When numbers come into the picture, I just freeze up.
Remember Mad Minute? Those sucked. I was always the last one done and I always had the most wrong. It was humiliating, and I decided at a very early age, that math sucked and I've never had a teacher that was really able to explain it to me in a way that I could understand.
Today, I was in the grocery store, trying to figure out if it was cheaper, in the long run, to buy a big jug of cranberry juice, or to buy a smaller jug of Cranberry/Raspberry juice. I like Cranbberry/Raspberry much more than I like Cranberry. I believe my thoughts on the wide variety of available juices have been well documented on this very diary. But I decided to go for the larger jug of Cranberry, that, although it will cost more to buy, is cheaper because you get more. Pennies a glass. Or something.
Here's my problem: I know, instinctively, that supermarkets are trying to confuse people like me. Like, they could say that a certain kind of soup is on sale for 20 per cent off and is therefor cheaper than this other brand of soup, if you buy three. Less than full multiples are 4.99 each.
So that means that if I only want one, I have to pay....and then you subtract the remainder and divide by...and of course, the two taxes are both...oh hell! I'm just gonna get a damn can of mushroom soup, to hell with the cost! Is it saving me a lot of money to do it the other way? Only a few cents? Well, I know I'm unemployed and all, but my brain can't take thinking such taxing thoughts, so I'll pay three more pennies for the soup in order to avoid standing around and blocking this old lady who apparently is in a big rush to crush my foot with her cart so she can get to the cat food that much faster.
Like, if I can't afford that sweater at regular price, I just don't buy it because figuring out 20 per cent off the ticketed price is too hard. If I can afford it at $40 and then they take $13 off, well, bonus!
I don't know where my hatred of math comes from, but I think that my brother, Finnegan got the math end of the stick, while I took the writing/speaking/reading end of the stick. We'd be unstoppable if we simply combined our brainpower. And we kinda do.
He did my math homework for me up until my first year of university (when I found out that I could stop taking math). And Finnegan is three years younger than me! I'm such a dumb-head.
Now that he's decided to go to University, he's discovering that they expect you to be able to write. For every class, not just English. So when I come across his papers that he saves in a file on our computer labelled with his name (the idiot), I snoop around correct his grammar and punctuation and punch up his vocabulary. I've been doing this for two years now, and he just noticed yesterday. He got a paper back and said "Hey! I didn't write: 'The whole purpose of this tax system is to shrink the disincentive to work!'" And I said "No, you said: 'I donut think we should have too pay taxes. The system stinks.' I changed it a bit." And he was all "Oh. So long as I got a better mark."
So we've always helped each other in that respect. But it's just sad when a woman in her mid-twenties is standing in a store trying to figure out what 25 per cent off of $29 is. And please don't e-mail me with the answer, mmmkay? I just think it's annoying that they make prices all $29.99. That's hard to figure out! Why not just make it $30? I could figure that out if I applied myself! But I'm lazy and I don't want to, so shut up.
Yesterday, I was complaining to my mom about how I don't get math and she was like "Well, you'll have to carry a calculator around then." Now how would that help me when I don't know what needs to be done in order to figure the problem out? Until they make automatic scanning calculators that you can hold up to a price tag and then type in "Now tell me what it is discounted," it's useless to me.
Seriously, calculators are dumb, because they still require somebody with brains to punch the right combo of numbers in. I am not that person. The day I found out I had passed my first year university math class, I stomped gleefully on my scientific calculator and then ran over it with my car. Those many tiny buttons with their foreign symbols would mock me no more!
But I digress. (Ho, ho! No really! I digress! Can you believe it? Me either!) So I'm talking with my mom and my dad buts in all, "Well it's simple, you just go like this..." and proceeds to tell me what to do to figure the percentages. And my brain just snapped off and I looked at him like "Blarg?" And he got all mad. "You're not listening!"
Dude! I'm listening, but I. Do. Not. Understand. Got it? I can't visualize numbers in my head like you, and I don't know how to do math in my head.
In other words, when somebody explains it to me with words and no pictures, my head explodes. And he was doing it so fast! Like "Oh, it's just boom, boom, bang. You know. Like that." No. I don't know. Like what? Can you...write that down? In English? Slowly? With pictures?
I think I was traumatized with math as a kid. I distinctly remember being told when I was in Grade 3 that I shouldn't count on my fingers when adding and subtracting. And the year before, they'd actively encouraged me to do so. Well I don't know how to do it, otherwise, alright, Mrs. Van Betuw? I still count on my fingers! I like it and I do it all the time, so there!
When I was in school, people would just shrug and go "Well, you're just not good at math." I don't think they knew just how not good I was though. My dad made me study flash cards with the multiplication tables on them. And after a few tearful arguments, I realized that the only way to appease him would be to memorize the stupid things. So yes Dad, I know that 12 x 5 is 60. Congratulations. I memorized
12
x 5
----
60
I know that, but the learning stops there. I don't know how to apply that knowledge to any problem in the outside world. I don't know how to make it useful.
I think the only reason I went into Journalism was because it was the only career I could think of that didn't use numbers. I missed out on a lot of careers because I didn't have the right math classes to take the right science classes. I never took physics. I took biology and chemistry. And chemistry was enough like math for me to almost flunk it.
I have written a lot of stories about child illiteracy. I have heard horror stories about kids who fake their way through life without being able to read a word. And I feel like such a hypocrite because I have essentially done the same thing, only with math. It's scary how little I know and I wish there was some way to change that. You know, without having to work at it.
I am reading: Hepcats, Narcs and Pipe Dreams: American Drug Culture. It's extremely interesting and educational and historical and entertaining even. Though now I'm at the part where all the jazz musicians start to use heroin to emulate Charlie Parker and it's just sad.
I am feeling: Pretty good despite the fact that I just ate a donut filled with cream. I'm going for walks and lifting weights and eating less crap. I feel good. And besides, that donut had it coming.
I am watching: CSI. Man! I can't believe Grissom slept with a murder suspect! And would somebody please find out that he's going deaf already?
I am listening to: Jane's Addiction
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