Quote:
Originally Posted by Jane999
... I found geometry to be like trying to think in mud... I had not run into a weakness in my scholastic aptitude, until geometry.
Here is an interesting thing, algebra is partly about symbols and variables and their relationships. In that, algebra resembles a foreign language, which also has symbols and variables with defined meanings and relationships. I have always done extremely well in any language class I have ever taken, no matter romance language, Slavic or Asian.
Language to me is just a kind of algebra. Everyone has a word for hello, you just have to learn what it is in their tongue.
What the study does not reveal, is the gifts we mathematically challenged people received as compensation for not having math aptitude.
In my case, I am an artist and musician, like my mother.... I taught myself how to read music (another language) as a child, ... I wrecked the other kids in spelling bees back then. When I was in school, I had such a natural ear for languages,.... It happened again later when I studied Russian.
I am just a heavily right-brained person who is high on the creative expressive, language, and emotional intelligence scales. I am very intuitive, always have been. I can reliably spot an unhappy or angry or anxious face out of a crowd of people at a distance, almost instantly. ...
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I found
your post interesting, Jane999!!! I was reading soooo much of this thinking, holy cow! Me too! Our brains are clearly related.
(Btw, welcome to the forums
ye whose brain is much more closely related than my own sister!) Have never studied an Asian language, but after English (naturally...), it was Russian, Spanish (3 years done in 2), and French, with a touch of Hebrew and Latin thrown in for fun.
Same with the spelling, though preferred to write, as was
very shy. Do you also enjoy uncommon words and find yourself naturally altering syntax?
Artist as well, in many mediums, going intensely back to earliest memory (which, as it happens was grabbing paints out of a closet, by 3 years old, lol. Oils, my Dad's.) In recent years, studied metal arts, with an intructor saying I was the most creative person ever to come through the program... <not a guy btw, so it wasn't, you know...>) I don't really consider myself a musician, though I love to sing. Like you, also taught myself to read music -- playing it on the organ, as it happened to be the only instrument in the house
-- later taking violin, guitar and drums, but only so so on those, taking each only briefly. Taught myself to write in script before kindergarten, surely a visual thing). As far as movement arts, I grew up figure skating.
In recent years have had trouble recognizing people, which is embarrasing, but reading people in a crowd? Yeah. Especially shy people, which makes sense.
But back to math, geometry was also first scholastic challenge. Straight A's, but almost failed that. Later,
had to take accounting (cannot balance checkbook, and got hysterical one time trying, thinking, this should be so simple, omg, why can I NOT do this?!) and calculus. Never had the
slightest clue what was going on in either. No exaggeration... I was TRULY, TRULY clueless. Managed grades though (???!!!), which made no sense whatsoever.
Haha, was just thinking, after writing this, might as well have posted name and address, eh? Being a privacy freak
, it was only because of the level of resonance with your post. Had to let you know...