If true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing at all, I am the very embodiment of wisdom in my calculus hourly. How is it then, that I am flunking?

True panic is when you are sitting in a zealously invigilated exam hall and the teacher seems to have confused your math paper with a Latin paper because none of it makes any sense whatsoever. Your brain has shut down, refused outright to process any of the symbols and so you're on your own. Normally, I have a proud tradition of being full of it during exams and being able to spin a tale that would get me at least half marks per question, be it because the teacher's mildly gullible and falls for it, or for originality, but with maths, you just can't fake it, especially when your teacher works on a binary system (Correct/Incorrect, nothing in between).

Of course, one math-based course isn't enough for these sadists. Just when you're sighing with relief at scraping through Calculus 1, you're bombarded with Calculus 2, Linear Algebra & Differential Equations, Numerical Analysis and Operations Research (which sounds very outdoorsy, but is a sneakily disguised version of 'dheet' math aka maths in which you keep applying one formula like a mule until eventually the sum gives in and produces an answer).