because he did get knocked down. But he refused to stay there and instead got back up, got back into a fighting stance, and said, “I can do this all day.”

I remember when I applied this during Semester B.

It was almost towards the end of the Semester, and I reached a unit that dealed with finding the surface area and volume of 3D figures. I struggled with this unit a lot, because I couldn’t fully be able to wrap my head around the formulas for surface area for different solids. One lesson in particular got so gruesome that I felt like giving up and going back the next day because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to understand it, though I had been at it for hours. But before I did, I decided to go on a short break to see if I felt better when I came back.

During that break, I drank some water and had a little conversation with myself. It seemed that even after going over the formulas again and again, I wasn’t getting it. If I was in a fight, I was losing, and at that moment, I had just gotten knocked down. That’s when I remembered when Cap had been in a similar position: when he was in a fight, and he was in a tough moment where he had gotten knocked down. But no matter how hard it got, he wouldn’t give up. And that’s when I resolved that I wouldn’t either. So I finished drinking my water, went back to the lesson, and – in all fierceness and pure determination – told myself and the lesson, “I can do this all day.”

I can tell you that, in the end, I got an A+ on the test for that unit, and I was able to go on to finish the rest of the Semester, but that was only because I decided to not give up. And it all comes back to attitude. I went from feeling like giving up to feeling so determined to persevere that nothing could have pulled me away. And that’s what we need to do every time we meet an obstacle.

Reflecting back on these past two months, I learned so much more than just Geometry. I learned how important attitude is when it comes to facing a challenge, and how to actually apply my love for Marvel in my own life to help me succeed and overcome obstacles.

All in all, I have to say that this High School Geometry course has been a very worthy adversary, but just like the biggest villains (for “Avengers: Endgame” in the box office it was “Avatar”, and for the Avengers it was Thanos), it lost in the end.

So, whenever you have those moments when your challenge knocks you down, get back up, prepare to go another round, and tell it, “I can do this all day.”

Thanks for reading this and for following along on this HS Geometry challenge, and I hope that you will now be able to face your challenges head-on!

If you liked this experience, I invite you to join me on this journey as we discover all that we can become by taking bold steps forward and daring to go where others won’t.

Your humble study buddy,

Ace.