Garnet's Life Adventures

would you believe it?

That question is more for all of the teachers whose class I was a member of while growing up. I reckon that 80-90% of the teachers I had while growing up would be bowled over if they saw me now. No, not from my looks or personality, but to hear what I've done academically. I'm willing to bet most didn't think I'd do that much with my career. I'm not saying that to be mean to any of them, it's more just a realisation I've come to when looking back at my younger school days. I wasn't a bad student, I did my homework, I came to class, I never misbehaved, BUT I also never went out of my way to study or ask questions. Probably because of that I never was in any "accelerated" math or science classes. To be honest, I think the first required book I actually ever read cover to cover was Catcher in the Rye and continuing on this honesty kick, it might have been the last one I read cover to cover until I got to my MSc course last year (when I read cover to cover Immunobiology along with Cellular and Molecular Immunology).

Reading and maths (N.B. the shortened word for "mathematics" in the UK is maths) were never fun for me. I don't have a recorded learning disability, but I know that I have learning "issues" as I like to call them. I'm not saying this for sympathy & I'm not trying to blame anyone for it, as I'm sure there are too many people to list if I were to start accusing people for my "issues", it's just a fact of life that I've learned to live with.

Doing math in my head use to be one of the hardest things for me to do - I HATED with a passion those days growing up when we'd have "maths speed drills" and you'd have see how many addition (or subtraction, division, multiplication) questions you could answer in X amount of time. Still to this day I cannot do division in my head - I have to have paper/pen and a calculator. I know my 2x, 5x, 9x, and 10x tables, but aside from that if I want 4x7 I start out with 4x5=20 and then I had 4 twice on my fingers to get 28, even "easier" ones like 8x3, I know 8x2=16, plus 8 (on my fingers) equals 24. The 9x table is easy b/c I can do that with my finger trick :) Now just imagine how slow & painful watching me take a "maths speed drill" would be - trust me it's torture for all those involved!

With reading my biggest problem comes in sounding words out - I'm not sure if I was never taught it or if I was out sick that day or if I just decided not to pay attention in class that day (all of which are very possible), but words that I don't use on a regular basis (and even at times ones that I do which are hyphenated or out of context in my mind) are hard for me to read. For example, earlier today I was reading My Detachment, by Tracy Kidder and at the end of the line the start of the word was "amorphous social re-" and on the next line it said, "gion", but when I read it in my head I read, "amorphous social regain" I can't think of a bigger word which has tripped me up recently, but I know that pronouncing words I don't know, especially names of foreign towns I get nervous about saying the word out loud since I reckon I've just made up a new name for it in my head. I do this a lot with characters names when I don't know what they really should be I just rename them in my head - throws me off when others speak about the book I've just read and they're talking about the character, ie in London, by Edward Rutherfurd, one of the characters was named, Cartimandua, who I called Car, along with Segovax, whom I renamed Sax. My plan when seeing a word I don't know is to just replace it with a word I think should go there - it works most of the time (sorta figure out what it should mean from context clues) but with names of places & people this doesn't work & not always for other situations. Like in science when I'm not really sure what they're talking about & I just make up what I think should be there - I can be completely wrong at times which really screws up my understanding of a certain paper! I also think this links in with my lack of a good spelling ability - trust me if not for spell check on this blog you would roaring with laughter over the way I spell things - just ask my mum, she could tell you stories that would make you wet yourself for sure!

Well the reason for this post was more for me to show off to all those who thought I'd never make it this far & let them know that the following books have been read over the past 3.5 months ALL FOR FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the Garden Trilogy By Nora Roberts, consisting of Blue Dahlia, Black Rose, and Red Lily.
Northern Lights - N. Roberts
A Long Way Gone, memoirs of a boy soldier - Ishmael Beah
Digging to America - Ann Tyler
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
My Detachment - Tracy Kidder
London - Edward Rutherfurd (not finished yet)

How do you like them apples?? (name that movie)

As I posted earlier I'm doing a virtual book club thanks to Jen and if any of you fancy joinging, it would be great - I've never been a part of any sort of book club, so I'm uber excited about this one!!

Well I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend . . . not sure what I'm going to be doing, I've got a few potential plans & the only thing I know I will do is have dinner with the boys on Sunday night - it's somewhat becoming a tradition, it's my family time as I like to call it, DON'T tell them I said that!! BTW, Jim is so excited to come to NY (as am I but now that he & Pete have been emailing I think he's really getting excited about it).

Labels: books

posted by Sara @ 7:05 pm