common divisor

Maths and me will never be best buddies.
In primary school we first met and got on fairly well, in the first year of grammar school we nearly became friends but it went downhill from there. Don't know if it was his fault or mine. Him with all those stupid and absolutely useless graphs and quadratic equations. Me with my laziness and complete unwillingness to see his inner beauty and magic.

When trigonometry was the thing to do our relationship lit up again, a flash in the pan, after that things where hopeless. Unable to get a divorce from him till the end of school after grade 13 I spend the last years completely ignoring him, pretending he wasn't there.
Not fulfilling the tasks and duties he gave me, not reading the books he recommended, nothing.
I was physically present when I had to be, nothing more.

Unfortunately my maths teacher of the years 12 and 13 was (and still is) a way to friendly man. He didn't stop trying to get me interested in the fascinating world of numbers and coordinate systems. He failed...

In one exam (one out of many) I managed to score 0 out of 15 points. I wasn't the only one so the exam got repeated. After handing my nearly empty paper in, my teacher asked me in a nearly anxious way "And, did it go better this time?!?".
My reply was "Einen Hauch besser " ("a whiff better").
He laughed...laughed a lot.

The exam came back and I had 1 out of 15points, still failed but not bad enough any more to stop me from graduating.

Last week I ran into my maths teacher at the station. 13 years later. He still recognized me, smiled at me and shouted across the street "Einen Hauch besser!"
Great when teachers accept that, despite failing in their particular subject, you are still a decent and maybe even likeable person.

PS: If you are interested how the relationship between maths and me went on. Well, the often promised "One day you WILL need it" never came...we succesfully got a divorce after the very last exam and I haven't spend any time with him since.