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Mom's
Tom and Ned, taken at one of Tom's famous birthday barbeques on the beach at Santa Barbara. Someone turned the photo into a magnet. It's not easy
being green Tacky, tacky, tacky I am a theatre critic OK...so it's a new "career", but if you're interested in reading my reviews, go here Updated 2/11/01 WHAT I'M READING Christmas gift from my friend, Diane, who felt it was time I learn more about Australia That's it for today!
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NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE 12 February 2001 Sunday was not a day of rest. I seem to have accumulated an inordinate number of tapes for transcription and it was the day to stop futzing around and just get it done. I got up at the usual 4 and worked till Peggy came on line, then after our daily chat, I settled down to work. Whipped through those babies like a house o’fire. In addition to the usual chart notes (which I didn’t get to), both providers for whom I work had rush reports, one on forensic information that needs to be in court on Monday, the other with information about neuropsychological testing for kids needing additional time for taking tests in order to do better in school. I worked pretty much steadily all day, until time to cook dinner, and accomplished more than I have in a very long time. It was like having a "real" job again. Not entirely pleasant all day long, as it’s damn cold in this office and we’re keeping the heat down in deference to the ridiculous utility bills (we’ve increased from $125 to $180 to $250 in the past three months--and we never turn on the heat!). If I took my hands off the keyboard and put them in my pockets to warm them up, the keyboard would get cold to the touch when I started typing again. My stainless steel coffee mug felt like it had come out of the refrigerator. The neuropsychological reports that I type bother me. Well, I’m not sure "bother" is the right word. Maybe they reassure me. Maybe that’s a better way of putting it. The particular kid who was the urgent report yesterday has a high IQ but is having a hard time in school, specifically with language arts (English and Spanish). Through neuropsychological testing, the psychologist is able to show a pattern of strengths and weaknesses which indicate that his brain has difficulty processing various bits of information and the psychologist is able to offer suggestions which can help this kid achieve his highest potential, by, for example, giving him extra time for test taking (his score goes up 50% when he is given extended time) and recommending a tutor to help him essentially learn how to learn. Over the years of typing for this guy, I've become aware of the complexities of the human brain and how it is possible to be quite intelligent, and yet be biologically structured so that acquiring some types of information is difficult. Modern techniques allow us not only to identify such problems but also to help the student overcome them. I wish such techniques had been around when I was growing up. It’s time to reveal my deep, dark secret. I’m an intelligent person. I’m no Einstein, but I’m no slouch in the brains department either. Yet I’ve spent most of my life feeling stupid because I have such incredible difficulty with math. I’ve always had difficulty with math. Show me numbers and my brain goes dead. In fact each time I type reports for the psychiatrist, I get a little nervous when he does his mental status examination because one of the standard tests for mental alertness is subtracting serial 7s, which means starting at 100 and subtract 7 to get 93, then subtract 7 again to get 86 and on down as far as you can go. Each time I read that the patient can or cannot subtract serial 7s, my brain automatically starts subtracting, and getting muddled. It's 16 hours from here to Perth, but if I want to figure out what time it is in Peggy's world, I still start at 12 and count 4 more on my fingers. The psychologist does testing which involves doing math problems in your head. It strikes fear and terror in my heart (well...ok...perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration). I cannot do math in my head. I can barely do more than simple math with paper and pencil. Do not talk to me about train A leaving a station at 9 a.m. and train B leaving another station an hour later and ask me what time they’re going to pass each other in Duluth. Throughout my entire school career, I guessed the answers to problems like this. I haven’t a clue where to begin figuring the answer. When I was in high school I was on a college track in a school that was noted for being primarily geared for preparing girls for a business career. In order to get into a college, I needed to take advanced Alegbra, a course which the school did not offer. So the math teacher, dear old Sister Benedicta, gave me private lessons after school. I would sit in a laundry room and she would teach me, then leave me to work out problems. I still remember the anguish of realizing I just wasn’t understanding any of it. I passed the course, but I never really learned a thing. Geometry was a lost cause. I’m intelligent enough to fake it, but I spent all those years just feeling too stupid to learn. So the more I type these reports, the more I realize that I really do have some sort of screw loose in this head. I can fake it conversationally in two different foreign languages and can read a bit of Spanish and Italian, languages I’ve never studied, and can still pick out sentences in Latin, but I can’t balance a checkbook or figure out gas mileage. I wonder what would have happened to me educationally if the knowledge we have today about brain function had been available when I was growing up. At the very least I wouldn’t have gone through life thinking about how stupid I am because I can’t learn math concepts. |
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Some pictures from this journal |
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Created 2/7/01 by Bev Sykes |
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