I had serious problems with math as a kid in school (although in all other subjects I was an A student until I hit my sophomore year in HS and simply stopped making any more effort than necessary to pass so I wouldn’t be held back), no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t go to college immediately upon HS graduation – didn’t want to. Not then, anyway. However:
When I was 29 I decided I DID want to go to college, and a university near where I live had not only the major program I wanted, but also a college entry program for adults over 25 who’d either started but not finished college, but also for those who had never gone, nor even taken SAT’s. Having fallen into the latter category, I signed up. In lieu of the SAT I had to take a state basic skills test in mathematics and English. I wasn’t at all surprised when I aced the English part with flying colors. However, on account of my dismal performance on the mathematics section (on top of being bad in math as a kid in school, the only math I’d done at all since HS graduation was checkbook math with a calculator, LOL), as a condition of the entry program, if I wanted to fully matriculate at the university, I would be required to take not one, but TWO, remedial math courses to get my math skills up to college level speed. I took them.
The first week of the first of these courses, I found myself totally astounded not only to recognize the material the teacher was lecturing about and writing on the board, but that also it MADE SENSE to me (it didn’t when I was a kid)! In a few more weeks, not only was it continuing to stick in my brain, but I was actually ENJOYING IT. I wound up acing both this and the second remedial math course, and as to the college level math I had to take when I was matriculated, I ended up with an A in college algebra, an A in precalculus and a B+ in calculus (while working 45-60 hours a week, taking a chemistry and a history course, both of which I got As in and having had a migraine induced stroke towards the end of that semester).
But even with all that, I STILL can NOT do math in my HEAD all that well – other than very simple addition, subtraction and a minimum of multiplication, I GOTTA have that pencil and paper at the very least.
Now for the thing I was never able to do at ALL: Drawing. I’m sure that everyone reading this is familiar with the appearance of preschool and kindergarten children’s drawings that their parents hang on the refrigerators, right? MY drawings never progressed much beyond that, even though I spent many hours throughout my childhood and adolescence drawing (or should I say, trying to, ha ha). My best friend also liked to draw, and SHE got so good she could and did sit down in the park with her sketch pad and draw the trees, or people, or horses (her specialty) etc. and they looked exactly like trees, people and horses. I kept plugging until I was in my late teens, but nothing I drew EVER looked like what it was supposed to look like.
I got disgusted finally, gave up drawing entirely and resigned myself to the fact that while I can certainly APPRECIATE it, I had no talent whatsoever for any kind of visual art (note: in school art classes through the years, my sculptures, papier mache and my paintings were as bad or worse than my drawings). To salvage my feelings of inadequacy, I consoled myself with the fact that I was an excellent musician/composer (I started piano at 4, took classical lessons for several years, then took up the guitar when I was 14; ultimately ended up as a damn good pianist/synthesist/12-string guitarist) who also had writing talent – which after the stroke that destroyed my ability to play my instruments, I escaped into and continue to enjoy.
But drawing? Whatever it takes, I just don’t have it. Never did, and never will.
