Too Close For Comfort!

Growing up the oldest of 7 brothers and sisters was definitely interesting to say the least. Finding room, time and safe transportation for a family that size was even more interesting.

I know what you're thinking- No, we are not catholic, and we didn’t have a farm or anything. (Ok, we kind of had a farm but that’s a whole other story.) The fact that they had found a cure for smallpox, we never had cable and I my parents were bored, strongly contributed to the small population boom in the Korvinos family.

In the beginning it was just Mom and me. My dad was long gone and my mother was young and beautiful. When I say beautiful, I mean model-esque. We were just two girls making our way in the world. She was super mom by day, keeping the house uber spotless, dancing the dust away and by night, she was disco diva, knocking em’ dead on the dance floor.  My clothes were always neat, I had the best toys and she had time to tame my crazy curls, sing me to sleep and color fuzzy art posters with me. She knitted me blankets and read me bedtimes stories.

Then came the new dad and then the siblings.

One by one.

Pretty soon, my peaceful life of having mom all to myself was over. I had to share now. First it was Michelle.

 I was so excited to have a baby sister. When I first saw her I tried to hug her death. I think I WAS Jealous too. Though I don't remember it, my mom says I was a little, teensy- tiny bit mean to her.  I only remember wanting to feed her a bottle, but maybe I was hiding it from her instead.
I don't know.

After Michelle came Tresha.

Then my two brothers

                                                                           then Kori

and finally by the time I was 12, my little sister Charlie was born.

For obvious reasons, the bedtimes stories and the singing and knitting and pick-nick lunches gradually stopped. I went from having my own room with all my things kept neatly in it to sharing with one, then two, sometimes even three of my siblings.

Getting around to the grocery store was more of a chore. In fact getting anywhere was a chore. We never seemed to have a big enough car and we NEVER had air conditioning. Air conditioning was rolling the windows down and praying to god a bee didn’t get stuck in your teeth.

When I was younger, there was no such thing as a mini-van. All vans were these titanic, cargo containers on wheels and if you were super cool, you had a wicked dragon painted on the side or a sweetass wizard.

Unfortunately, having 7 kids meant you needed one of these gargantuan beasts to fit everyone inside safely. Even more unfortunate was the fact that they weren’t always affordable. The only people you saw tooting around in them back then were old retired people, or families with two kids and a dog and a buttload of money.  My parents must have visited 300 hundred car lots from the California border all the way to Portland looking for something that would fit all of us kids in it to no avail. I remember the car sales men looking at our small baseball team and immediately trotting across the parking lot to the giant van section. 

We would roll up on the lot and they’d come out through the big glass doors like sharks. We prayed no one would drop any change. ... it was like blood to the lot sharks...they smelled us... smelled our desperation. What they didn’t smell was the fact that though my step dad had an awesome job and worked his hands raw, 7 kids can set a pay check on fire with how fast they can rack up the cost of living. 

Anyway, they started with the large ticket items, but as they chissled away at my parents credit, the sharks ended up pointing us in the direction of beat up old station wagons. The one new station wagon we were able to get, got stolen shortly after buying it and  because we only had liability insurance WE GOT SCREWED. So, we got old beaters after that.

It is really hard to look cool in a station wagon, not to mention that a station wagon was meant to only seat 4 kids in the back easily...not 7, and definitely not carseats as well. Back in the day when these old station wagons were made, there were no carseats, babies were held in the laps of their mothers (while they chain smoked and dad tossed a beer back on the way to the bowling alley), so in the early 80's when carseats became mandatory, the back seat space intended for 4 children began to shrink. Unlike a smaller sibling that can be smashed into another smaller sibling to make room, the cold metal and plastic of a carseat is not as …squishy. It can’t be squished into a more acceptable shape to fit that extra kid. You can’t sit on a carseat ALLREADY OCCUPIED by a toddler. I spent a good portion of my life with a sibling riding in my lap. I have concluded that this is why am short.

We used to fight over who got to sit by the window. Being the oldest meant I would beat any sibling down who tried to pry the window seat from me. It was the only way to get any air in that hot muggy, stinky car. It was the only way I could fight off the car sickness. Did I mention my parents smoked in the car? ugh.
Misery.

As the number of children in my family grew and we often had cousins and friends as well, some of us bigger kids were then forced to ride in the back of the station wagon, staring out at the cars behind us. Luckily we fogged the windows up often so it was hard to see who was crammed into the back.

The windows always fogged up and our mom would tell us to stop breathing. In fact she always seemed to be chanting something like “Stop farting, stop kicking, stop poking each other, stop looking at each other, make room for Michelle, make room for Jaime, lock the door, roll up the window, roll down the window, no booger flicking, give the baby her pacifier, give the baby her bottle, stop kicking my seat, stop pulling her hair, stop pulling my hair, don’t mess with the head rest. Get your foot off my seat belt, put on your seatbelt, DONT LEAVE CRAYONS IN THE CAR, stop playing with the ashtrays, don’t put your trash in the ashtrays, stop bouncing.”

Oh, we drove my mom crazy in the car. My mom would threaten to beat us within an inch of our lives, but since we had graduated to the cargo bay of the behemoth station wagon, we were far from her reach. She had to pull over to beat us to death, unlike the good ol days when she could hit all of us in one swipe, while driving and lighting a cigarette at the same time.

Sometimes we’d get bored and started fighting. My brother would make some comment about my hair which would then start a kick fight, which meant my brother and I would be laying on our backs, facing each other kicking like mad until someone started bleeding. This caused the car to wobble all over the road and mom to stop the car and break out her purple flip flop of doom.

Needless to say, road trips were unbearable.

There was a short period of time we didn’t have even a station wagon. All we had was my dads old truck, which we drove 50 miles from town to home, up a hill, in his single cab. That’s right, all those kids in 60 apache, in the cab and 2 adults. I got to ride on the floorboard.

It just so happens that my dad’s old truck had just had a sweet new 8 track installed. There was a rainbow of wires hanging down from the dashboard getting tangled in my hair. It was cold outside, but I was being cooked out by the heater that was blasting on the floorboard. I was cramped and miserable. Suddenly my mother freaked out and started hitting me in the back. I had no idea what the hell was going on. Apparently, the wires under the dash had shorted out and caught my 80's vinyl puffy jacket on fire. My back was smoldering.

 No worries, my dad didn’t bother stopping the truck. He didn’t want to lose momentum on the big hill we had to climb. Mom bravely put the fire in my coat out as we putted along.

Later when that truck broke down, we used it for a play house. I got revenge on the truck by letting Barbie use the loose wires as a hammock and the glove box as an apartment. The truck then got fought back by causing a board to break loose from the playhouse we'd constructed in the bed of the truck. One day I hopped out of the back of the truck and directly onto a nail sticking out of the board.

These days, I really appreciate a car with leg room, a working stereo and windows that roll down. I don’t need fancy rims, or hood scoops or dinkle balls to be happy with my ride. Hell, just being the only person in my seat is glorious! I love all my siblings and I wouldn't change anything about my upbringing. Those cramped car rides helped shape me into the neurotic person I am today. ;)

My Special Easter Catastrophy

I am not very skilled in Holliday preparedness. In fact, it can be said that I am painfully awkward. Last night I was trying to be good. I made a bunch of potato salad and baked a cake....but, I got really into something on TV and started to smell this weird rubbery-burney smell.

                                                                           Ooopsies!!

 We will just say that's where the bunny pooped em out right?

So I decided  that I' will hide these REALLY good. Like Osama Bin Laden good. Like Jimmy Hoffa and the Holy Grail good.

 We decided we could fix the eggs and came up with a plan. We would rebuild the eggs. We had the technology.

Thanks god a skilled scientist was on hand in the lab to oversee the egg dying and restoration project.

Coloring the eggs took dozens of logged manhours and a very careful set up in the laboratory. One tiny mistake in the solution could be CATASTROPHIC.
Meanwhile I was busy making a carrot cake which led to another disaster. For some reason it broke into millions of tiny peices. I have successfully held them together with glue and frosting.

As you can see eggcellent plastic surgery and a good dye job gave Bunny Cotton Tail a new lease on life.

Hoppy Easter!

Dyscalculia, A Not So Funny Story. (Read me if you know a stupid smart person, or a smart kid with math trouble)

This blog is dedicated to Mr. Erickson of North Middle School and Mr. Johamm of Wolf Creek Elementary

  I have often been called the stupidest smart person on the planet. Clearly that is a bit of a stretch, but I have failed every college math class up to Algebra II so many times that I can no longer eve get financial aid. In fact, my student loans are now due, and I don’t have the mathematical sense to figure out how I owe more than I borrowed. I used to never have a bank account because I would screw up the mathing and end up overdrawn, I was always late coming back form breaks and I still get screwed up when baking because...fractions. Betty Crocker apparently doesn't agree with my version of a cup. 

Daylight Savings time has cost me a job in the past and keeping appointments was almost impossible because I seem to have my own internal clock and calendar that is never in synch with the rest of the world.

I'm dangerously uncoordinated and have the bruises to prove it

   

Growing up, I embarrassed myself often. For Halloween I dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and had her beauty mark on the wrong side of my face because it didn’t dawn on me that I needed to reverse it. Instead, the girls thought I was just trying to be a hooker. To be fair, I saw it on my right side on TV and books and magazines, so I drew it on my right side. Yes, the same thing happened when I dressed up as Madonna.

I also couldn't seem to read maps; I would just get disoriented as if my internal compass had lost it's magnetism. This proved challenging when I moved to Utah from Oregon for a bit. In Utah, no one provided directions that used left or right; instead they said things like, “At the stop light you are going to want to head North."

North? Where the &*^$% is north? Just tell me left or right damn it! I don’t carry a friggn compass with me, I’m not Indiana Jones!

They would say, "Follow the mountain range, it travels...." (North, West? East? I can’t remember!)

While there, I got a job with Detroit Diesel in Salt Lake City before they moved to Tooele, the town that I lived. I was late by an hour my first day because I couldn’t find it. It was a terrible morning. I drove up a one way street going the wrong direction. I must have passed the airport six times before I finally rolled up to a security guard bawling my little eyes out. He took pity on me and gave me very detailed directions using landmarks I would see since he figured out he was talking to an idiot who doesn’t know North from South.

"The mountain range runs....oh never mind, here- once you get to the third Taco Time, take a right."

 I pretty much figured out right there that I will never be a pilot.

I am a Dyscalulic through and through. Chances are, you have met someone else like me and couldn't quite figure out what their problem was.  No? Think of someone you know who can’t dance, gets themselves lost in the mall or in the hospital and can never remember names. These people can be really smart, but seem really…well….dumb at times. Ehemm, we have all heard about the test rockets that have failed because of miscalculations.If you know someone like this, then you probably DO know someone with a form of Dyscalculia.

Yeh, that's me. I can't tell you how frustrating my life has been having Dyscalculia. I failed classes and excelled in others leaving my teachers and parents scratching their heads. My parents were told by my teachers and counselors that I was just lazy, therefore I was grounded  until my grades improved, which of course never happened. It seemed that my parents were perpetually disappointed in me. They eventually gave up on grounding me for the grades, but I could never call my father and tell him I got straight A's, which was a lifetime goal.

It had to be laziness. What else could it be?

My Calendar Every month is Oz month.

   

   
Early School Days

 In my early school days, some teachers claimed that I was retarded, using that exact adjective. They demanded that I have my IQ tested. I'd go into their little room, read some words, play with blocks and collect my sticker and go back to class. When the tests came back that I was actually gifted, (here’s me tooting my own horn) the only other explanation for my poor grades was that I was indeed lazy.

I was told that so much, I believed it. I believed I was lazy and when I tried so hard to understand math that my eyes bled, I truly began to feel like I was a fraud.

I wasn't really smart. Smart kids are good at math....right? That's a given- all smart kids are brilliant at math. End of story. 

I felt like a fraud. I am supposed to be smart- why does mathing suck so bad for me? Unfortunately, my insecurity caused me to develop a “know it all” type personality, because I was afraid someone would find out that I wasn't as smart as I was supposed to be. It was a pretty horrible feeling.

   
I remember the first time I felt like a fraud.  It was in the first grade and I was six years old.
Mrs. S. seemed to genuinely not like me. I know that sounds strange, but even now when I look back, my memories seem to support this feeling. I remember feeling like she could look straight through me with her disapproving eyes, as if she were trying to catch me on fire with her hateful first grade teacher death glare.

In her class there were certain blocks of the day that were designated for math only. She would hand us little sheets with numbers on them and we were supposed to make sense out of them.

"Do this, and this, and this thing too. Don't forget to carry this number and look here.... this magic happens."

This was strange. I did not understand the steps I was supposed to take no matter how many cubes she stacked on top of each other. I am pretty sure I actually swallowed one of those cubes once out of fear.

One day she laid out a long strip of butcher paper with numbers on it and we were supposed to use those numbers somehow to jump to some number on the butcher paper. If you got the combination right, and jumped to the correct number then everyone clapped for you! I watched the other kids and tried to see a pattern, but they didn’t all jump to the same number yet still people clapped for them. I wanted everyone to clap for me too. I was so scared! I kept slipping to the end of the line until I was the very last kid.
There she stood, Mrs. S., glaring down at me with her pencil thin eyebrows and white streaked hair-looking much like the evil step mother from Cinderella. She barked some some numbers at me and I was supposed to somehow figure out how many jumps to make until the other kids clapped for me too. I remember sweating. I remember almost crying. I remember I had to pee. She barked and I  began jumping on that sheet of paper to one number at a time, slowly, hoping to stop as soon as I heard clapping.

Apparently there were some other idiot kids in the class too because I heard clapping and Mrs. S. snapped, "Stop clapping, she's not done!" I almost peed myself.
My heart started pounding. I just looked at her right into those horrid unforgiving eyes, searching her face for some sort of clue. I was frozen. Where do I go? What number is right? Please stop making that face at me, I don't know what you want!

She repeated the numbers over and over, each time getting more frustrated until spit flew out of her mouth. She then grabbed me with her long nails and sat me in my desk.  Some kids giggled. I just wanted to cry and PEE.

A few days later Mrs. S. told my mother that I was retarded. She wanted to have me tested. My mom argued with her and threatened to sick my kindergarten teachers on her, who would produce a glowing evaluation of my kindergarten coloring, cutting and gluing genius. 

On the day my mom was supposed to have a toe to toe with Mrs. S., Angels  seemingly came down from the heavens and descended upon my classroom, for when my mother arrived early for her scheduled parent-teacher conference, she actually witnessed Mrs. S. grab "Josh" by the arm and fling him into a cardboard box full of red and blue kick balls.

I never went back to that school again.



Not my work, but this is my thinking style.

 
 In the 4th grade, it became obvious to me, that I was an idiot. All the other kids had figured out their times tables, could read clocks and tell time, make change out of fake cash registers with fake money and do long division like mathematical ninjas. Me? I cried everyday and got bad grades. To be fair, we also moved around a lot and in the 4th grade and I went to four different elementary schools and each class was doing something different in math. I went from beginning multiplication in one school to long division in another missing every step along the way.

One day, in my new school, my new 4th grade teacher, Mr. Joham asked me if I had learned long division in my other school. He approached the chalk board and drew what looked like a sideways seven, filled it with numbers and asked me to solve. I had no idea what he was talking about. What the heck was that sideways 7? Some of the kids giggled. I felt fire on my face. I began to sweat. I had to pee.

One sharp word from Mr. Joham and the giggles stopped.  I don't remember what he said, but I do remember seeing kids literally shrink in their seats, until they were tiny dots caught in his fierce gaze.  Somehow, he managed to teach me long division in a way that has stuck with me for 28 years. I don’t know why, but I am more confident in my ability to do long division than any other math. I have never EVER forgotten the steps. I wish I had had him for a college math teacher. I am eternally grateful to Mr. Joham for his patience.

By the 4th grade it became very evident that I had issues with math and spelling. I was a demon in soccer and could outrun every kid on the playground. I was reading books like they were going out of style, I loved science, loved history- but never got a single name or date correct on tests. I wasn't stupid...I was lazy.

Right?

In the 4th grade I also took up playing the flute. I loved music and my mom had a flute laying around that I always secretly thought was a silvery magical wand and couldn't wait to be allowed to touch it without getting my hands slapped off.  I thought sheet music was magical. I opened up my first music book like it was an ancient mystical tome that beautiful music comes out of.

Coincidentally enough, my first music teacher was Mr. S., husband to my first grade teacher who, as you may recall, clearly hated me.

Mr. S was a large happy man, with a deep voice and shirts with belly button stains and I LOVED band class. He was nothing like Mrs. S. and I wondered how he could live with someone so mean. I imagined that at night she would turn him into a crow for her amusement and band class was the one place he could be musical and happy.

Then the notes began to sour, once I got the fingering figured out for each note the hard part came. Reading the sheet music was not as magical as I had hoped. I could not figure out how to read those pretty black marks on the page. I didn't understand them. Mr. S. would ask us to play the notes on the page which always translated into some song or other that I knew by ear like Hot Cross Buns or Mary Had a Little Lamb. I made sure I was last so that I could hear everyone else play it first, then I would play the song by ear. pretending to read those fancy notes and he was never the wiser. That only worked until I started playing the clarinets part when he picked me first out of the flutes. He snatched up my sheet music, then looked at me and then hummed my part. Presto...I know my part. I only needed to hear it once.

In the 6th grade I had a new band teacher. Mr. Erickson. He was a very serious man who took pride in having the best middle school band and track team. He did not have a lot of kind words but he still inspired through his actions and with what he DID say. He is still my all time favorite teacher ever. I don’t remember how he found out exactly, but he knew I could neither tell time, nor read sheet music. He sat with me every day after school until I could read those magical notes. That year I wrote my first piece of sheet music for the flute, in the key of C and won the "If I Had Wish Contest." I later moved on to play the french horn, saxophone and percussion, though the flute is still my favorite.

That same year, my IQ was retested. I had taken the national CTBS testing a little bit more seriously in middle school than I had in elementary school where I simply got bored and filled in any bubble I wanted with my neatly sharpened number 2 pencil.  My mom and grandparents bragged to anyone who would listen about how I scored in the top 7% of the nation on those national, but inside, I still felt like she was lying. I felt as though I had fooled the system.

After all, I was tested for TAG and failed because I couldn’t get past the math questions.

By this time math was even harder. Kids had moved on to geometry and I was still crying over fractions. I would listen to the boys chatter behind me in science about Mrs. Anderson’s super elite frickn math class and jelousy would punch me int he face. I felt the need to pretend to be smart the hardest in science class. I couldn’t let them know I was an idiot.
I excelled in science, history and art, but failed English and spelling. This was weird to everyone who knew me because I really loved to write. Who in the hell needs commas anyway? Right? I had no idea wtf a hyperbole was, which I pronounced hyper bully, and still can’t remember what a pronoun is. Still, I held onto the things I was good at. I was active in band, track, the arts, and made it a life mission to beat Lindsay H. at every P.E. sports related event possible.

My classmates had no idea what was going on with me. To them I was a “know it all”, an "art nerd", a geek, a loser. A "supertryhard" of fail land. I got bullied and teased by seemingly everyone.

Even the true smart people.

The non-frauds.

The only thing that I had was my art, and sports and the illusion that I was a smart kid. I was like Hermione, except she was really smart and I was a fake. And also, I don't have a wand or magic or a crush on Ron.

This problem I had was causing me to second guess myself now at everything. My confidence was slipping.

In high school I was still in basic math where I stayed all four years. I never progressed and by the time I hit college, I couldn’t even remember how to do fractions and needed to be reminded how to do use the time table.

Outside of School

 I knew something was off with me, but I just didn’t know what it was. Why could I never remember the names of people or things? I always remember the middle letter in their name and subsequently would remember that their name started with that middle letter...until I caught on to my own wicked ways. For instance, if their name was Larry, I would think their named started with an R. Chad would be Adam, Justin would be Steve and so on. I was a master at renaming people.

I had a job at a place called Fire Mountain Gems. This was my first job of this kind. My job was to sell beads to customers who called. They received a huge catalog, picked beads from it and called into us with their order. Sounds easy right?

Well... I honestly thought I understood what I was doing. I thought I understood all the steps. There were forms we had to fill out for this or that. Special steps had to be taken in certain situations. Pink form for this, yellow for that. What can’t you understand Ozmarelda? I was always filling out the wrong form. I made notes, but my notes couldn’t detail every scenario. I just couldn’t see the big picture and was let go from that position and moved to another department after three months. I needed more time and I'm not going to lie, I needed a supervisor who had a little more patience than the one I had. She never seemed to be able to look at me with out either looking down on me or glaring, I was reminded of Mrs. S every single day.  I was so depressed. I felt like a failure. They even insisted on humiliating me with an exit interview, where she sat me down at the table and pointed out all of the reasons I was "just not a good fit" even though I had only changed departments. I have never had a job where I felt so stupid in my life. I will never have a job that makes me feel that way again either.

I was in college at the same time that I worked for Fire Mountain Gems and started seeing a councilor. When we looked at my many failed math classes that were stopping me from advancing towards my degree, it was said that I was simply suffering from math anxiety. To a point I could understand that, but something more sinister was seemingly at work here. Math anxiety doesn’t cause me to *&^&* up a sweet dance routine in middle school that I seriously wanted to learn so that I too could be a cool tube sock wearing kid. It didn’t cause me to get lost in Utah on many occasions, or struggle with sheet music or a clock. Anxiety also doesn’t cause my cookies to come out so hard they could cut diamonds.

I was just stupid.

I dropped out.

I felt so defeated. I got a job as a pizza delivery driver in my home town and gave up on college. Luckily, my town is small and I didn't need maps to find places.
One day I decided to google "math trouble", "can’t read maps", "directionally challenged", "math learning disability", until the word DYSCALCULIA popped up. At the time, the net was sparse on information. There wasn’t much about it at all, but I could check nearly everything on the list of symptoms.

Symptoms as seen on wikipedia:

• Frequent difficulties with arithmetic, confusing the signs: +, −, ÷ and ×.
• Difficulty with everyday tasks like checking change and reading analog clocks.
• Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting, sometimes even at a basic level; for example, estimating the cost of the items in a shopping basket or balancing a checkbook.
• Difficulty with multiplication-tables, and subtraction-tables, addition tables, division tables, mental arithmetic, etc.
• May do fairly well in subjects such as science and geometry, which require logic rather than formulae, until a higher level requiring calculations is obtained.
• Many of those who suffer from dyscalculia may have parents who perform well to excellent in Mathematics-related fields (such as architects, engineers, or math teachers), though this connection has yet to be genetically linked.
• Difficulty with conceptualizing time and judging the passing of time. May be chronically late or early.
• Particularly problems with differentiating between left and right.
• Might do exceptionally well in a writing related field- many authors and journalists have this disorder
• Difficulty navigating or mentally "turning" the map to face the current direction rather than the common North=Top usage.
• Having particular difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance (e.g., whether something is 10 or 20 feet (3 or 6 metres) away).
• Often unable to grasp and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences.
• An inability to read a sequence of numbers, or transposing them when repeated, such as turning 56 into 65.
• Difficulty keeping score during games.
• Difficulty with games such as poker with more flexible rules for scoring.
• Difficulty in activities requiring sequential processing, from the physical (such as dance steps or sports) to the abstract (signaling things in the right order). May have trouble even with a calculator due to difficulties in the process of feeding in variables.
• The condition may lead in extreme cases to a phobia or durable anxiety of mathematics and mathematic-numeric devices/coherences.
• Inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks.
• Low latent inhibition, i.e., over-sensitivity to noise, smell, light and the inability to tune out, filtering unwanted information or impressions. Might have a well-developed sense of imagination due to this (possibly as cognitive compensation to mathematical-numeric deficits).
• Mistaken recollection of names. Poor name/face retrieval. May substitute names beginning with same letter.


I was afraid I was hypochondriac like the time I read the symptoms a brain tumor and totally thought that was what was wrong with me. I read everything I could get my hands on about it. I studied math on my own time so that when I decided to go back, I would be up to speed.

Finally, I went back to college after a 5 year break. I felt certain after all my research on dyscalculia that I could do this. I had to try again.  I told them what I had, but because I hadn’t been formerly tested, I could only get an accommodation for anxiety. The test was very expensive. I couldn't afford that and there were no programs to help me either.

Still, I was determined to make it. I studied for 10 hours a day and that’s not an exaggeration. I struggled with my homework, but since I was able to correct my mistakes and see where I had went wrong, by the end of the day I had it right. However, once the sun came up the next day, it was gone again. Like Drew Barrymore in 50 first dates. It was like I had never studied it. Over and over and over again, I beat my self up with parabolas. I found a technique that seemed to work on youtube, but then I started forgetting the steps of the neat trick I learned. Something about drawing basketball hoops? Where does the player stand again? I actually started drawing it backwards. 

My boyfriend was so frustrated with me he couldn’t even look at me and I can't explain except it's like watching a TV series like Dexter from Season 1 all the way to season 5 and for some reason everything from seasons 3&4 is missing. You watched it, but can't remember a goddamned thing about it and now watching season 5, you're totally effing confused. Where the eff did this baby come from? OK, so you rewatch it, except now you don't remember what happened in season one...so you change the channel and watch True Blood instead.


No explanation could help me. I failed again. By the end of the semester, my professor had warned me I was going to fail and I should withdraw while I had time.  It was a huge slap in the face. I have not been back even though I am like 8 math and applied science credits away from having my degree.

An Unusual Source of Help.

I sank into a new depression. My confidence at an all time low, I even stopped going out in public. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I was a fraud.
During that time I got addicted to Warcraft. I even had trouble there. When I died, I couldn’t never find my way back to my body, got lost in caves, had no idea how to figure stats out. I spent a good month wandering around as a wisp looking for my effing body or lost in some dungeon. Thank god for warlocks. Perry? wtf  is perry and why do I need it? People would start talking about dkp points, or agility gems versus straight dodge gems and my brain shut down.

Ohh look a unicorn.

I played Warcraft in a pity, self flogging, depression for several years.  What I didn’t realize, was that my brain was changing. I was learning. I was semi retraining my brain through gaming without even realizing it. Hours upon hours of using that mini map to find my body, navigate dungeons, and find quest items seemed to be helping me.

Red line is the route I should have taken. Black line is me wandering around as a corpse.

I also became very good at successfully guessing when a rare whelp would drop when I was out farming. Not only could I guess when the whelp would drop, but I could guess with scarey accuracy about how many kills it would take and how many star rubies I would loot before getting one. I even factored in the best times of day to farm them, averaged how many mobs bot farmers killed, added the estimated number of kills of the same mobs for quests  to figure out how many I needed to kill and how many I would need to kill before I got one to drop. It was an obsession. Suddenly, I realized I was using "odds and probabilities" to score that sweat baby whelp for friends. I did the math in a way that is very unconventional, but I figured it out none the less. Things started clicking for me. I could tell you why using a dodge gem is better then gemming for agility. I had to do the math my own way, but the answers were the same. I was using my brain in ways I never had to before. It still allowed me to think creatively, but this way I had something visual to attach the numbers to. I could see math in motion.
I still had horrible trouble with following steps. When do I stand in the green beam. Is it after phase two or three? Was it the green beam or the red beam?

Oh Christ.

Stand in the black holes or not in phase three? Eventually I began to form rhythms. My awareness of things blossomed. I started to understand how things worked so much better. As I was shamed into becoming more raid aware, I was exercising those weaker parts of my brain. Things just fell into place. I could hear the tumbler in my head and the door unlocked. I had figured out the math on my own using my own mental tools and visuals. Some of this could carry on to the real world. It was a crazy theory. Unbelievable some would say.   Kicking Nass and Taking Manes.  I was yelling at others to friggn move with the rhythm.  Yes, I became an eliteist-primadonna.

I made charts, drew maps, organized raids, helped other with builds. Look at the data from raids to see who wasn’t pulling their weight. I learned all this from a video game?

Putting This Theory to the Test

I finally pulled myself up out of my depression enough to get another job, though I was scared. The job I apped for was a lot like the one I had at Fire Mountain Gems. I felt insecure, but I was NOT going to go in as a know it all. I was going to ask for help. I listened, took notes, asked questions, but as we got deep into the training it became clear I was going to screw this up too. There were so many steps and the systems were like mazes. I couldn't navigate through them.

I told my boss I didn’t think I could make it, but she wouldn’t let me go. She said I was being an idiot for not believing in myself. I cried every day in training. I went home and cried to my boyfriend and guildies. I cried to my best friend. I was so scared. I didn’t want to go through failure all over again. My self esteem though improving wasn't strong enough to take another huge hit like that.

I sent her a description of dyscalculia and explained if they had faith in me, I would stay and eventually be a super, elite ninja of pure, amazing, program knowing , awesomeness. Once I learned the steps I would own it and that is exactly what happened. It took me longer to learn the process and I really did have to outlast a work bully, but I did it. I owned that program and now I am the lead of my team.

****I would like to add that I now TEACH and TRAIN our new hires.****

Tips for people with Dyscalculia on learning a new program for a new job!
***This is how I did it

1) Draw your own diagrams, maps and visual reminders.
2) Try and think of each application as a drawer in a filing cabinet, or relate it to something you know.
3) MAKE NOTES! It may sound silly, but look for visual cues that can help you associate a specific task with a certain function within the program.
4) Breathe! Don’t panic. If you get lost or confused, ask for clarification. You can’t be shy or afraid to let others know you simply don’t get it. If after another explanation you still don’t get it, see if you can meet with your trainer after class, or during a break. I know not everyone has a cool and patient employer like I do, but you have to make sure you have done everything you can to learn this program. Once you actually start using these new programs or applications things might click for you. I found it took between 30-90 days for me to learn a new program from the ground up. Again, I can’t stress this enough…take notes!
 5) If you catch yourself tuning out what your trainer is telling you. Snap out of it. This is your dyscalculic brain tuning out information that it has trouble processing. This is usually an important piece of the puzzle. Take notes, pay attention.
6) DO NOT BE A KNOW IT ALL! This will most certainly sabotage you. You won’t get the help you need, and people will distance themselves from you. It is totally ok to not know the answer, but it is your job to find it.
7) Explain that you are highly visual. Opt to do a lot of hands on work. Especially if you don’t understand it. 
8) Keep all important tasks, appointments, meetings etc. On a calendar. Set alarms to go off a day in advance AND an hour in advance.  Stay in the habit of doing this. If you have to, add this to your phone as well.
9) Keep organized. Make a list of your duties and keep this someplace you can see. Program into your calendar as daily tasks if you must with alarms and all the bell and whistles. Keep the tasks in order and build a routine.

I don’t have to do algebra to do my job, but I did have to memorize all sorts of codes and part numbers. I was able to use my creative mind, the part of me that does work well, and find the answers to problems. I even drew my own diagrams and flow charts to keep me organized. Since I am creative, it as easy for me to understand what was going on with people and what their problems were because I was able to understand how their items broke or might have gotten broken by using my imagination. Whatever magical way I do it, I do it and I do it well.
I have learned that while I often struggle seeing things from certain, prepackaged angles that other accept easily, I can also see situations easily that others can not. Again, I don't know what strange magic this is, but it works. I use to second guess myself. I use to think well, crap....they don’t see it the way I do, I must be wrong. My conclusion must be wrong! But over time, my weird way of seeing things, put me back in the ring and I accepted that I am not really an idiot.

I have learned not to be a know it all. I have learned not to make up answers if I don't know them. That was an ego thing and not a dyscalculia thing. I have learned that I can figure out the problems on my own, I just need to do it my way and not the rigid steps that are forced down our throats. There is more than one way to solve a problem. 

I have learned not to tune numbers out when I start hearing them. This takes a lot of work especially since I work with numbers all day long.

Things That Still Get Me

Standing on this, got me nowhere.

Maps are still an issue I can still get lost in the hospital or in the mall. It has become more evident to me that teletransportation is just never going to happen. Once I had a customer from New Zeeland ask me if we shipped to them.

I thought of the map in mind carefully. Are they closer to the US or UK? Don't get me wrong, just because I am directionally challenged doesn't mean I don't know the names of countries or where they are located. My problem was, that I saw the map as flat and where is New Zeeland on a flat map?
That's right...nowhere near the US. I knew the earth was round and that the continents were not all bunched up on only 1/2 of the planet leaving the other 1/2 to be all water, but it just didn't dawn on me that New Zeeland was well, so close!

So, while I will clearly never be Christopher Columbus at least now I know who ships from where. 

My future!


I know that if I could afford to go back to college, I would need the accommodation afforded to dyscalulics, but I believe I would be successful this time since I have learned some things about myself.
I have always wanted to be a writer and even minored in journalism because that has been my dream since I was a kid...well that and being a kick ass detective. For now, I am a mom, a blogger with more typos than an elephant in typing class, a kick ass customer support person and ex gamer.

Maybe someday my magic will find me a way to get back to college, but for now I am happy helping others with this problem and knowing that I am not an idiot or a fraud. I hear a lot of people say, that there’s a friggn disorder for everything and that dyscalculia is a cop out. I'd like to take them to a new country that doesn't speak their language, drop them off in the middle of a busy city and tell them to find a specific phone booth. The fear and confusion they feel is what people with this LD have all the time when facing their weaknesses.
I hope that at least one person finds this blog and either recognizes themselves or someone they know and after they are done laughing or correcting my typos, they get help if not for themselves, then for the person suffering with this...difference in learning styles. We are not stupid or idiots, we just march to the beat of a different drummer and he is lost.

If you would like to know more about Dyscalulia there are way more resources now including a shit-ton of books that address it specifically;
http://www.squidoo.com/mathld    <<<<The best!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia
http://www.dyscalculia.org/
http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/dyscalcula.html
http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-language/ld-aamp-math/what-is-dyscalculia
http://www.learninginfo.org/dyscalculia.htm
Please share your experiences with me. Was this at all helpful? Do you know anyone like this? I wanna hear from you!

Interview With Karate Unicorn

I had the rare opportunity to sit down with Karate Unicorn and get to know a little bit about him. First of all, let me say that he has a very ominous presence. He is every bit as tall as they say he is. He is a massive moving structure that stands about 10 feet tall and easily weighs over a ton and a half. He walks with pride and confidence. His voice exudes pure awesomeness as he sounds like a combination of Johnny Bravo, and Brian from the “Family Guy”.

Oz: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today Kungfoocious.

KU: Please, call me Karate.

Oz: Yes, about that. I noticed your name is spelled different on your Facebook page, why is that?

KU: For some reason Facebook would not let me use Kungfoocious, Karate or Unicorn in the creation of my account, so I had to get creative.

Oz: You prefer to go by Karate instead of your birth name. Is that because your crime fighting, super-hero, alter ego is so ingrained into your very being that you no longer want to be associated to your old mortal self?

KU: NO, Unicorns are pretty much immortal now and Kungfoocious is a terrible name. I prefer Karate because its kick ass, has less letters in it and fits on my cape better.

Oz: Cape? You have a cape now?

KU: Of course. Don’t most all super hero’s? In fact, it's getting made right now. I use the same tailor as Wonder Woman, however she's kind of busy redesigning Wonder Woman’s latex pants for the upteenth time, so I may have a bit of a wait on my hooves.

Oz: What prompted you to become a superhero?

KU: I was tired of hearing about Bullies and not just the kind you find on the playground. You can have bullies in every aspect of your life. You can even have bullies in the office. Some bill collectors, government agencies and administrators choose to use bully-like tactics. Sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do about it. I am that mental superhero that swoops in and kicks some ass. I am that roundhouse kick to the face, “The Crane” to the groin and that epic spleen slam of doom. I am the poop in the mailbox, TP in the tree, tack in the chair, Nair in the shampoo bottle. I'm the revenge you can't exact yourself. I am a shoulder to cry on, I am that angry e-mail you write to your a-hole boss, and the last word in an argument.

Oz: That's a pretty hefty job description. How do you find people to help?

KU: I don't. They come to me. The scientific math is very complicated but it goes a little something like this. 

pi r ^{2 = roundhouse kick to the groin.}

Oz: That's deep. You're right, a little too complicated for me, but I'll take your word for it. I understand that you also are so awesome that you have your own currency and tokens?

KU: Yes, the tokens are pretty self explanatory. If someone’s being a douche, they get a token. I just burp one out, and hand it to the obnoxious offender. Some people exude a chemical known as Obnixigen which can be like a noxious gas to those around them. I however, exude awesome, which is an antidote for those suffering souls, forced to breath in the Obnoxigen around them. The "Good Job" can be replaced with the exploitive of your choice.

 The Karate Bucks are sent to obnoxious bill collectors that continue to harass you, even after they have garnished your wages or you have told them you can not pay. I don’t have it out for bill collectors, just the jerks; the ones who are mean in the heart, not the ones just trying to earn a paycheck. I am working on a new design for my dolluhs and welcome some fresh ideas.

Oz: What are your special powers?

KU: I can pretty much do anything. I can fly, shoot lasers from my eyes, free Willy, stop speeding buses before they blow up. My strength is limitless. I’m sexy, smart, charismatic… but my horn of power is my true secret weapon of awesomeness. It can grant wishes, turn water into RedBull, summon a glitter tornado of doom and un-jam vending machines. It all pretty amazing stuff really.

Oz: What do you eat?

KU: Cupcakes, rainbows, nachos and Mountain Dew. I love mixing RedBull with pixie sticks and the powdery stuff In Captain Crunch boxes. I call it, Unicorn soup. 

Oz: That’s not typical horse food.

KU: I am not a horse. Unicorns must have a diet loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup. I try and keep stocked up on the sweet stuff as much as possible.

Oz: What do you do in your free time?

KU: Well, when I have free time which is rare, I loved to watch this show called Vengeance Unlimited, but then it got cancelled. Then I got hooked on a show called Firefly, but that got cancelled too. Then I fell for a shhow called Eastwick, but that got cancelled. Now I watch Tru Blood, but am thinking season three was not so glorious, so I’ll just go back to knitting tiny, turtlenecked sweaters for Miniature, Russian Giraffes and working out until season 4.......that and I did manage to get into Dexter. Besides the satelite dish in my sweet candy castle in the sky  is on the fritz and I have to use my horn as an antennae in the “Crouching Tiger Hidden Remote” position. It’s not very comfy as you can imagine.

Oz: Where do you live?

KU: Like I said, I have a pretty sweet pad in the clouds, in a castle made of spun sugar and lollipops. I do have a vacation home in Sweden where I sometimes kick it with Alex.

Oz: I’m sorry, Alex? Alex whom?

Ku: Alexander Skarsgard. We’re buds.

Alex, his father Stellen and Brother Gustav and I (in the background in my usual ninja attire which includes a giant black turtleneck) I'm Kinda hard to see in  my ninja clothes.

Oz: I see, do you have many friends?

KU: Yeh, I’m pretty tight with the Keebler Elves, Sam Elliot, and Billy Shatner and Alex of course. 

Oz: Do you have a girlfriend?

KU: Yes, I am currently dating Lady Gaga. You can see my briefly in her video “Born This Way”. She was riding me in that shot. She likes my horn.

Oz: Do you let many people ride you? I mean, on your back…like a horse?

KU: Yeh, Sam, Alex and Bill of course and Dakota Fanning.

Oz: Dakota Fannning?

KU: It was a long time ago. I was down on my luck and her parents hired me for her birthday party.

Oz: Your past, tell me a little bit about it. What was it like for a Unicorn growing up?

KU: It was terrible. I was a geek in school. 

Everyone loved my twin brother. My dad barely knew I existed and my mom had to pole dance to put oats on the table. Sometimes she even took on a second job at the fair in the ring toss stand. All that hardened me, made me tough.

Note the missing twin brother in this family picture.

Oz: Brother? You have a unicorn brother?

KU: Well, clearly he's not a giraffe. Yes, I have a brother. I prefer not to talk about him.  We’re not exactly…friends.

Oz: What are your plans for the future?

KU: I am going to continue fighting for the underdog until I’m either killed or I lose my powers somehow.

Oz: If you are killed, who would take your place.

KU: I have been trying to team up with David Hasselhoff, but he doesn’t return my calls.

Oz: Is it true that you have formed a secret alliance with Robo Cop?

KU: I have been asked not to discuss this as of yet.

Oz: How did you learn Karate?

KU: I was born knowing Kungfu naturally, but in order to beat my evil twin, I had to have an edge over him. Being my twin, he has my same powers, so I had to ahve something he didn't have and that was the glorious gift of Karate. I watched every Karate Kid movie made at least 3000 times. I ate, slept and breathed the Gymakarate movie and Hong Kong Phooey until I could whip up some sweet maneuvers of my own. Soon, I was teaching Chuck Norris some moves.

Oz: Your twin is evil? Must you battle him?

KU: I have said too much already.

Jealousy... Oh My Gourd!

I must admit I am a jealous, jealous, petty person. I have tried to purge this from me but I think I actually need an exorcism or something. I don't mean to be and sometimes I can catch myself being ridiculous, but other times I feel so justified being a total toad that I make a huge mess in a jealous fit and then spend weeks cleaning up my destruction. It is my inner demon I guess.

If there is one thing in my life that still sends me into a jealous fit, it is the trip the Viking took to Costa Rica With his ex-wife. Just thinking about the two of them spending a romantic vacation on the hot, white sands of a tropical paradise, sends me into a spastic, frothing at the mouth hysteria that has not been seens since exorcism.

The Vikings ex-wife looked like Daryl Hannah, but with a Sookie Stackhouse gaptoothed smile.

Really, that's not me exaggerating. A frenemy even confirmed this to me when the Viking and I broke up once.

Frenemy: "What were you thinking? She's like Daryl Hannah...you can't compete with that!"

I had hoped she'd be fat or ugly or both. Like I said, I am petty. In my mind I had her as being this hideous, golum like creature, but I found their wedding picture, turned around, facing the wall, in his bedroom and almost crapped myself when I saw her picture.

When the Viking and I began dating, he had been separated from his wife for over two years and was in the process of getting a divorce. At first he didn't talk about her much, but as we spent more time together she began making appearances in our conversation quite often. And since he loved to talk about their trips to Costa Rica, All I could do was imagine Daryl Hanna, in a bikini, hanging all over my boyfriend. Pretty soon I began seeing her sitting on the couch, eating papaya right next to him. She even seemed to be laying between us in bed. I could have passed her a smoke! I couldn't blink her away. She was all over the house.

One night while we were in bed (shut up) I was looking up and noticed some wooden thing hanging from the ceiling. It was neat looking and had pictures of birds carved into the sides of it. I asked him what it was and as soon as I did, I was sorry I had. He proceeded to tell me that that was a gourd he and Daryl Hannah had bought from Costa Rica. Apparently, they had bought those gourds (there were more of them hidden throughout the house) from a roadside vender and, within five minutes of buying them, she hit one on a rock and cracked it.  When they returned to the States, she hung them over the bed and used her sarong as a curtain so they could relive their experience in Costa Rica. (blegh) I watched in horror as his eyes began to sparkle and he developed a dreamy expression on his face as he was reliving this memory. It was like shaking a poleroid and watching the picture develop before your eyes. But it wasn't Auntie May's birthday bonanza, it was my boyfriend and his ex making out in front of a waterfall with a goddamned cracked gourd..

I stared at that ugly cracked gourd. I hated it. I realized at that moment, that the Viking was not over Daryl Hanna. There wasn't room in his queen sized bed for her too, so we broke up the next day.Within the month I had moved out of state.

I'm kind of crazy. Crazy in the way that when I am done with something, I am done. When I quit smoking, I simply said "I am done." and after 13 years of smoking, I quit.  I have not smoked or even had the desire to smoke since. It was that easy.  I was goign to "quit" the viking. I had fallen in love with him and knew he couldn't love me back. I couldn't handle seeing him everyday or running the risk of passing him on the street. An out of state job opportunity arose and I took it. That was the only way to be sure that I could quit him.

6 months went by and even though I said I wouldn't, I talked to the Viking everyday. I still loved him. I tried dating other people, but he was still living deep in my heart. Anyway, he asked me to come back and live with him as he realized he loved me, and so I did. We have been together  every single day since.

Now, all was not perfect...I still had to live with the gourds, but I did my best to erase every trace of her in the house that I could. She came and got some of her things, and I made damned sure that wedding picture was one of them. (yes I am petty) I didn't have the heart to throw the gourds away because, after all, the Viking had fond memories of his trip with his ex-wife. I couldn't be that selfish, jealous person. So, instead of throwing them out, I potted hanging plants in them so that they may be destroyed slowly over time. But damn that roadside vender. Whatever he did to those gourds has made them indestructible. They are immune to mold, extreme heat and water damage. So there they hang, in our new house, in the bathroom with ferns and spider plants hanging from them.

I have to look at them every time I take a hot bath. I can't help but think about the Viking and Daryl Hannah on their vacation. I imagine them sliding down natural waterslides into a beautiful lagoon, drinking crystal clear water from the gourds. I imagine mermaids braiding Daryl Hannah's hair while she puts coconut oil all over the Vikings body. I hate those mermaids. I imagine the couple sitting on the beach having a romantic pic-nic, writing "I love you" in the sand, sipping wine under big beach umbrellas.

I have moved the gourds, but no matter where I move them, I will still see them and they have a right to being the house.

The Viking doesn't mention Costa Rica much anymore. I think he's told me all the stories about mokeys and lizards and sky treks and hot springs and white sand and blah blah blah. I try and imagine Karate Unicorn running in and spearing her gourds with his horn of power then kicking sand in her face,

but that would make him a  bully and I can't use karate Unicorn for that sadly. Instead, he feeds the Mermaids dolphin sandwhiches and tells them it's tuna.

In all reality, I would probably let mermaids braid my hair too. I'm simply jealous that we have never had a chance to go to Costa Rica and drink Pina Coladas by the beach, or bathe in a waterfall together.  In fact, we have never taken any trips anywhere or even shared a Pina Colada. But what I often overlook is that I have him. We have a beautiful house that WE built with our own hands. The only thing stopping us form sharing a Pina Colada is the fact that I have no idea how to make one.

Nowadays I can kind of giggle at how stupidly jealous I get about his trips to Costa Rica and I know he kind of giggles at how ridiculous I am, but I know, if my master plan of world domination ever comes to fruitation, I will build a super tall wall around the entire country and no one will ever vacation there again. For now, I will just have to be satisfied with using those ugly gourds for planters.