Calculus
I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I could understand calculus.
The type of person for whom all those numbers and letters and weird squiggly symbols actually make sense is, in my mind, a superior version of human than I am.
Same goes for people who seem to intuitively always know which way is north, without even looking at a map. Sometimes to get a cheap laugh, Randy will ask me to point in the direction I think something is in, like Durham from Chapel Hill or the taco shop from our house.
I’ll do my best to point in what I guess is the right way. Then Randy laughs at me.
It’s good times.
Anyways, the whole point of this entry was to say that I’m intrigued by how many ways of being smart there are in this world.
I’m pretty good at stringing words together into a sensible form. And I’m not too bad at crossword puzzles.
But I suck at math. And I hate that Tanagrams game with a furious passion.
I have no problem following line-by-line directions, but the weird Ikea instructions with just the pictures and arrows and shit make me want to jab my eyeballs out with the disposable allen wrench they always include.
I’m a crappy artist. I’m a terrible cook. And I’m not intelligent about those day-to-day things that usually fall under “common sense.”
But I can read a 200-page novel in a couple hours. And for some reason, I have an uncanny talent at completing multiple-choice tests. I’m a “No Child Left Behind” dream student. But that sure doesn’t help me when it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t for the life of me figure out where the fuck slot A meets tab B.
Earlier this afternoon, people were talking about IQ tests. It got me thinking about how there’s not really any one test that can really capture everyone’s unique intelligences.
Like I don’t know if my dad knows calculus or physics. But I do know he can fix his own car and can build stuff and is an amazing artist and naturally good at geeky stuff.
Why the hell I didn’t get any of that, I’ll never know. I guess I just take more after my mom.
One of the 101 things on my list (which I have still not published anywhere, but I AM doing) was to force myself to relearn long division, just for the heck of it. Math has never, ever been my strong point, but I try to take comfort in knowing that a lot of people who understand the mysteries of sine waves aren’t nearly as funny or color-coordinated as I am.