This is topic The human mind is a very, very strange thing in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
 
I have never said that extremes were good. I still hold by that. And I sure wish I could change how I am.

Let me explain.

Most of the jobs I've worked have largely been physical labor. Lifting things, digging things, that's been about it. I never handled money. Now I work at a deli, where I occasionally tend register. (I actually picked up this job to work on my stuttering, and, if I don't mind saying so myself, hot damn, it's working. But that has nothing to do with this.) This has led to some awkward situations.

Again, let me explain.

I am what people call a "right side of the brain" person. And I mean it. I work with abstractions, nothing physical. I occasionally have something close to total recall, but mostly with faces, conversations, pieces of music. I can still re-enact conversations with friends that they completely forgot existed. Then I'll manage to cite incidents that had happened earlier that day to them, and why it happened, and what happened later(usually something more important), and then they'll remember. To be honest, it usually creeps them out. When I spot somebody in a movie, even if they have two lines, I can occasionally just list everything they've done and even re-enact some of their lines in other movies, word for word. I write papers in hours, not days. I read books in days, not weeks, and sometimes hours, and can sometimes recall conversations and quotes from those books word for word (as you can tell, words are very important with me).

But I can't split a check. I don't know how to tip. I usually just round up or start throwing bills around. When the check arrives, I give it to someone I'm eating with and pray they don't fleece me. I sure as heck can't play chess.

I always assumed this was just because I'm not a "right side of the brain person." But it wasn't until I started to tend register that I realized the extreme way my brain functions.

This is my primary example. I charge someone for a sandwich, drink, and chips. It costs 5.40. Now, they hand me six dollars, then I understand perfectly well that they want sixty cents back. However, one day someone handed me six dollars, and then said, "Wait a minute, I think I have fifty cents."

This astounded me. "Why," I asked, "would someone give me another fifty cents?" I realized that I had seen this before. It had something to do with change, but I had never understood it. "Hmm..." I thought. "What do I do now?"

So I'm sitting there with a line behind this person and I've got six dollars and fifty cents in one hand and about fifty megawatts of panic in my skull. I freeze like a deer in very, very bright headlights. So... what do I do with this change? My mind doesn't answer. Does it go up now, or does it go down? Do I give him less money, or do I give him more? I honestly had no clue. For some reason, my mind could not answer me. All I got was a giant "DOES NOT COMPUTE."

It's an odd feeling. You're staring at something, something which should be so simple, and yet your mind produces nothing but frustration or panic. You draw nothing but a blank. Your entire head freezes up with the effort of bending itself around this one little corner. I was never very good at thinking around corners, as Roland of Gilead would say, if not his teachers, Cort or Vannay.

This is the best way for me to explain it. There's a part in the Homecoming series where Nafai is trying to get the Oversoul to explain why there is one part of the near countryside that neither he nor any of his other brothers have ever been to. Whenever they come near it, they're mentally deterred. However, the Oversoul is just as inadequate when it comes to telling them as they are, if not more so. Attempts to engage the Oversoul logically about this strange occurrence results in a strange loop of "non-logic." He answers questions with questions. He simply can't understand the question, so he can't give you the answer. The entire subject is functionally beyond him.

I had to sit down with a calculator today and figure out why on earth that person felt the need to give me another fifty cents. When I saw it, it seemed simple, and I felt very, very stupid. "Oh," I said, "He just didn't want a handful of change." I tried to work out some strange scenario where I take the six fifty, and hand him back the one, and then I try and work out in my head really fast how much hard change to give out with lots of complex steps and subtractions, but, once again, "DOES NOT COMPUTE." Slam. Mental brick wall. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

What's really odd is that if I took the money and just figured out from the total money he gave me I would've figured out that the change was a buck ten. But for some reason, my brain couldn't handle that simple leap. I was thinking about this in wide, strange, complex loops that really wasted a lot of time. It was, in many ways, an error in a computer program. Putting in zero, or something outside of the expected range, or whatever. I only took level one Comp Sci, and, as you can expect, I wasn't very good at it. The words "massive cheating" occur. Hmm...

It's strange once you think about it. The human brain does, surprisingly, come in breeds and species. To ask me, "Robert, why on earth can't you figure this stuff out? Why can't you figure out the bare essentials of math and change? Other people can, with minimal effort. Why not you?" would be the same thing as saying to a fish, "Why can't you fly? I know you've seen birds, you've seen how they fly, why can't you fly? Why can't you get up and figure it out?" Better yet, it would be like asking a computer program created to tally credit card bills on a massive scale to make a short video of several balls bouncing around a cube. Actually, that would be more appropriate for me if you switched the two examples around. But you get my point.

I once heard that the human brain, during its early stages, functions something like a muscle (if you want to know when and how I heard this, I can tell you). When certain areas of the brain are extensively used, they form more and more synapses and connections. Eventually, this exercise plateaus out, and no further improvement can occur.

So, hey, maybe our brains ARE tools, and tools for a sometimes specific purpose. Maybe, if you put your mind to it, you might not actually accomplish anything. I could sit down and read about computer programming until I starve to death, but that doesn't mean I'll make any respectable (or foolproof) type of program. That wasn't what I was made for, nor could I ever enjoy it. I guess that even though sometimes you can't pick what you're good at, or what you're even made for (if "made" is the right term), you should still be smart enough to realize what your strengths are, and play to them. It's just funny that sometimes people can be so... specialized.

And I eagerly await the day all transactions are handled by card.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
But you're specialized. Have you noticed that? Think about your memory. . .

I can do the math you speak of. I can do it in my head faster than a human can use a calculator or register to figure it out. I can do algebra or add, subtract, multiply, or divide large numbers in my head.

But not only can I not remember that conversation yesterday or last week or last year, I can't remember the human I had it with, or the party I was at where I had the conversation, or the fact that it was my birthday we were celebrating at the time.

I had an assignment in high school wherein I was supposed to memorize a Shakespearean speach. Couldn't for the life of me. I had two months, and I spent at least a hundred hours working on it. I only every managed "Out damned spot, out I say." And then choked. Could. Not. Remember. Any. More. Than. That. It's just not possible for me.

Most of the rest of you can. I know it. I've seen it. But me? Forget it.

Grade 12 physics. (Oh heck, university physics was the same.) Can't bring in the formula sheet - have to memorize the formulas, the teacher tells us. I can't memorize. So what do I do? Well, I understand the principles we're being examined on well enough that I sat there, in the first five minutes of the exam, and I derived the formulas based on logic. My teacher was watching me and asked me what I was doing. I told him. He was flabbergasted. It works for me.

Go figure.
 

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Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :
 
I've been looking into how our minds work lately, mainly because I've been concerned about my own. I have found out some interesting things. For example, it's entirely possible to be gifted and have learning disabilities. Also, I'm reading a book right now ( link ) about how some incedents of accused laziness are actually mental deficiencies. It's fascinating and comforting. Mental blocks are real, but they don't mean you're stupid. You just learn and interpret differently.

(I have used "That doesn't make sense to me" in conversation many times.)
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
I'm both gifted and learning disabled. In particular, I have problems with both short-term and long-term memory. The connections to events and facts in my head are not, oh, normal. Things that would be connected in ten ways in other people's heads are, at most, connected in one way in mine. To retrieve that information, I have to go down certain pathways. Others don't work. Well, that's the best way I can think of explaining it.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Book, certain things might be harder or easier for different ones of us to learn, but I refuse to believe anything is impossible. It just depends on how motivated you are to learn it. It might take you longer, or a lot more work, than someone else who just says "oh, okay" and gets it right away, but you CAN learn it. The idea of "oh I'm not good at stuff like that I could never figure that out" closes one off from being able to figure out a lot of stuff that one can certainly do.

For instance, I was a third child and when I was young, I never had to figure out my way around anywhere. I never had to navigate and find a destination, because if my parents weren't taking me somewhere, then I could just follow my older brother or sister. So whether innately or because of a lack of early exercise of that facility, as you hypothesize, I have NO sense of direction and can get lost in my own house, practically.

But I somehow managed, when I was travelling a lot for work, by dint of a lot of map study and focusing solely on navigation and nothing else, to find my way from airports to hotels to factories and back, and inside factories to find my way from the parking lot to the jobsite to the engineer's office to the ladies' bathroom (which is often a quarter mile or so away from the jobsite inside the plants). It was hard but by working really hard at it, (ridiculously hard compared to most people) I managed to do it. It even gradually got easier. Don't ever cheat yourself by thinking "oh I just can't do that".

Here's your trick for doing that particular task. You knew you owed him 60 cents. He gave you a further 50 cents. Just add it to what you owed him already. .60 + .50 = 1.10

Or if your brain doesn't like that, you can even count it back up, like this. He gave you 6.50 total. So count it back to him "5.40" place his receipt on the counter, "6.40" place a dollar bill on the counter, "6.50" place a dime on the counter.

If neither of those methods work for you, come back and I'll think of another one. The important thing is not to excuse yourself by saying "oh I just can't do that task". When you do that, you're just training yourself in helplessness.

But yeah, I agree totally, you're exactly right on how weird and different brains are. I think the "does not compute" computer program analogy is a perfect one because, in addition to being suited to particular tasks over others, we also have the ability, with more effort, to rewrite our own programs.
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I think my brain works like that.
I can't do math to save my life. Even simple math like subtraction. My brain just shuts down.
But, I have good pitch. I can percieve colours in songs, make up stories out of no where and I can concentrate on more than one thing at the same time, like listen to music while working and think about something else at the same time.
Perhaps it is good that I am not a cashier... I couldn't even figure out that fifty cent thing myself.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
I believe we're all given different gifts, like this, so that we will have things to share with one another, and to keep us humble. There is no human or animal in the world who doesn't have something to teach me. And the most valuable gift I have to give is myself, my time, talents, and efforts.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
I can do math and remember stuff, though I'm not as good at either as Book and Quid are.

I'm fine with that. I've always preferred being pretty good at everything to being really good at a few things.

Although it kinda sucks not having any special talent. Or having a bunch of not really special talents.

I think that everyone is created using the same number of "talents" (more than 10, but just an example). So if most of your talent lies in one world, obviously you're gonna be deficient somewhere else. This is why I think some autistic people are so off-the-charts at counting/math type stuff.

Also, if you look back through history, every genius (I don't mean like your average genius, like your one friend who you say is genius. I mean like Newton) has a serious fatal flaw. I have a list I made up somewhere, I might try to find it.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I like to think that my brain's pretty average. When I was much younger, the thought would have bothered me a great deal, but it actually comes as a bit of a relief nowadays.
 

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Posted by StickyWicket (Member # 7926) on :
 
I agree with Tom, he is average.
 

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Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :
 
I'm not quite a genius, but I am pretty smart, and it's frustrating when my brain just won't cooperate. Sometimes I wish I was closer to average.
 

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Posted by Clarifier (Member # 8167) on :
 
ok, one thing is bothering me. normally, when something, for example, costs 5.40, and the person gives you 6.00, then says, wait, i have more change, it's to give you another 40 cents, so that they can get a nice simple dollar back in change. it makes absolutely no sense that they woudl give you 50 more cents, because thats no less complicated than just giving the 6 dollars and getting your 60 cents back.. plz explain
 

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Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
 
You may find that the longer you work cash register the better you get at overcoming this little block. Your brain is going to be naturally better at some things than others, but it can still practice the tough things.

My friend who used to work at a grocery store told me his trick to making change quickly: He thinks of everything in relation to 41 cents. I asked why? Because 41 cents is one of each coin: 0.25 + 0.10 + 0.05 + 0.01 = $0.41. Since it's very close to the middle, no amount of change is very far away from 41 cents (not counting the dollars, obviously) so he can quickly figure out what coins to hand someone based on this method.

--Enigmatic
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Sadly, I'm just like the person who gave the extra .50 to get a dollar ten back in change.

I do that for two reasons:

Math is second nature to me, much more so than most people in the change giving business (fast food employees, mostly).

I hate change. It falls out of my pocket, gets in between the seats of my car. It's in my couch cushions, on every flat surface in my house, and it's a pain to spend or exchange for real money.

I'm actually waging a full scale war against pennies. I especially dislike them. They're small, they're worthless, they're not the right color, and I don't like them. If my change includes pennies I say, "Keep the pennies". If I need one, I look for the penny jar or just get the .95 cents in change (rather than .99).

Australia doesn't have anything smaller than a quarter, and I'm all for that.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I will also hand someone a handful of change in order to transform it into something useful.
 

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Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :
 
I bought a stamp with pennies the other day. I cannot condemn them.
 

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Posted by arevoj (Member # 7347) on :
 
Book, I, too, have this problem when I'm at the register. One thing I try to do is wait until I know they have all of their money out and then ring in the amount tendered so that the register tells me the exact change. Not always possible, and sometimes it takes an extra few seconds, but it is better than me sitting there staring at them blankly while I try to figure it out in my head (typically incorrectly, I might add).

This method does not help me when we are set up at the Farmers' Market where I have no register. It used to be easy in that everything I sell was rounded to the dollar. However, recently we've had an increase and now I have to deal with change. Sometimes it completely blows my mind. I do try to remember to take a calculator with me in case I run into trouble. Also, most people are pretty forgiving if I just tell them "you know, I just cannot do the math in my head". I have had people tell me in conversation, though, that they sometimes pull out extra change in order to see the cashier confused. Aarrggh!

On the up side, I do have the ability to remember people and what they eat; when I see the regulars coming, I am usually able to have it ready by the time they get to the table.
 

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Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
 
Wow, that 41 cents thing would totally confuse me, but if it works for him, hey, that's great.
 

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Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
 
Also, what you are to math is almost as bad as what I am to sports. People ask me to play volleyball with them (or any other sport, for that matter). I say, "No, I'm really bad." They insist. I say, "No. People say they're bad to be modest or if they don't feel like playing. I say I'm bad because I'm really bad. Like probably the worst you've ever seen."

They insist. I play to appease them. Fairly soon, nobody wants me on their team.

I can't aim, and I can't catch. I'm also a klutz. Oh, and I'm slow. But I have other talents, so I don't mind too much.
 

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Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :
 
I have a friend who is literally dangerous at ping pong.
 

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Posted by Miro (Member # 1178) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by quidscribis:
Grade 12 physics. (Oh heck, university physics was the same.) Can't bring in the formula sheet - have to memorize the formulas, the teacher tells us. I can't memorize. So what do I do? Well, I understand the principles we're being examined on well enough that I sat there, in the first five minutes of the exam, and I derived the formulas based on logic. My teacher was watching me and asked me what I was doing. I told him. He was flabbergasted. It works for me.

Go figure.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Clarifier:
ok, one thing is bothering me. normally, when something, for example, costs 5.40, and the person gives you 6.00, then says, wait, i have more change, it's to give you another 40 cents, so that they can get a nice simple dollar back in change. it makes absolutely no sense that they woudl give you 50 more cents, because thats no less complicated than just giving the 6 dollars and getting your 60 cents back.. plz explain

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The person probably didn't have 40 cents, so rather than get 60 cents back and have three or more coins to deal with, they gave the cashier 50 cents and go back a whole dollar and a solitary dime. It the lesser of two evils.
 

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Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
 
I work in a bank, and we have one customer who is somewhat norotious because if he is depositing a check for 25.64 cents, he will ask for the 64 cents back. He says that it's his best way of saving money.
 

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Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
 
I'd be one of those people giving 50 cents too. I have these piles of coins on my desk that just sit there because I hate carrying change around, but eventually I'll count them, roll them, and get dollar bills. I'm just glad we don't have 2 cent coins, like they do in Canada and for the Euro. I'm not sure how I feel about dollar coins either, but 2 dollar value bills or coins are definately useful.
 

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Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
 
I also have piles of useless change, since they tip us. At the end of the day, I always wind up with a wad of ones and a handful of quarters and dimes. I usually give them to the first homeless person I see, since I know he needs it far more than I do. It's not like I'm going to buy a beer with change or anything.
 

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Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
 
Myself, I am possibly a genius, but haven't bothered looking into it, because it really doesn't matter. I also have severe ADHD the inattentive sort. The only cure I have found so far is a combination of drinking great amounts of coffee and meditative karate. Oh, and certain drugs which I refuse to take because I refuse to becoem addicted. Very tempting, but no.

But because I am so smart, no one believes me.

Psychiatrist: "Wait...you say your average in this private school, a pretty renowned one, is B+?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't work at all -- I can't work."
Psychiatrist: "But how does that make sense?"
Me: "The stuff we learn is easy...most of it can be deduced from basic logic. The only class that I can't do well in is Talmud, and that's because there's a lot of vocabulary I don't know."
Psychiatrist: "No, no...there's no way you can have ADHD. Otherwise you'd be doing badly in school."

Or psychaitrist #2:

"[Phanto]? No, can't be ADD. If it were ADD, teachers would have noticed. There'd have been lots of hyperactivity and all that."

My *o*, that's why it's called INATTENTIVE type ADHD. You are supposed to know this.

Or the time that I had a 2 month paper due the next day; start work at 10 PM the night before, drink a cup of coffee, take a break from 1-3 AM, and finish at 6. Around 5 hours total to do what others took months on. Grade? 90.

In an entire year, I would say that the average amount of time spent on work per night was 0. I didn't work ever, I didn't need to, and I couldn't. I tried. The times I tried drove me to insanity, it hurt. I did no studying whatsoever; but it didn't matter. Becuase I didn't have to study to pass the tests. The thing is I wanted to study, I wanted to get 95+. But I couldn't.

I can't even pay attention long enough to have a conversation. By *o*, when I have drunk a cup of coffee and excersized, I can feel the difference; I can talk to people. You don't know how horrible it is to not be able to talk to someone because you can't focus on the conversation well enough, it hurts.

Yesterday I went to a class I wanted to take, a class I had signed up for to learn some basic Spanish so that I could talk to my friends.

I couldn't do it. I hadn't drunk any coffee that day, and hence my concentration was nill; trying to focus only created this terrible tension in my forehead, like an electronic maelstrom. I eventually ended up doodling and staring out the window -- which is my normal in class activity.

Doodling and daydreaming soothed the anxiety and tension, and had this been a normal school day, I would not have payed attention to it. BUT this time I had WANTED to take the class; I WANTED it, it wasn't a lack of will -- you say I don't have will? Darling, I have endured moderate physical torture for days on end and screamed not once. I have will. -- it was an inability to do what I want to do.

After the class I had to run to escape the tension that had filled my forehead; I jumped down staircases -- one step at a time wasn't enough. I slipped and tumbled, rolling down a flight of staris, hurt my leg. My fellow classmates expressed concern; "I have ADD; can't focus" was my shout back as I lept down the next flight. Maybe they will believe me. I ran and ran and ran; came and watched TV; flipped channels endlessly.

It was very relaxing.

[ July 09, 2005, 09:15 PM: Message edited by: Phanto ]
 

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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I don't know if I have ADD.
I keep thinking obsesively about Dir en grey. It gets in the way during work when I'm like FOCUS ON THIS LETTER AND DON'T MAKE STUPID MISTAKES.
Oddly enough, dispite all of my random thoughts such as "Why is it that women a 38 year old man has sex with a 16 year old girl, people freak out, but if a woman does the same thing to a 16 year old boy, people think it's amusing? It's the same thing, an adult taking advantage of someone young and vunerable and there's nothing funny or amusing about it." or "I love Dir en grey so much." I still managed to catch most of my mistakes in my letters and get them right. No one has complained about them yet and if i am confused about something I'll ask, but I was having a ton of trouble concentrating on some of the difficult ones because I was so darn tired.
Perhaps I have just trained myself to multitask very effectively. I can read while listening to music and playing Sims 2.
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
Ruth, me too! I like solitary sporting things, like hiking or riding my bike, because that's the only way I can exercise without causing total chaos. The one thing in the world I cannot do is swing on a rope. I don't know why, but I always fall off of the rope.

I was at a camp for leadership and team-building (*puke*) and we had to do this wilderness obstacle course that helped us grow together as a team. One of the obstacles was a rope we had to swing across. We couldn't move on until everyone on the team had swung across the rope, you know, with the strong ones cheering on the weak ones and strengthening the weak link. I told them flat out that I can't swing on a rope. "Oh, it's just over the ground - nothing risky. You can do it!" No, you see, it is physically impossible for me to swing on a rope. "Not with a team! Everything is possible with a team!" They made me try it 19 times, and I fell off every single time. "We are not giving up until we get you across!" They gave up and let me walk across.

I suppose it doesn't help either that my other major flaw is not being able to handle not being the best at something. As I've grown into a curmudgeony spinster, it has become this motto: if I can't win, I won't play.
 

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Posted by larisse (Member # 2221) on :
 
Phanto... you just described my entire academic career in that most of my work was done at the last minute, yet always managing to pull off better than average grades. I am just now starting to suspect that my problems may be some form of ADD.

In fact, I believe that my problems in math have something to do with it. I've never been bad in math. Many of the concepts don't even phase me, but whenever I have taken tests or been in a crunch where time was a huge factor, my mind has a tendancy to gloss over steps and just come up with an answer. Sometimes my answers weren't too far off and sometimes they were on the money.

Now, when it comes to money and counting it and making change, I get so paranoid that I tend to overcount. I've only now come to grips with coming up with gratuity without a calculator. (This is the exact opposite of my youngest brother who I call "the Human Calculator".) And, I am terrified of situations where I am in charge of the cashbox. (Enigmatic's friend's method boggles my mind, btw.)

As for paying attention, sometime it can be very hard for me to do, but it doesn't mean my brain is not working. In fact, I am often thinking about more than two things at once. I think quickly, and I've been chastised more than once for talking too quickly. (The latter of which I don't get a sense that I do it, but it has happened so many times that I have to concede the point.) Other times it seems as if I am hyper aware of everything around me.

When I was a kid, I used to "zone" out of lectures and still came up with the answers. Or, I would take a look at something and get the gist of it without knowing too many of the details. I must admit that zoning out of conversations can be a problem as well, but I try my best not to do that because it is just so beyond rude. I'd slap myself if I found I was doing that to anyone.

As for projects and tasks, I can be very single-minded on certain things and totally negligent on others. Case in point, my writing. Unless I have some kind of deadline like NaNoWriMo, I will find every other opportunity NOT to do it. (Of course, that could be argued for anyone who writes.)

Anyways, I agree with Syn about multitasking, too. That is definitely one habit that has kept me from failing.
 

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Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
 
It's great to read here about so many people that seem to have the same problems I do. I could very well picture myself having the same problem you had, Book. I always over-analyze such simple things and end up not getting it at all. I have an excellent memory for things like movie quotes, I can repeat quotes from movies I've seen half a year after I saw the movie, even if I've only seen it once. I have problems with figuring out who's who in the movie until half the movie is over, though. I have absolutely no attention span for school, which leads to me getting bad grades. Every day I try to convince my mom that no matter how hard I try I just can't pay attention. She still says I'm just lazy. There have been so many times I've over-analyzed simple things and ended up not getting them because I thought too much into it, and then I get called an idiot for not being able to get it. I HATE getting called stupid, especially since I've just recently ended my phase where I couldn't figure out whether I'm a complete idiot for thinking about stupid things when I'm supposed to be paying attention in school, or I have slight autistic symptoms because I can't read a paragraph in a textbook for school in an hour, but I can burn through a huge fiction book in a day. I think I'm extremely intelligent, but that's something I'm not so proud of since I did nothing to earn it. I was just born that way. Although, I do like to think alot. About anything. I can entertain myself for hours just by thinking about anything that comes to mind. I like to take credit for being able to use my brain well, even if I have nothing solid to show for it, like good grades. My grades are putting me though a huge depression phase right now. I'm 15, by the way.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
I have an average brain, I think, and it served me well in school. I'm okay at math and okay at memorisation, not brilliant at either but good enough to do well enough in anything I wanted to turn my brain to.

My only oddity is phrases like "I've spent my life eating half-bananas" really please me.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Phanto, it's great that you're ****ing out your f words and such, but would you PLEASE remove your references to deity? To some of us, using deity as a swear is far worse than the f word.

As it is, I can't read your post right now because I don't want to subject myself to any more language like that.
 

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Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
 
No offense to the wonderful people here, but Book doesn't want to here that other people have problems kind of like his. I think he wants answers.

Book, I have your answer. I am you. I excelled in Honors English but took Algebra three times. No, I am not joking.

Here's what you need to do: find a trusted and patient friend that will teach you to count back change. Trying to learn this from a bunch of numbers typed on a screen will do you no good. You need to sit down with some money, learn the technique and dammit, practice!

It will click, I promise.

I used to work at Barnes and Noble and I had to learn this. I resisted it every second but was soooo thankful when it was all said and done.
 

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Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
 
Nah, I don't want answers. I'm not looking for a clue or a cure or anything. I just wanted to voice my bemusement.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
I'm with you, Book. I cannot work through the math in that situation. I have no head for it. I don't hand people extra money to even out the change because I can't subtract fast enough. I'm lucky to hand over enough cash to cover the amount as it is.

People like us are the reason debit cards were invented.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
My dad says that our brains are like a bunch of computers. Some people have more memory than others, some have faster processors. Some people (bless the poor souls) are walking around with a Commodore 64, trying to compete with all the fast computers around them. But we all have different favorite programs, and we all have different glitches in our programs.

I transpose numbers a lot, and can't follow clear directions to save my life, but have a phenomanal memory for songs and music. My dad writes certain letters with the tails the wrong way when he's in a hurry, but has a virtual map of every place he's ever been in his head, and can give you directions from point "A" to point "B" virtually anywhere in LA county off the top of his head, with clear, block-by block directions including right and left turns, compass directions, street names, and landmarks. Etc., etc. It's almost like we're all unique people or something...
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 
While working at our local Bingo hall in the express deli I came up against that same mental "HUH?" loop. I don't feel guilty at all using the change machine because the line goes faster when I'm using it.

The math thing never went well not because I didn't understand the concepts but because of the "one size fits all" method of solving the problems. Doing it the "hard" way was easy and the "easy" way hard.

However, say the name of a random movie or game(that I've seen/played at least once) and I can quote full dialogues between characters, sing various themes and musical passages, and describe to you what is happening onscreen at any point in the music.

Trying to figure out a major that could use those skills. ideas?
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Let me help with tipping...just do 20%, and subtract some if the service is bad. The standard tip is now 18%, but that it a pian.


If a bill is $45.23, then 10% is easy...$4.52. Twice that is $9.04. That is the easy way, really.
 

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Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
 
I'm definitely of the "not remembering things" sort. I have a very small short-term memory and it takes a lot of effort to put things into long-term memory. Like some, I derived physics formulas during tests when I couldn't write them down beforehand.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 

quote:

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My dad says that our brains are like a bunch of computers. Some people have more memory than others, some have faster processors.

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