Dyscalculia

 Hi

I can't do sums.   Maths.  Geometry.  Call it what you will.  A rose by any other name...  

The official name for what I have is Dyscalculia.

My close friends know I have Dyscalculia but I've never mentioned it in writing.  Ever.  This is a big thing for me to admit in public.

From Standard 1 class onwards, I havent been able to grasp how to do sums. I look at a number and my mind gallops around in a frantic  haze.  It doesn't matter how many times well-meaning friends explain to me about fractions, I can't get my head around them.  Before paying a bus driver, I would stand for about ten minutes counting my fare money a dozen times, to make sure it was right.  Lots of times, it wasn't.

When I used to get my change counted into my hand in a shop, why did the assistant count backwards?  When asked by a teacher what was 62 x 13, I would have to write the number 62 down 13 times, and then add it up.

I counted everything on my fingers which was extremely difficult because money and measurements came in 12s, and I only had ten digits.  At secondary school, I had procured a pencil with all the timetables on it - a brilliant cheat for when I sat tests or exams.  Needs must, I figured.

I was well-used to getting below 10 out of 100 marks for maths or arithmetic exams. But I never shirked an exam with a fake dental appointment, like various classmates did for their exams.  I guess this was the only point of pride for me.

When those shop assistants counted that change into my hand, I used to try to look intelligent, and nod knowingly.   I still do this today.  I can't tell if the price I've been charged is correct because I'm too embarrassed to point anything out to the checkout operator because I know I'll be wrong.

I used to think how dumb I was, how ashamed I was that I could never understand why my mind went into panic-mode the very second I saw a maths question, or had to hand over money.

But I was a reader.  I was top in English class and I went to the library three times a week from age 10.  It was the library where I came across a new book from english actress Susan Hampshire (remember her in 'The Forsyte Saga"?).  The book was "Susan's Story" (originally published in 1981 and still on sale).  She was dyslexic.  And at the very end of the book I found a piece about Dyscalculia.  It meant not being able to do sums, or maths.  A sister to Dyslexia.

What?  The numbness in my mind?  The fear that gripped me when numbers reared up in front of my eyes?  The thud-thud-thud of my heart if the teacher picked me to answer an arithmetic question?  The not being able to even format an answer when sums were involved?

There was a name for my terror of figures?  

Yes...   Dyscalculia.  Dyscalculia!  Dyscalculia!!!  

And this diagnosis was confirmed for me later on....  

But an even greater thing happened in 1967.  Decimal currency came in.  I could count on my fingers rapidly, because - bet you've guessed? - I had ten digits!!  Nowadays, there is no faster finger-counter in the country than me .  Because I hop on the answer instantly a friend wonders about a maths question, and before anyone else in my group has even thought about adding anything up mentally, I've counted on my fingers.  I have the answer out within seconds.  Not so, of course with long division, multiplication, or fractions.  I still can't do those...

But I'm so grateful I found out all those years ago why my brain goes into a crazy funk whenever I see numbers.  It made me realise that I wasn't as dumb as many teachers and classmates thought I was.

Thanks, Susan.

Checking out others in restaurants

 Hi there

When I was in Melbourne I visited the Conservatory Buffet Restaurant at the Casino. 

I love looking at fellow diners and visualising their lives.  I didn't have to visualise the life of the young woman at a table opposite me. I could see it.  She was obviously an influencer. 

She was by far the the most gorgeous woman in the restaurant of several hundred people.  A tall Asian beauty, wearing a slinky sparkly shoulderless dress and multi-coloured high heels to die for.  Her dark sleek way-past-the-shoulders hair could have come straight out of a tv commercial for shampoo.  Extra-long eyelashes, flawless make-up...

She had one accessory that absolutely floored me -

Her phone.

I sat opposite this lady for an hour and a half and, probably, ten minutes out of that hour and a half, she didn't pose into her phone.  Even when she was eating (all of five minutes), she had the phone on high in one hand and the fork in the other.

She held the phone to the right, pursed her lips and posed.  Then she held the phone up to the other side and duplicated the pose.  Then, to the middle.  Over and over again.

She passed the phone over to her friend to take her photo.  Then, after looking at the finished result:   No, no, that's not good enough!  She thrust the phone back at her friend to redo the photo over and over again, until the friend got it right.

This woman never let her phone go, even when she elegantly floated to the buffet, the phone went with her. 

The woman at the table beside where I was dining raised her eyebrows to me, and I raised mine back at her.  This was when we decided the stunning woman was, indeed, an influencer.  For us, it was like looking at some radiant mythical creature.

...

The buffet restaurant was fabulous.  I ate many (many!) oysters on the shell.  And that woman beside me all but cleared out the prawns.  Here, in New Zealand, in October, the strawberries on sale appear more green than red but at the Conservatory Restaurant they were so blood red and delicious that I had three platefuls of strawberries, along with scrummy ice cream.

  

Plane passengers

 Hi there.

On Friday night, I flew back from Australia.  I was sitting in my aisle seat, minding my own business, half asleep, when this guy in the seat in front of me leapt up.  

He was a broad man, elderly, with a bushy white beard. He looked like Father Christmas -

"Stop kicking my seat," he thundered down  at me.

Whaaat???

"I'm... I'm not kicking your seat.". (Me, timidly.)

" You are!  Stop it!  (Him, still thundering.)

"I would never kick anybody's seat," I said.

With one last glare, the guy stomped off to the front of the plane.

Again, Whaaat????

Of course, everyone sitting in the vicinity perked up.  Here was some excitement to cut out the boredom of long distance flying. 

I just wish I could have come back with some pithy retort, but I had turned into a deer in front of headlights sort of person.  I sat there, mortified.

About five minutes later, the guy returned.  He leaned down to me. I stared straight ahead at the tv screen that I'd never turned on.

"I want to apo!ogise," he said.

And yet again, Whaaaat???

"I understand now that it was turbulence.  I'm sorry -"

Talk about theatrics of the air...

I'm back from Australia

Hi there

I returned yesterday from a week in Melbourne.  At 10 pm, the night before I left I couldn't find my mobile phone and I was due to leave the house at 4 am the next morning. 

I had to leave without my phone.  I never realised before how many times it would be necessary to have a phone when on holiday.  Several times a day in Melbourne, I was told that a firm, business, hotel, shop, restaurant, airline would ring me soon, and please could they have my number?  I was so stressed.

I saw the stage show "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Reimagined".  I'd seen "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts 1 and 2" before in Melbourne.  Twice.  Because of covid, the show had been cut down from playing over two nights, to one night.  I wanted to see if the show still could be understood after cutting out about three hours.  Yes, it flowed fairly smoothly.  There were a couple of little info dumps but I guess that's understandable.  All the magic trickery was still there.

I also saw "Hairspray - the musical".  This show has sort of followed me around the world over the years.  I often ended up in cities where it was playing - dating back to New York in the year 2000 - but I never really cared about seeing it.  

The show was a nice part of my Melbourne holiday.  More modern shows have great CGI effects and I sort of missed that with "Hairspray".

I went to the Queen Victoria Night (food) Market, the QV day market, and the casino where I spent $5 on a poker machine and won back $6.60.  I also visited Conservatory buffet where I scoffed down 8 oysters on the shell.  

I took the tram to St Kilda, walked the beach and bought a couple of really gorgeous cakes at the famous street of cake shops which used to have about fifteen cake shops, all running side by side but now - unfortunately since covid - has only two such shops in the street.

I love to walk along South Bank, between the river and all those fancy-schmancy restaurants, reading the menus.  The weird thing is that I suddenly craved good old-fashioned fish and chips whilst I was in Melbourne,.  Couldn't find a place anywhere in the CBD that sold them, not that there arent thousands of other restaurants and cafes, selling all sorts of international food, to pick from.

 And talking about fashion.  It was Melbourne Fashion Week.  A couple of times I passed venues where the fashionista were gathering for parades and whatever, with the paparazzi outside and the elite of Melbourne clustered around the doors.  I even saw the most gorgeous male models posing for a fashion photographer outside the most grungiest building, in amongst graffiti walls, empty crates, dirty pavements, boarded windows.  It was behind Victoria Market.

Over two days, I was confined to David Jones/Myers/The Emporium Mall/Central Mall, all places that were joined together and I could escape the serious rain.  The state of Victoria was suddenly in the midst of serious and sad flooding.  I'd only taken one pair of shoes with me and I did every shuffle step imaginable to escape the deep puddles, and the rain.

Because I didn't have my phone, I couldnt take any photos.  Curses!  

I found my phone under the sofa today, hooray...  But not before I'd done a lot of cancelling at Vodafone.

 

Dux Students

 Hi there

Does a school still recognise a Dux student, I wonder?  The Dux award is given to the best student for the year.

My father got a Dux medal way back in about 1913.  It was gold.

After my father passed away, I wore the medal on a chain for many years.  Then I gifted the medal to the local museum in the New Zealand town where he went to school.

Here's the medal -

No, I'm sorry I didn't follow him, with all that school intelligence.  I was terrible at maths and (probably) more about that in some later blog.