Elina - Week 13: Forgettable Elements

At some point during the three painstakingly long years of quarantine, my favorite hobby was to learn new languages on Duolingo. I never became fluent in speaking nor did I ever achieve familiarity while typing. I don’t know why I suddenly had this immense passion for what I would now call random languages, but maybe it was between my anime binge and random TV show exposure that I found these “random” languages to be intriguing. 

Maybe because Duolingo became a friendly competition between my friend and I, when nothing else seemed to intrigue me during freshman year. Maybe because reaching every achievement for a daily streak and friendship XP goal made me feel accomplished during the monotonous lectures during health about drugs, sex, or bullying. But now, I can barely remember how to say “Hello, it is nice to meet you” in German, or remember the thousands of Japanese characters that I used to obsess over on a daily basis. 

Common College Math Errors
This is why I never trust myself to memorize math formulas or long, complex theorems because long weeks that passed by slowly made my memory of them hazy—to the point of confusion. Was it really divided by x2+1 or was it the square root of that? Did the theorem say that it must be greater than or less than 0? I don’t believe that memory lasts forever, but sometimes I’d like to think that it’s memory that lasts longer than anything else. Even when I only remember a blurry face and a generic smile, it’s those memories that stick the longest with me because nothing is clear yet everything is precious.

Comments

  1. Krish PatelMarch 19, 2025 at 8:30 PM

    Hi Elina,
    I also had an interest in learning other languages at some time, but it soon wore off when I realized how hard Spanish was. I like how you use personal experiences and pronouns to show how much it mattered to you in a time where there was limited social interaction, and we couldn’t see our friends. I also like that you used specific examples to show how invested you were into the grind to learn more languages. The inclusion of the image makes the blog relatable to me because I resonate with you on the idea that I often forget the math formulas because it has been such a long time since I have seen them. I also have the exact same questions running through my head as you, especially on the math tests where I rack my brain to figure out the formulas and applications of the formulas. I enjoyed reading your blog.
    -Krish

    ReplyDelete
  2. Choeunchan LeeMarch 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM

    Hi Elina! This blog reminded me of the old quarantine times when I would continuously look for things to fill in my boredom! But instead of doing educational activities like Duolingo, I would solely rely on social media and games (I was so unemployed). Even if you don’t clearly remember the terms now, I think it’s really cool that you were able to immerse yourself in languages such as German and Japanese through Duolingo. I’m sure that because of your previous learning, you should be able to learn those languages much quicker now! I could deeply relate to your statement about “never trusting myself.” My brain isn’t that good at memorizing things either, which gets really annoying when it comes to math. I probably did learn those formulas shown in the image, but I will most likely forget them and not be able to use them during my calc test :). I like how you finished off your blog with something positive like how the precious memories as a smile lasts forever!

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  3. Suhas BathiniMarch 26, 2025 at 6:49 PM

    Hey Elina, those math formulas caught my attention. I absolutely hate math formulas. Now, in AP Calculus, we are really just forced to memorize random sequences of numbers with a bunch of x's, integral signs, and derivatives. Due to the volume of material in the course, we are forced to really just memorize them without learning to derive them. So, unlike previous years, if I forget some part of the formula, I can't just rederive it. At this point, I am not sure how I am going to pass the AP test with what seems like 100 to 200 distinct formulas to memorize. I also liked the strong ending you had to your post which ended it off on a positive note. Due to the lack of clarity of our memory, I think its critical to (as much as I sometimes hate them) take pictures.

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