I’ve never been particularly brainy when it comes to numbers. The best thing about arithmetic for me as a child, was that to remember how to spell it, you said “A rat in the house may eat the ice cream.” This illustrates perfectly how my brain works. As far as I know there was nothing unusual about my mathematical abilities up until 5th grade, at which point I ended up with a severe mental block due to story problems and my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Brown, who gave me much abuse about being out of school for 3 months with strep throat.<\/p>\n
Algebra I just about finished me off. I was so lost! Thank goodness I had Geometry next which redeemed my sense of self-confidence, since I had no problem with visualizing spatial relationships and loved solving the proofs. A friend of mine tutored me through it and through Algebra II and that was where my math education ended. I chose my first major in college, Art, partly because I didn’t have to take any math classes. When I switched to English, for many other reasons, still not having to take math was a big bonus. Thank god for calculators. Kitchen math is about the best I can do without one, and I’ve had to memorize all sorts of little tricks to do even that quickly. Anders says that when he’s explaining something math-related to me, he can almost see the wall go up.<\/p>\n
Ironic considering that I’m the one who handles the bills in our household. I think it’s more because I’m anal-retentive<\/strike> well-organized and have a good memory than that I can keep our accounts straight. Internet banking takes care of a lot of that for me, I just have to press buttons and worry about the bottom line.<\/p>\n
I’ve always loved the pattens of math, and the beauty of numbers, however. I remember being thrilled upon seeing the pattern that multiplication tables create and have always had a special love for the 9x table with its ladder-like beauty up and down:<\/p>\n