I specifically remember the moment when math suddenly clicked and everything fell into place. I promptly spent the next several evenings answering every question in the remaining three-quarters of the textbook and handed the answers in all at once in a big stack. I spent the remainder of the year filing papers in the principal’s office whenever math was being taught. Doh!
Reading, spelling, math, art, music.
And once I got to college, I always heard, “You took this course before, right?”
Add me as another language person. Grammar itself doesn’t come particularly easy to me - I’m hilariously bad at parsing individual words of sentences in declined languages, though I’m decent enough I can find the context and translate pretty well. And last summer I tried to step outside my comfort zone and teach myself Arabic, but that turned out to be a bit beyond my capabilities at this point. (In my defense, my first introduction to formal grammar wasn’t until I started studying Spanish in high school.)
Also, I’ve always had an easy time with biology. Even down at a molecular level, the processes of life - whatever type of life you want - just kind of ‘clicks’ in my mind. Any harder sciences stump me, partly because I’m catastrophically stupid when it comes to numbers and calculations and geometrical reasoning*, but biology and anatomy both just work nicely with my mind**.
*Oddly, though, I found physics a lot easier when I started studying quantum mechanics - having actual things to manipulate (both mechanics and electrical stuff) did nothing to help me.
**Upon further reflection, this might be my mother’s doing, because my mother was a biologist, and I have a very early childhood memory of her pulling out her old dissection kit and microscope and playing “find out what’s inside the worm you found!”, along with many other such things.
Yep, couldn’t have said it better. I credit/blame my father who, when I was a small child, made the reading of the daily newspaper (the Denver Post) almost a sacred daily rite. By the time I entered first grade, I hungered, HUNGERED to read.
Maybe that’s why I got to skip most of the writing classes when I was a journalism student in college. Inverted pyramid was as natural to me as walking upright.
Okay, while not strictly an academic skill, but mine is photography. I’ve just always had an eye for what would make a good shot. Won some awards in junior high, even a state ribbon.
Every chance I got, I would take a photography class to boost my GPA with all the other baloney classes I had to take (aka the hard sciences).
Junk that is still is easier (I mean, still life, or sometimes even just neat architecture). Sometimes you just walk upon something that looks neat. The timing shots are harder. Got a good one of a soccer goalie just as the ball went over his hands. That was a matter of timing with an old SLR. I don’t think I could do that as well with the slow ‘delay’ that my digital cameras have between button-press and shutter-release. Hockey games are impossible for me to catch a good puck blast with a digital. Last summer I had to take over one hundred shots of the flags in the fountain just to wait for the ‘one’ that had them all unfurled and the fountains to blow at the same time. (Yes, I know - I can time the fountains but I can’t time the wind.)
While I think it is one of the better shots I’ve taken in a while, it is too bad that the whole thing looks like a Cingular ad.
Sunrazor, interesting you credit your father. I credit my Dad, too. He is a smart guy, but due to alcoholism never went beyond high school and doesn’t even have a driver’s license. He had two giant grocery bags full of Reader’s Digest from 1980-1990 and I would spend most of my time with him reading those. When he wasn’t dragging me to the bar, he was teaching me to play chess and Scrabble, and sing The Star Spangled Banner. I’m the first one on his side of the family to even get a college degree, much less into grad school. He was so proud, prouder than anyone else in my family. He said, ‘‘Someone might as well be putting our intelligence to work.’’ I said, ‘‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’ve got us covered.’’
I predict a lot of people in this thread are going to cite reading and writing. I get the impression there are a lot of excellent writers here.
We’re pretty ruthless with those who can’t, or won’t, spell and write a comprehensible sentence. You should see some of the posts on my other forum (they’re in French, but same idea - in case you’re wondering, French leetspeak is just as impossible to read as the English kind. I’m fond of subcultural varieties but they should be used for spice, not as a medium.)
OK Matt I have my basic high school knowledge of French. Please share a few French leet examples? I’m intrigued.
Back to the topic, I remember getting 100% on my first ever “exam.” I put it in quotes because it actually occurred in grade 7, and was purportedly an early primer for how hard life would be in high school. The subject was science, and the topic was essentially light and the whole electromagnetic spectrum. I was the only one to score perfect, and in fact I think a lot of kids failed it; but it seemed like a no-brainer to me.
Also, trigonometry in grade 10 was a breeze too. I remember getting 100% on a test AFTER I corrected the teacher’s incorrect answer to one of the questions! It all just seemed to make so much sense: SOHCAHTOA and all that.
And ya’ the whole spelling and grammar thing too. My parents made a point of correcting us in spoken English as far back as I can remember, so that sort of carried over into the written language for me and my siblings as well.
Reading, writing, spelling, and grammar, although if you ask me to tell you what a “subjunctive adverb” (insert any obscure term for a simple grammatical concept in those quotes) is, I can’t do it.
Geometry, Algebra, and from Calculus, Taylor polynomials. I may make math errors when solving the latter, but I understood the fundamental concepts almost immediately.
I’ve always been good at math, spelling, and grammar. My writing style leaves something to be desired, though, and I’m mediocre to poor at foreign languages.
In a [post=9784065]previous thread[/post], you said misspelled words have the wrong color. Misspelled words look wrong to me, too, but I’m not a synesthete at all. For me it seems to be at least partially some kind of shape recognition, sort of like the written word is a puzzle piece and my knowledge of a word is the space where the piece goes.
Oh, absolutely. That’s the usual thing. Actually we wouldn’t be able to read at anywhere near a useful pace if much of the work wasn’t done for us on a shape-recognition basis. It’s one of the reasons why sentence case is easier to read than all caps: since the differences between the shapes of the letters are more pronounced, it’s easier to distinguish words by their overall shapes. (I can identify spelling mistakes much more nearly instantaneously in sentence case than in all caps. Often I will only notice that the all caps word looks ‘odd’ and will have to go letter by letter to find the error.)
The biggest one for me is oration/public speaking (and acting, I guess, can be included). I never really thought about it until I was in high school, but I’ve never once felt stage fright. I’m perfectly comfortable getting up in front of a group of strangers and speaking. I’m also VERY good at improvising speeches and at memorized recitations. Class projects and oral reports were just never an issue for me, which is somewhat surprising given I have social anxiety disorder. I never really had to practice any of my speeches and I never agonized over my delivery, I just knew I could handle it.
I remember in 10th grade drama class our first assignment was to prepare an argumentative speech on a controversial topic. The goal was to speak convincingly on a topic and also to become more comfortable speaking in front of a class. I (as was my usual back in my pre-meds ADD days) totally forgot about the assignment. We came into class and I was scheduled to speak 4th or so. So I quickly chose a topic, I can’t remember what it was, and formed a brief outline in my head. Then, I just got up and winged it.
The teacher was pleased and everyone noted that, and I quote “you could tell I really practiced that speech and perfected it.” I was astonished that what, to me, was a half-assed rambling, actually came off as a polished and well-crafted speech. I took to acting in plays in college and had much the same reactions from people. I worked very hard on my Maid of Honor speech for my sister’s wedding and she said it was the most amazing speech she’d heard.
I should have joined the debate team back in the day, but I never really thought it was anything special. People also note that my voice and cadence are really nice. After another oral report (physics class in 11th grade, I think) one of my classmates said as a first response “You have a really great voice!” So I’m definitely proud of my public speaking skills. I took to Linklater voice training in college very quickly and I’d love to do more. I like using my voice and sometimes wish I’d gotten into voice acting.
Also, like many others here, reading, writing and spelling all come naturally to me. This is definitely due to reading voraciously as a kid. I just intuitively understand grammar and spelling and this makes writing very effortless. At least, when I know what to write about. Curses writer’s block!
I can parse poetry very well, and understanding Chaucer and Milton back in high school was a breeze. Words are definitely my strong point, whether speaking, writing, or reading.
Math, on the other hand… not my best point. I’m not sure what side of the brain language skills lie on, but my smarts are definitely lumped over on that side and missing from the other a bit. I wish I could add and multiply better in my head, but it just doesn’t come naturally.
Reading. The image I have of the first time reading a book by myself is burned into my brain. I was four, it was raining, my mother was ironing, my brother was delivering the ironed clothes on his “horse” (vacuum cleaner) to the right rooms, and I sat down and read “Mac & Jeff” a story about two Scotty dogs.