Moonpetals

ok this is humiliating but i have a math test tomorrow and we are doing long division and i cannot remember how it works, like at all, i look at the little house shape and my brain leaves my body. i was too embarrassed to ask in class bc everyone else was nodding. can someone walk me through it like im five, or four, or a houseplant. i will love u forever ;3

ok deep breath. the house shape does not want to hurt you. u write how many times the outside number fits into the first digit or two of the inside number on the roof, u multiply, u subtract, u drag the next digit down, u repeat until u run out of digits. divide, multiply, subtract, bring down, repeat. thats it. thats the whole haunted house. i learned it from mr. petrakis in fifth grade who made us chant it, divide multiply subtract bring down, i can still hear him

WAIT. rose. mr petrakis?? did u go to jefferson?? bc i had a mr petrakis in fifth grade who ALSO did the chant and ALSO had that one tie with the little calculators on it that he wore every test day for luck. it cannot be the same man. the odds. is our old fifth grade math teacher haunting two separate people on a goth forum years later

I did not go to jefferson and I did not have a mr petrakis but I had a mrs. dunmore who wore a lucky cardigan on test days, so this is a whole generation of teachers who got superstitious about our tests. they were more nervous than we were. mrs dunmore, if the cardigan was for us, thank you, It did nothing for my grade but still

Mine was a Mr. Alvarez who kept a jar of butterscotch on his desk and gave you one, silently, if he could tell you were having a bad day, no questions asked, no acknowledgment after. I have thought about that jar more than I have thought about anything he actually taught me. Which was, coincidentally, long division. Starbunny, divide multiply subtract bring down. You have got this.

darklight the SILENT BUTTERSCOTCH i am going to cry in a school subforum. i hope mr petrakis has a jar somewhere too. he probably considers the calculator tie enough. anyway starbunny how goes the haunted house, are u divided, are u conquered

ok confession. i actually understood it from rose's very first explanation a while ago, the divide multiply subtract bring down thing unlocked my whole brain, i did three practice problems and got them all right and i am so ready for this test. i just didnt want to say anything and end the thread bc then u all started talking about ur teachers and it was so nice and i didnt want to leave. so i lurked in my own help thread. sorry. also now i want a butterscotch jar teacher.

u lurked in ur own homework thread bc u liked the company. u little gremlin. go to sleep, u have a test. goodnight, divided and conquered.