Next weekend is Father’s day, and I’m unable to make it to Houston that weekend, both my brother and I are Houston bound today! Daddy is making crawfish for us tonight.
In honor of my favorite man, I’ll share one of my favorite memories of him. In Vietnam, my dad was a high school teacher and taught math and English. He always gave me math problems to do that were way before my grade level in elementary school. I think it was in the second grade he gave me my first quadratic equation. He gave me the formula and demonstrated how it was done and then expected me to follow suit. I remember initially I got more wrong than correct and for each one I got wrong, he would pinch my ear. I hated it! I hated it so much because I was convinced, he was making it all up! Who solves for letters in math. Math is about numbers. How in the world does ONE math problem have TWO answers. I knew he was making something crazy up. Maybe he wasn’t, maybe it was crazy VIET math and we were in AMERICA. Haha. I suffered through and pretty soon, maybe the next school year I mastered it, but I still believe it was all crazy talk.
Eighth grade and high school comes around and I’m introduced to the quadratic equation for the first time in a classroom setting. He didn’t make up that crap after all. I remember feeling a mixture of guilt, humility, love, and gratefulness. Through the years, he’s continuously taught me and is still teaching me about humility, love, and gratefulness. I fricking love my dad.