I am not an artist

Uh-oh, I’m starting to beat myself up. You wanna know why? Cause I am not an injured artist, an introspective tortued writer or a misunderstood musician. Instead, I am a fairly typical, lighthearted, and myriad thought librarian who just writes this blog to get my thoughts out. I can’t play an instrument, my photography sucks, and don’t even look at my other attempts at “creativity.” My creativity comes out in my film production (but I just do that for fun not a way to express my soul.) I don’t spend countless hours listening to indie, deep and obscure music. I would much rather listen to a book on tape than listen to music that I don’t understand or I don’t know the words to. And I would rather watch TV or a movie than go to a concert or art gallery exhibt. And I don’t have any money to spend on a road trip to “find myself.” That just seems stupid and a waste of time and money, if you just go on a road trip to nowhere. Thank you, but I much prefer a planned expedition.
But, unfortunately, most of my friends
seem to be geared towards the artistic, creative personality. I just can’t feel bad because I am not this way.

5 x 37 = Laughter and Anger

Why do patrons feel the need to make fun of my inability to do math in my head? Someone laughed at me because I didn’t know what fifteen cents times twenty-five was without using a calculator. Do people laugh at those who can’t read very well? Who can’t write very well? No! Why laugh at people who can’t do math w/o a calculator, pen or paper or a cheat sheet? It doesn’t seem very fair that they act like you are less of a human or less smart because you have mental road blocks concerning numbers or figures.

If people knew how hard I tried with math, they would not laugh at my neccessity to use a calculator or pen and paper. If they knew the two -three hours that I spent with my mom hunched over my math books for five years, many days ending with me in tears and my poor mother frustrated with my inability to stop miscalculating simple arthimetic problems. I have learned to live with it. Because of my less than perfect math knowledge, my ACT wasn’t as high as it could have been even though my English and Reading sections were in the 30s. In college, I failed my first math test and promptly dropped the class. The next time around I cried during the quiz because I did not understand the concept and my fear of messing up a “simple” problem. I then dropped that class. Finally, I had to take a summer class of math just so that I could get my math credit. I had to sit on the edge of my seat, study everynight, and calculate and recalculate my work…and I still only made a B. But thankfully my teacher was really good and made it seem easy and understandable. But I have not returned to a math class since I plan to never take another one.
Since I was a history major and now librarian, I don’t have to deal with math aside from the everyday dealings. Thankfully, they have calculators to help me with my checkbook balancing and cheat sheets help me at work. I will always be weak at math. Something in my brain transposes numbers, almost like dyslexia in math. I’ve sucked it up and struggled through it but it’s been hard.
So that’s why, when people, especially people who don’t know me, make fun or ridicule my inability to do “simple” math problems w/o a calculator it makes me mad. They would never dare make fun of someone who had trouble sounding out words, or who read poorly. Or someone who couldn’t write well. But it seems like it is a big joke when it comes to people who can’t do math. Like it’s the person’s fault that they can’t get pass certain problems or that they forget what 9+5 is. Or they chalk it up to “this generation’s inability to do math because they have always used a calculator.” Well, guess what? I never used a calculator on a regular basis until college.
Maybe we need to start raising awareness for math illiteracy.