She can post an interesting OP. 
I have to sing the alphabet song to myself frequently (but I can sing it backwards as well as forwards). I often have trouble with left and right.
I can never remember the 396th digit of pi.
I don’t know the order of alphabet beyond G. This usually isn’t a problem–how often does is necessary in life to arrange the alphabet? Whenever I need to order something alphabetically beyond G, I have to do one of the following: 1) sing the song for every item, stopping when I’ve come to its letter, or 2) sing the song once, writing the letters down as I go, then using that as a reference.
I blame the education system. They thought they were teaching me the alphabet? No, they taught me a song.
I also don’t quite grasp fractional time. If someone says “two forty-five” I know exactly what time they mean, but if they said “quarter to three” I’m absolutely lost. I really don’t know why–it’s not as though I don’t understand any fraction, just fractions of time.
I can’t spell without writing it down and looking at each letter individually. I think this might also trace back to the education system (they’re a great scapegoat, aren’t they?). I learned to read and write through memorization–we didn’t have any of that phonics mumbo-jumbo. Because of this, I have a hard time thinking of words as being made up of letters. The word is a symbol, it’s a picture, it’s inseparable. It would be like asking you to divide the symbol “%” into its components. Sure, you could get a line and a couple circles out of it, but what’s the logical connexion between those and a percent symbol? They don’t make any sense until you arrange the picture.
It does mean I don’t have any problem reading or writing text that’s sideways or upside down or backwards or whatever. From my observations, other people seem to have a hard time doing that.
- I can speak French, Spanish, some Geman and Hungarian
- I can sight read music.
- I can play oboe, piano, tenor sax, and euphonium
- I can play bass or treble clef.
- I can exellent directions
- I can always figure out where North is.
- I can sing (mezzo-soprano)
- I can contriute to causes I support.
- I can bake really well.
- I can tell the people in my life I love them.
Shall I go on? :rolleyes:
I learned a longer version in the 7th grade:
Thirty days in September,
Arpil, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February alone
Which has eight days and a score
And in a leap year one day more.
A bit clunky in the middle, but effective.
As for “stuff I don’t know,” the biggest shortcoming would be finances and budgets. I get money, I put it in the bank, I pay the bills, but anything to do with “compound interest” or “annuity” or whatever makes my eyes glaze over.
I haven’t had French since high school, but the way I can still remember them is:
I remember 60 (soixante) because of 69 (soixante-neuf) – what can I say, I have a dirty mind!
I remember the seventies, eighties and nineties because they are so weird for an English-speaking person – seventy is basically sixty-ten (soixante-dix); eighty is four-twenties (quatre-vingt – four-score, maybe?); ninety is four-twenties-ten (quatre-vingt-dix). Think like a kid – 71 is really sixty-leven.
I mime writing to tell my right hand from my left.
I sing the alphabet song.
I can’t read bass clef, even when I just need to sing the intervals, not know the names of the notes. I know what the notes feel like in treble clef, but I’m constantly struggling on those (thankfully) rare occasions when I have to read the tenor part. This is why I will probably never acheive the goal of learning to play the piano.
I break numbers up into 5+x when I add, especially the 7’s and 8’s. I always blamed it on having my tonsils out in third grade…I missed those days in school. And I still have problems with negative numbers because of the two days I was out with the flu in sixth grade. When I came back to class, even the kids who didn’t know the answers to anything knew more about negative numbers than me! Parents who think it’s okay for their kids to miss a few days of school so they can leave early for vacations have no idea of the far-ranging impact of their actions. I only missed for illness, and look at how I struggle nearly forty years later!
I can’t read an analog clock/watch that doesn’t have all twelve numbers marked on the face. They don’t have to be numbers, but something has to be in each position. Otherwise, I’m totally lost.
I have a weird way of making change. Instead of subtracting $78.43 from $80.00, I think to myself, “Seven cents makes fifty cents; fifty cents makes seventy-nine dollars; one dollar makes eighty.” I add up to the amount paid instead of taking away.
Boy I feel so much better!
I still don’t know how much wood a woodchuck could chuck 
And it’s “Thirty days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31…”. I can never remember how the last tiny bit is worded about the number of days in February in a regular year and a leap year.
Also very glad my boyfriend is a math’s whiz cos it’s definately not my forte!
Never had any trouble telling left from right and I’m astounded at the number of adults who still do! That’s kinda weird.
I’ve forgotten who mentioned it, but I once slowed down to stop at a green traffic light. I think it’s one of those things that everyone does once in their life.
At least I hope it is!
I have a degree in mathematics. I can do differential equations, advanced calculus, and number theory. But I can’t do simple division in my head.
[Vroomfondel]
“Dunno, think our brains must be too highly trained Majikthise.”
[/Vroomfondel]
Man, what a bunch of dumbasses!
I’m mathematically challenged. You known how some people can’t spell, well I can’t do math of any kind in my head, and precious little of it on paper. When I have to count something, my fingers move. If there are more than two digits in the number and more than three of them to add, forget it. I can’t remember how to divide. I have no idea what algebra or trigonometry are, or what they’re for. I was asked to drop Electronics and Shop and Drafting in high school because of this. Thank goodness for calculators. I also don’t know how to read a ruler or tape measure. 7/16" doesn’t mean anything to me, I have to count the marks after the nearest inch.
Oddly enough, my job is all about being a slave to the clock. I can read a clock backwards and forwards and figure out backtiming to have a sound finish at an exact second. What I really miss is my Casio calcuiator that added in hours, minutes and seconds. They don’t make them anymore. Somebody in baggage handling at an airport decided that was one of the things they wanted to steal out of my suitcase before they sent it down the belt, open.
I play eight or nine instruments and have done so professionally for more than 30 years, including on peoples’ records and everything, and I can’t read a note of music. I know the names of the notes, and the names of the lines on the staff, but if I had to figure out each note in a chord cluster and how it applies to where my fingers go on which fret or key, and then the next one and the one after it etc., and figure out the value of the notes and how to count them in the measure, the rest of the band would have finished the song and gone out for a beer before I got through the intro. And I have never been able to get a concept of diminished or augmented straight. I play those chords all the time, but it doesn’t occur to me to wonder what they are, or care. I wouldn’t know an E flat suspended 6th added 13th turn left at Main and go north for three blocks if it bit me. (But hey, neither would Paul McCartney, and he hasn’t done too badly… I’m not putting myself in his league, just pointing out the similarity in being a non-reading musician.)
That’s the correct way to make change.
I have to do the lefty-loosey, righty-tighty thing too. What’s worse is that my shower knobs are backwards…so when I’m in the shower I have to think: lefty-tighty, righty-loosey. It really sucks to mess it up and get a blast full of icy water in your face!
I also sing the alphabet song, and I’m terrible with directions.
I’m a computer science major. I’ve taken three semesters’ worth of calculus, as well as linear algebra and probability courses. I love numerical tricks and fun things like that.
If someone wants me to add seven and five, what do I do?
eightnineteneleventwelve!
Unless I am standing next to a landmark, I have to think really hard about where NSEW are. Tell me to “go west at that 3rd traffic light” and I get confused.
Here, the river is to the north. So if I go to my mom’s place, I’m sort of going south. I live on the east siiiiiiide, and the part of town I always get lost in is the west side. (That is, until I move southside, hopefully next month, and then my little system of remembering things will be all screwed because I’ll be living right next to ANOTHER river. Dammit.)
I have always had a hard time remembering certain addition problems. Most are ingrained but:
8+5=13
9+5=14
9+8=17
9+9=18
trip me up if I’m not careful.
My mom can’t tell left from right and my husband can’t spell “tomorrow” correctly.
I say that, and still have to pause and actually think which one is which. By the time I have figured that out, I look at the bolt and get confused and have to repeat the whole thing.
I cannot give directions with actually turning my body, which is confusing as well, because I will say “turn right” but I will turn my body to the left.
I also have to write out a word before I can spell it to someone.
Me, too. And I often have to move my finger in the air clockwise or counter-clockwise to decide which way is turning it left and which is turning it right.
When dealing with percentages, I must relate everything to 10% in order to figure it out. If a 40 dollar shirt is on sale for 30% off, I say to myself, “10% would be 4 dollars, so 30% is 12 dollars.” Gods help me if something is a percentage not divisible by 5–frankly, I work it to the closest 5% and then just guess!
10[sup]5[/sup] IS ten thousand. 10[sup]6[/sup] = 100,000, or one hundred thousand.
Um, yeah. I’m going to go ahead and blame that on the fact that it’s 1:30 am and the damn birds woke me up early this morning.
I believe this is why this smiley was invented: :smack:
10[sup]5[/sup] is one hundred thousand, and 10[sup]6[/sup] is a million.
Sorry…sorry. Just forget I was here.
I’m going to start campaigning for the ability to edit our posts now.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
And if I’m wrong again, I don’t want to hear about it.