I’m not convinced anybody could teach me to understand linear algebra. Or maybe what I mean by that is that I’m not convinced of my own ability to understand linear algebra, which may be a different thing.
I have trouble with maths. More specifically, I have trouble with numbers. What I experience when faced with lots of numbers is akin to how people with dyslexia often describe trying to parse lots of written text—they swim and shift beneath my eyes, and dissolve into a mass of meaningless gobbledegook that I can’t pick any sense from. And then after a while, even if I’ve ploughed through some of this, I start to get what I can only describe as “number fatigue” and things that previously I’d almost started to comprehend seem to slip out from my grasp.
And, when asked to do simple maths, I panic and fly into what is pretty much an anxiety attack. Which, of course, means that I’m not thinking clearly enough to untangle it all and try to start making sense of it.
Maths feels utterly, utterly impenetrable to me. Half the time I can’t even work out what the necessary sum is—recent examples include my having no notion of the calculations required for aspect ratio or 10% of a weight in stones and pounds, but this also applies to much simpler things, like the time I couldn’t figure out how to calculate the potential eventual fundraising total from the time elapsed, the time remaining and the money so far achieved.
I realise that in a community like this I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb, mind you ;-)
I was most amused to read this, as I’ve been doing it—or, rather, a somewhat sillier version—since I was a kid.
When I was in the first few years of secondary school, I had a marvellously flamboyant drama teacher who used to start off exercises by saying aloud “a-one, a-two, a-diddly-diddly-doo”. And then we’d all start, immediately, no more faffing around.
And somehow the habit got lodged in my head, and I use it—usually only mentally rather than aloud! - for things like getting out of bed or making myself get up from my computer when I’m thirsty but have got stuck reading things online rather than going to the kitchen for a drink.
Like, er, right now, actually. A-one, a-two...