Location: Australia Posts: 1262 Joined: 2005-03-20
As an intro to this Sub-Type, I will repost a reply from our fellow member xthewaves:
I have a decent arguement for that. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "MATH ANXIETY." While there may be such a thing as "arithmophobia," or "fear of numbers," there in no way can possibly be a math anxiety without an actual cause for the anxiety in the first place. Afterall, why would someone simply refuse to give their answers in math, display a sence of 'fear' for the subject, or be 'anxious' about going to class? OBVIOUSLY something would have to had happen to them to make them feel that way, and repeated humiliation in class because you don't know how to do certain maths operations could be an important benefactor. While I cannot fully argue against "math phobia," because there probably is such a thing- math anxiety would have to be something caused by something a lot bigger than just "being afraid to try" because we all know that if yo udon't know whether or not you'll be good or not why be afraid? I don't know- maybe i just resent always being labeled that, who knows. but yeha. that's my help. -.- EXPLAIN NUMBERFACT DYSCALCULIA. NOW. DO IT. xD! A'cause that's the kind I think I have xP
Where she raises the crucial question of the difference between maths phobia and anxiety?
Phobia means a fear, or just a strong dislike of something.
Whereas, Anxiety is quite a different experience.
For a child in early schooling that has Dyscalculia, it is understandable that a Phobia/ strong dislike of maths can develop.
Though when this strong dislike turns into Anxiety, is a whole different issue? Where as Xthe wrote; there in no way can possibly be a math anxiety without an actual cause for the anxiety in the first place.
Where the actual cause, is mostly the result of intimidation and abuse from teachers and parents? Which most Members have experienced and is still going on in today's schools.
Which is precisely why we need to help spread the word about Dyscalculia, so that we can stop 'other people' causing this Anxiety to develop in Dyscalculics. Particularly teachers!
Though this issue of Anxiety, also has an important connection with the Procedural Dyscalculia sub-type? Which is a difficulty with Working Memory? Recent research has identified that Anxiety reduces the 'size' of Working Memory. Which I'll write more about under a Procedural Dyscalculia thread. Though basically it produces a difficulty when multiple steps are involved in a calculation. So that anxiety that other people cause Dyscalculics to develop, in fact only increases the difficulty!
But the real issue is that we need to stop Other People from causing Dyscalculics to develop Maths Anxiety!
Geoff.
Location: *looks at map* ...Uh oh.. Posts: 62 Joined: 2005-11-25
YAYSEE.
He agrees with me.
Oh yeah.
Now I feel all smart and stuff. GO ME.
K, sorry. But yeah, I'm all hyper and stuff because GOOD THINGS HAPPENED TODAY ;D. I'm in the best mood I've been in in a long time -.-
|| Ìsís blôws k짧ês åt Ÿôû! <3 ||
|| CHER IS MY NEW IDOL KTHX ||
Those who think that Deafness is a disability are purely under the illusion that they are saying something worth hearing. - Anonymous
If you try to fail and succeed what have you done? - George Carlin
I tend to disagree that there is "no such thing as Math Anxiety." The term is meant to imply a state of anxiety that one experiences when confronted with the prospect of having to solve math problems. I can personally testify - based upon well over 50 years of personal experience - that this DOES exist.
If the issue is one of causality, then that is adequately defined by the term itself: the anxiety produced by having to deal with math. That's self-explanatory. The anxiety isn't caused by anything else.
So, the argument that Math Anxiety doesn't exist simply doesn't hold up.
Location: Australia Posts: 1262 Joined: 2005-03-20
Gary, their is maths anxiety associated with Dyscalculia, which most Dyscalculics know and experience, when suddenly forced to do some mental maths in front of someone.
But their is a Maths Disorder that is solely due to Maths Anxiety or Phobia.
Where their Anxiety is the sole cause of their maths difficulties.
This is usually a result of a traumatic experience being associated with the maths in their early years.
So that thinking of maths/ numbers, brings back the traumatic feeling.
Though this is something that creates some confusion about the definition of Dyscalculia? Whether it should be included under the umbrella definition of Dyscalculia? Yet it is a valid Maths Disorder.
You can have Math anxiety and not be dyscalculic, but it would be difficult to be dyscalculic and not have Math anxiety. The anxiety-e.g., nervousness, fear, dread-is not fear of numbers per se. Mathematics is abstract, and people do not fear abstractions, nor do dyslexics fear words. The real problem is PEOPLE. Social anxiety. A person has difficulty grasping a subject first and foremost because it is not a strength. When they don't get the help they need and are publicly humiliated and made to feel stupid, the anxiety increases. Some people brag that they don't care what others think, but that's a lie. If it were, public speaking would not be one of the top five fears that humans have.
Anxiety and phobia are similar, but they are not one and the same. A person may be anxious about driving, but still able to operate a vehicle on a busy freeway. A person who is phobic avoids the act altogether, and the same holds true for Math.
Neither are difficulties and disabilities/disorders one and the same. I am not particularly mechanical, but I am not "dysmechanical." A person who is mathematically gifted but poor in the arts is not "dysartistic," nor is an intellectual who is bad at sports "dysathletic." A lack of ability or talent in a particular area is not a disability. Disabilities are neurological and genetic in origin, but they can certainly be exacerbated by social humilation--i.e., boors and jerks. And disabilities also constrain and impair a person's life in ways that lack of abilities/talents do not.
There's still a lot we don't know about the way the mind works. I would guess that in twenty or thirty years we will know more about dyscalculia than we do now: that is, if anyone bothers to fully research it.
I agree. That's what I'm saying, in fact. In my case, it's a bit of both; i.e., it's caused by being confronted with a math problem I can't solve, in the first place, but then it's compounded by the fear I feel, due to the social fallout from not being able to solve the problem. My father, a civil engineer, expected me to come out of the womb knowing everything he did and when I didn't, he was terribly disappointed. He used to beat me, while drilling me with flash cards, if I got a wrong answer or if I said, "I don't know." This only reinforced my math anxiety, of course.
Knowing where the math anxiety and the social component of it begin and end is difficult to judge, but I do believe both are at work, simultaneously.
eoffg wrote:
Gary, their is maths anxiety associated with Dyscalculia, which most Dyscalculics know and experience, when suddenly forced to do some mental maths in front of someone.
But their is a Maths Disorder that is solely due to Maths Anxiety or Phobia.
Where their Anxiety is the sole cause of their maths difficulties.
This is usually a result of a traumatic experience being associated with the maths in their early years.
So that thinking of maths/ numbers, brings back the traumatic feeling.
Though this is something that creates some confusion about the definition of Dyscalculia? Whether it should be included under the umbrella definition of Dyscalculia? Yet it is a valid Maths Disorder.
I agree, though, in my case, being dyscalculic, I wouldn't really know, first hand, what non-dyscalculics experience when they have an ordinary twinge of performance anxiety when asked to go to the blackboard and solve a problem in front of the whole class. For me, as a child, it was far worse because I already knew I couldn't solve the problem. I didn't know why, though, until I was 43 years old.
fuegos8 wrote:
You can have Math anxiety and not be dyscalculic, but it would be difficult to be dyscalculic and not have Math anxiety. The anxiety-e.g., nervousness, fear, dread-is not fear of numbers per se. Mathematics is abstract, and people do not fear abstractions, nor do dyslexics fear words. The real problem is PEOPLE. Social anxiety. A person has difficulty grasping a subject first and foremost because it is not a strength. When they don't get the help they need and are publicly humiliated and made to feel stupid, the anxiety increases. Some people brag that they don't care what others think, but that's a lie. If it were, public speaking would not be one of the top five fears that humans have.
Anxiety and phobia are similar, but they are not one and the same. A person may be anxious about driving, but still able to operate a vehicle on a busy freeway. A person who is phobic avoids the act altogether, and the same holds true for Math.
Neither are difficulties and disabilities/disorders one and the same. I am not particularly mechanical, but I am not "dysmechanical." A person who is mathematically gifted but poor in the arts is not "dysartistic," nor is an intellectual who is bad at sports "dysathletic." A lack of ability or talent in a particular area is not a disability. Disabilities are neurological and genetic in origin, but they can certainly be exacerbated by social humilation--i.e., boors and jerks. And disabilities also constrain and impair a person's life in ways that lack of abilities/talents do not.
There's still a lot we don't know about the way the mind works. I would guess that in twenty or thirty years we will know more about dyscalculia than we do now: that is, if anyone bothers to fully research it.
Location: Texas USA Posts: 6101 Joined: 2008-05-25
3/24/10
Dear GaryR55,
Hi. Nice to meet you. I thought that I'd get to know you just a little, being as you joined this forum several months ahead of me. So, I went to your profile, then to your previous posts, and found the link that you posted to your website. I listened to your music Sunday Smiles. You are a very good musician. And, I must say that the Australian red wine that I'm drinking tonight certainly went well with the slow tune that you played. :-) Without the reverberation, you couldn't have done that, could you? And, I noticed that you weren't afraid to use some dissonance in there to move it along. That was a bold move, considering the extra-terrestial sound of the piece. I listened to snatches of the others, but I knew that I'd forget what I'd heard if I kept listening. Good for you for finding something beautiful that you can do, and actually finishing some creations, so you'lll have something to share.
I was so glad to find this forum, (when?) was it about june of 2008? (I don't see my own posts right now, so I can't see the date.) I was so impressed when I joined to see that people like Geoff (eoffg) would lend their expertise to helping us make sense of all that we'd experienced with no one whatsoever to share the trauma with. Nice to meet you. Glad you've come back to the forum. - jus'
Hi, Just! Thanks for the warm compliments, as well as for listening to my music. I appreciate it very much. Lately, I've been working on new project, more in a jazz vein, this time.
When I joined the forum, I was still living in Oklahoma City, not far away from you. As of the end of August 2009, though, I've moved to Seattle. Much cooler here in the summers and the winters aren't as severe, either (due to the warming effect of Puget Sound), especially this year. It's so different from Oklahoma; like a whole new, beautiful world. And the mountains here are real mountains, not hills like the Ouchitas or the Kiamichis.
I'm up late tonight because I couldn't get to sleep, darn it. Strangely, your post says it was made at 6:35am Wednesday, yet the email notification of it didn't arrive in my inbox until sometime after I went to bed at about 11:00pm Wednesday night (Pacific Time). Weird.
I did Sunday Smiles at a time when I'd been listening to a lot of "glitchy" ambient music, especially from Kiln. They like to deliberately put distortion, pops and scratches into the mix, but it's somehow not annoying and, once you've listened for a while, it just becomes part of the background.
Yes, Geoff and the gang really know the subject well. I've had kind of a passing interest in the science behind it, myself. I'm especially intrigued to know that scientists have narrowed it down to a defect in the right parietal lobe. I often wonder how that happened to me in utero. Something my mother drank or ate? A prescription drug she was taking when she was pregnant? Who knows? Whatever the causal agent was, here I am, a dyscalculic, who didn't know he was one until about fifteen years ago. Had we only known, in our childhood, what we know today, eh? It was a different world then.
Location: Texas USA Posts: 6101 Joined: 2008-05-25
3/25/10
Hi Gary,
This will be quick as I have to leave for a college class. Yes, on the move to Oregon,.... I've heard that before. I'd had a friend when I was teen-ager. He and his family had lived in Oregon, where he said that it lush and green, and then, his older sister moved to Oklahoma. His dad was so concerned for her that he moved the rest of the family to Oklahoma to be near the grown daughter. My friend had been about nine years old when the father moved the family to Oklahoma, to a small town there. I don't think that my friend ever completely forgave his father for that move. He just couldn't get used to the un-lushness of Oklahoma.
I hope that you enjoy your new surroundings. I enjoyed your music. I'd been, the same as you, dyscalculic all my life, but not knowing that I was trying to do math with 'broken tools',.... sort of like trying to use a racket wrench that keeps slipping? I heard of dyscalculia about 2 years ago, was diagnosed last year, and finally got a 2 year degree last month. :-) - jus'
Gary, do you read music? It's great that you have music in your life, because reading notes is frequently a stumbling block for dyscalculics. It has been for me, though trying to learn musical basics in my forties didn't help either. I do sing in my church choir (when I go and have been told several times that I should take voice lessons. But a singer who can't read notes is surely handicapped! As you said, back in our heyday there just weren't nearly as many resources. I had confided to my mother that I felt my brain didn't work quite right, and while she conceded that I "have a few knots," she's one of those people who distrusts labels and diagnoses and medications and believes in hard work and prayer. To each her own.
Anyway, it's great you have music in your life. Keep it up!
Hi, Jus'. Yes, it's quite a contrast, coming from the Great Plains to the Pacific Northwest. There's so much more variety here - and that's just the terrain! Then, there is so much more to do here, as well. The drive across seven states, to get here, last summer, was incredible, too. I saw my last blinding thunderstorm (you know, the kind where you have to pull over and wait until it passes because you can't see where you're going?) somewhere in Colorado. Since I've been in Seattle, the rain here is more like intermittent sprinkles than a gulley-washer. But, when it's just plain rain, my cousin (who lives over the hill from me) says it's "pouring." Along the way, the biggest surprise I got was going from Western Wyoming into Utah. I had never been in either state before, so I was expecting more of the same rolling, hilly prairie, dotted with mountains that I'd seen throughout Wyoming. So, when I got into Western Wyoming and found a desolate desert, with rocky buttes, I thought I had finally entered Utah. Strangely enough, when I did get into Utah, it looked more like Central Wyoming! So did the Northeast corner of Oregon, which further surprised me, and this continued into Washington, which I had expected to be Douglas Fir forest and mountains. It is, as you go farther west, but, in the Southeastern part of the state, the land is rolling grassy prairie. The real fun part was coming down out of the Cascades into the eastern suburbs of Seattle and then, finally - after over 2,200 miles - Seattle, itself. Altogether, the trip took me three days of scenic driving.
"Broken tools," good description. I read something here last night about how anxiety has been found to actually reduce working memory. To that, I'd add that it also diminishes one's attention span, as well. The problem I've always had is that, at some point, I can't focus any longer on the problem and my attention is divided between it and my anxiety, the temperature of the room, the clock on the wall, other people in the room, etc, to the point at which I can no longer think about the problem at hand. My mind just goes blank. Fortunately, with a calculator, that doesn't happen - unless I get stuck on a procedural problem, which, thankfully, doesn't happen very often.
People give me weird looks when I've told them I'm a dyscalculic, but that I make my living as an architectural draftsman. Seems rather improbable, I know, but, with my aids (calculator, architect's scale, Autocad's measurement tools - and my fingers), I get by.
Gary
justfoundout wrote:
3/25/10
Hi Gary,
This will be quick as I have to leave for a college class. Yes, on the move to Oregon,.... I've heard that before. I'd had a friend when I was teen-ager. He and his family had lived in Oregon, where he said that it lush and green, and then, his older sister moved to Oklahoma. His dad was so concerned for her that he moved the rest of the family to Oklahoma to be near the grown daughter. My friend had been about nine years old when the father moved the family to Oklahoma, to a small town there. I don't think that my friend ever completely forgave his father for that move. He just couldn't get used to the un-lushness of Oklahoma.
I hope that you enjoy your new surroundings. I enjoyed your music. I'd been, the same as you, dyscalculic all my life, but not knowing that I was trying to do math with 'broken tools',.... sort of like trying to use a racket wrench that keeps slipping? I heard of dyscalculia about 2 years ago, was diagnosed last year, and finally got a 2 year degree last month. :-) - jus'
Hi Fuegos! No, I don't read music. I've tried, a few times, to teach myself how, but it's too much like math, to me. I can memorize what the symbols mean, to a limited extent, but applying it is the hard part. There's just no way for mt integrate it all and process it fast enough to make sense of it and then extrapolate from the page to my instrument. Thankfully, I've always had the "gift" of being able to play just about any instrument by ear. I've had instances in which I've picked up an instrument for the very first time and I just begin playing it. I don't really know how it happens; just something intuitive, I guess. I have no idea what notes I'm playing - I just go by sound and touch.
I know what you mean. When I was a kid, in the fifties and sixties, no one had a clue about dyscalculia yet. I was told I was "stupid," or "lazy," but the thing was, no one could figure out why I was good at everything but math. It used to really infuriate my father, who was a civil engineer, and, somehow, my little brother and sister escaped it and were very adept at math, which made things even worse for me. The usual sibling rivalry was punctuated by fights that erupted between my sister and I over my complete lack of math ability. Once, at the dinner table, when we were in our teens, she said of me, to Dad, " he probably has an IQ of about 60." That really hurt, but I got the last laugh at the age of thirty, when I tested for membership in MENSA. I fell two percentiles short of qualifying (due to the math deficiency), but, even so, my IQ is such that I'm at a level equaled by only about one in five thousand people. You should have seen my sister's face when I told her that.
Gary
fuegos8 wrote:
Gary, do you read music? It's great that you have music in your life, because reading notes is frequently a stumbling block for dyscalculics. It has been for me, though trying to learn musical basics in my forties didn't help either. I do sing in my church choir (when I go and have been told several times that I should take voice lessons. But a singer who can't read notes is surely handicapped! As you said, back in our heyday there just weren't nearly as many resources. I had confided to my mother that I felt my brain didn't work quite right, and while she conceded that I "have a few knots," she's one of those people who distrusts labels and diagnoses and medications and believes in hard work and prayer. To each her own.
Anyway, it's great you have music in your life. Keep it up!
Location: Texas USA Posts: 6101 Joined: 2008-05-25
3/25/10
Such good stories you tell, Gary. On the IQ test, when I went to get tested for dyscalculia, I didn't even know that I was being given an IQ test. The result was that I made MENSA. And I was just mad enough about all those years of 'mistreatment' that I went and joined. Yes, hahaha. I'll let you in on something. Apparently, the IQ test people add some points to a person's score as they 'age'. So, if you were tested NOW, you'd probably make MENSA. MENSA accepts IQ test scores, SAT scores, and some other things, but MENSA's own test only gives a pass/fail score. However, it's cheaper than an IQ test. It's only about $40.00, or was as of last year. I think that it's a great joke, although not all MENSANS are as amused as I am.
What a great description of your drive of 2,200 miles through 7 States. And, yes, we do know what pouring rains feels like. It's like someone is dumping buckets of water on your windshield from a height of about twenty feet above you, so that you wonder if the whole thing will push out of its frame. And they call a nice rain where you can actually see each raindrop a 'pouring' rain? That's funny.
In one of your above posts, you'd been interested in the 'left intraparietal sulcus', just as I'd been when I first found this site,... and still am. And now, in your next post, you show an interest in "anxiety has been found to actually reduce working memory", and so was I. Please do a Google word search on the Hippocampus, as this dear part of the brain is necessary for short term memory (or was it working memory?) and can actually be damaged by long term stress. I believe that this is what happened to me, partly as a child and teenager, and then another big dose of it as an adult. Right after leaving that last situation, I wasn't able to, for example, memorize the components of items on the Mexican Restaurant menu, so as to 'check' the to go boxes. After about a year, I got into college for the first time, and that, by comparison, didn't even seem 'stressful'. ;-)
Forgive my noseyness, did you get a degree in Architecture?
And, yes, on my dear friend Rottiewoman, the first time I saw her name, I almost gasped. But someone else soon came along and deciphered it for me. You were funny. Shame on you. - jus'
Hi, Jus'. Well, since I'm a writer, among other things, I guess the story-telling facility just comes naturally, but thanks.
I tried to find out, from MENSA, what my scores were, several years ago, as I had lost my letter from them that I'd received back in 1982. Of course, they told me they don't keep those on record. I remember the tests were the Stanford-Binet, the Cailfornia Test of Mental Maturity, and I'm not sure about the third one. I scored highest on the California test.
But, you're right. It's all a lot of b.s., anyway. As MENSA admits in its own literature, a high IQ is no guarantee of success in anything in life and they also admit that some of their members are unemployed or homeless (I would imagine that's gone up markedly in recent years!).
Another thing is that, right after the testing, we all went out to lunch together and that's when I had a chance to observe my fellow applicants, as well as the proctors, in a social setting. All were either terribly insecure people with a lot of pent up hostility, who were there to prove themselves the brightest, and then there were the proctors, who just sat and smiled at us as though they thought we were all idiots. So, it didn't take me long to realize this was not a club I'd want to belong to, anyway. For me, it was just a way of confirming, for myself, what I had suspected all along; i.e., that despite my math deficiency, I was not what people had thought I was.
Yep, after a few months here, I realized that I'd already seen the worst of Seattle's weather and that it is nothing to get excited about. Seattle natives would totally freak out if they saw an ice storm like the ones Oklahoma City gets, occasionally. That's to say nothing of a tornado. You know, since I have been here, I have only heard a thunderclap on about three occasions, and when I say "A thunderclap," that's exactly what I mean. Just one. Then nothing. We don't even get thunderstorms in the Puget Sound area. You have to go away from the Sound to find that, but even in Snoqualmie, which is in the foothills of the Cascades, the rain's about the same as in Seattle and hardly any electrical activity, either. But, the whole area is surrounded by mountains, so that's not surprising, really. In Snoqualmie, you're at about 2,500 feet above sea level and the mountains around you are peaking at around 4,000 to 5,000 feet. So, it's quite common to see low-lying clouds get hung up on the mountains. I actually met someone there who thought it was fog! LOL
I know what you mean about college not seeming stressful. I went to college right out of the Air Force in 1974, but I had to quit for financial reasons and I didn't go back to complete my degree until 1984. By then, I was appalled at how "dumbed down" the curriculum had become in ten years' time. For example, I had to take a course in "Vocabulary Building" in 1984 that was a complete joke to me, as the words and phrases being taught were some I'd been familiar with by the time I was 12. When I said so in class, one day, you'd think I had urinated on my desk or something. The "instructor" was on my case for the rest of the semester, but the funny thing was, nothing he threw at me could stump me.
Nope, no degree in architecture. To get there, I'd have to somehow get through algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. Same thing for engineering. In fact, these days, any subject you major in you're going to have to get through some higher math to fulfill the minimum requirements. My calculator can only take me so far. Back when I got my degree in graphic design, I lucked out and had a choice between University Science or College Algebra. I went with science, thus bypassing the math requirement. There was a little math involved in the science class, but not nearly as much as there would have been in algebra.
Well, Rottiewoman hasn't answered me yet, so I hope I'm not in the dog house.
Gary
justfoundout wrote:
3/25/10
Such good stories you tell, Gary. On the IQ test, when I went to get tested for dyscalculia, I didn't even know that I was being given an IQ test. The result was that I made MENSA. And I was just mad enough about all those years of 'mistreatment' that I went and joined. Yes, hahaha. I'll let you in on something. Apparently, the IQ test people add some points to a person's score as they 'age'. So, if you were tested NOW, you'd probably make MENSA. MENSA accepts IQ test scores, SAT scores, and some other things, but MENSA's own test only gives a pass/fail score. However, it's cheaper than an IQ test. It's only about $40.00, or was as of last year. I think that it's a great joke, although not all MENSANS are as amused as I am.
What a great description of your drive of 2,200 miles through 7 States. And, yes, we do know what pouring rains feels like. It's like someone is dumping buckets of water on your windshield from a height of about twenty feet above you, so that you wonder if the whole thing will push out of its frame. And they call a nice rain where you can actually see each raindrop a 'pouring' rain? That's funny.
In one of your above posts, you'd been interested in the 'left intraparietal sulcus', just as I'd been when I first found this site,... and still am. And now, in your next post, you show an interest in "anxiety has been found to actually reduce working memory", and so was I. Please do a Google word search on the Hippocampus, as this dear part of the brain is necessary for short term memory (or was it working memory?) and can actually be damaged by long term stress. I believe that this is what happened to me, partly as a child and teenager, and then another big dose of it as an adult. Right after leaving that last situation, I wasn't able to, for example, memorize the components of items on the Mexican Restaurant menu, so as to 'check' the to go boxes. After about a year, I got into college for the first time, and that, by comparison, didn't even seem 'stressful'. ;-)
Forgive my noseyness, did you get a degree in Architecture?
And, yes, on my dear friend Rottiewoman, the first time I saw her name, I almost gasped. But someone else soon came along and deciphered it for me. You were funny. Shame on you. - jus'
Location: Texas USA Posts: 6101 Joined: 2008-05-25
3/26/10
No, Gary, you won't be in the dog house with RottieWoman, but she and her hubby do have a new puppy in the house, along with other more mature members of the family, so that's probably what's detained her from returning promptly.
I've had, amazingly, a couple of really good MENSA parties with gourmet food. But, Texans who have money are good at that, and the parties were both held in mansions, one in Flowermound and one near Coppell.
But, I did have a very similar experience to what you described on the day that you 'applied'. This was not a MENSA gathering that I'll be telling you about. (How to put this?) I was at a convention (I won't mention what kind, okay?), eating my sandwich at a table. All seats were needed, so others who I hadn't known previously took the other seats at my table. They started telling their accomplishments, each one trying to sound more 'accomplished' and more 'amazing' than the last, clearly with the intention to impress each other. I was staying quiet (which is not at all my personality) because I could tell that they were on the verge of a feeding frenzy already, and who knows what might have happened if I'd tried to, in any way, join in. And they kept talking and coming up with stories of themselves as 'poster children' for all things outstanding,... and completely ignoring me, smushed over against the wall, (which was fine with me) and then, as they began to run out of 'fuel' for the fire, they all turned their attention to me, and gingerly began to ask who I was. I could tell that, having already said all that they could to 'impress' each other, there was no longer anyone else left to 'impress' at the table, except me, and so now, I had suddenly become 'visible' to them,... which I thought was really funny, since at first, they had all acted as though I were invisible, and not worth even acknowledging my presence. And here's the funniest part. I'd lived many years in South America, had done more of the things that they were bragging about than any of them had done, had seen more places than they had seen, and had been in more physical danger in the process than any of them had been in,... but as I finished my last bite of sandwich, I smiled, nodded goodbye, and left the table without telling them anything about myself. They looked after me longingly, wondering who I was and whether or not they had impressed me. As I left, I had their undivided attention. :-) And, I know just what you mean when you described the "terribly insecure people with a lot of pent up hostility, who were there to prove themselves the brightest...". (As I walked away from that lunch table, it was as if they were asking each other, "Who was that?" "Why, she's the Lone Ranger!")
Gary, you said: "So, it's quite common to see low-lying clouds get hung up on the mountains. I actually met someone there who thought it was fog! LOL" ...It's NOT fog?
Today in Spanish class, we were teamed up by the teacher and ordered to go through an exercise and only speak Spanish. She teamed me up with a Hispanic fellow, so we finished quickly, and filled up the rest of the time while the others were still figuring out how to answer the questions by just talking about our cars, how younger Hispanic siblings tend to only understand Spanish, but not to speak it, etc., and along the way, I would laugh. The teacher reprimanded me from behind her desk saying, "In Spanish jus'!" I said, "We're only speaking pure Spanish. I can laugh in Spanish, too." My partner backed me up. The teacher said that she really couldn't hear me. But, I'm sure that she just assumed that if I was laughing, we must be talking English together. She's not used to having fluent Spanish speakers as students. Nobody else was laughing together, because nobody else could understand each other in Spanish.
I'm working on my AA degree. Also, I'm waiting for word back from Austin to see if they'll approve giving me 'core complete' for a Logic class in substitution for College Algebra. Good for you for getting to take that Science class. Nice 'save'. - jus'
Gary, yup you're correct, I am the very proud mom of two Rottweiler girls! My beloved young dog and a new baby girl, aged 10 weeks.
Also have a sweet elderly Lab. and , 'jus, thanks for helping out in the response on that, you were certainly right in your phrasing
enjoying the conversations between you and Gary, not a lot of time to reply but like to read...and I can relate to the Spanish and travel stories.
I would love to see more of the West coast, particularly the Northwest.
didn't know too much about Mensa but had heard of it, my hubby "qualified" for it at some point but don't think he ever joined. He really enjoys music
Location: Texas USA Posts: 6101 Joined: 2008-05-25
3/26/10
Dear RottieWoman,
I'll just drop you a note here, as I have to get on with studying,... having to force myself. I just wanted to mention that starting about a year ago, MENSA has a job search site, like careerbuilder. I believe that the last I heard from you, your hubby does have a new, good job. But, I know that you went through a few difficult months a short while back. So, even though it costs money to join MENSA, that job search site might make it worth his while to join? Just a thought. - jus'
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