Maths

I have a love hate relationship with maths. 

In many ways, I actively embrace numbers. When it comes to setting goals, in whatever area of my life, if I can't measure my progress towards it with numbers it just isn't worth setting as an actual goal. I like sitting down to do the monthly budget and think of how we can stretch that decimal point just a little further. I like calculating the calories in a meal. I like to see the statistics of any given situation right there in easily readable chart form, then go digging around to see how it will change if x was to happen.

But I'm shit at it. I can't *do* maths for the life of me. I mean, I don't even know all of my times tables, it's shocking. I know my two times table...easy stuff really....and I know my ten and eleven times tables because they're pretty damn obvious. But the others?

With fives and nines I have coping strategies; I couldn't for the life of me tell you what seven fives are off of the top of my head but I can count "five, ten, fifteen, twenty" whilst counting each one off on my fingers (yes, I count on my fingers) until I hit seven which is...what do you know, it's thirty five. With my nines it's even worse, I use the "put your hands up, palms facing you" method where, say, for seven nines you count off your fingers from the left thumb to the right thumb, and when you hit the desired number (so for seven, the ring finger of your right hand) the number of fingers to the left of that finger is the value in tens (so six fingers = sixty) plus the number of fingers to the right, so seven nines I can tell you now is sixty three.

My three times table I know some of. 3, 6, 9, 12...and then I have to start counting...
Fours I know up to 16
Sixes I know up to 36
Sevens up to 21 and after that I throw a mega tantrum of a rage. I don't know why, but the sevens times table is just the worst, I always felt that as a child and I still feel it now. It's evil incarnate.
Eights I can do to 24
Twelves I can do to 24 also, because obviously like I said I know my two times table.

It's just horrifically terrible. I even stumble on basic addition and subtraction. Don't even get me started on division. I've never, ever been able to divide in a neat and timely fashion, unless by multiples of two.

So Ben said to me today he was so confused about my maths. We were totting up a budget together over our lunch time call and I was confused because I could have sworn we should have had less in the bank account than we do...about £20 less, which is not an insignificant ammount of money to be down. We went over the sums again, but in my head I was still right and he actually had to walk me through step by step to tell me how come actually, I was wrong and he was right. Afterwards, I got out a calculator just to double check because I couldn't believe it myself, and he was right; we shouldn't be (and weren't) down by £20.

It confused him, he said, because I'm the one who sits down to work out how much we'll be paid a month. By which I mean we know how much in theory we are paid, but after tax etc which requires some fiddling around and working out of percentages and all kinds. Not terribly difficult if you know what you're doing. He on the other hand hasn't got the foggiest clue with where to start on such a task.

Lol!

How come, Bex, you can not do simple addition and subtraction...oh yes here's another confession...the tills at work have a subtotal function, but no function to say how much a customer has paid, so I often go very slowly and discreetly work out how much change I owe them on my fingers as I pretend to rake through the till for change. I've already been caught out a couple of times.

I don't know why I can't do it. I just can't. I'm just not conversant with numbers. To get my job we had to do a basic maths test online...I swear I never used a calculator, and I must have gotten the pass rate because here I am in that job.

It haunted me all the way through school, from the moment I started to the moment I left. In Infant school I used to be taken out of lessons with some of the other kids to go work with a lovely teacher by the name of Mrs Simpson. I thought it was because I was awesome and special. Well take out the awesome bit and you'd be right, I'd been put in special needs because my maths was so poor, but when we started doing other exercises, English and science and all that jazz, actually it turned out that I didn't need to be there and I was just sent back. I was always in the bottom group for maths in any given class, but in the top for everything else. It was so frustrating because it was a big black cloud hanging over an otherwise pretty spotless record. I very nearly left school without my maths GCSE...and by that I don't just mean a shitty grade, I mean I failed all of my modules and in the end my teacher had to put me (and a few others who, like me, were top of the class in other subjects but just couldn't do maths) onto a different syllabus where the modules didn't count and we'd just have to do a longer exam at the end of it (and in the end thanks to a new teacher and some really intensive study over some great revision guides, I got a grade B, which was the highest available grade on that syllabus).

Sadly my mathematical triumph was short lived when I started doing Chemistry at A level and it became apparent that my maths skills really weren't up to par. Our teacher was an old school kinda guy who found it incomprehensible that maths could be a struggle to anyone. It went from one of my favourite, strongest subjects at school to something I hated with a passion in college. I barely passed my first year after having lost all interest and stopped going to classes. I subsequently dropped it.

But chemistry aside, I was more than aware of the fact that I needed to learn how to do basic sums just to survive in day to day life, and as I said above with the times tables and certain times when I haven't instant access to a calculator I've got various coping methods but often times it doesn't feel like quite enough. And I know why I can do things like work out pay after tax...because I'm honestly not stupid, I know by heart the formulas and equations and processes to go through step by step to work it out...it's just that complex formulas are built out of the tiny building blocks of more basic arithmetic...and that's what I struggle with (while other people may struggle with remembering the bigger formulas....if that makes sense). Or to put it another way....I know the theory behind it, but I haven't the brain capactity to put it into practise.

Seriously, my brain just freezes up when it comes to doing my sums.

I've often wondered before if I have number dyslexia. I know there's such a thing (I looked into it recently, it's called Discalculia and is defined by the DfE as ‘A condition that affects the ability to acquire arithmetical skills. Dyscalculic learners may have difficulty understanding simple number concepts, lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts and procedures. Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method, they may do so mechanically and without confidence.’ which is just me all over). I thought of it first because I have difficulty reading long numbers. If I'm paying for something online I have to give Ben my bank card and have him read out my account and card numbers to me. I could do it myself, but it would take about ten minutes. The sort code is no problem; on my bank card, it's broken up into sections of two.

But, you know, even if I do I see no point seeking a diagnosis; the time when I could have really done with the help is long gone and my coping strategies of counting on fingers or getting Ben to read out long strings of numbers to me seems to work. Oh, and here's another good one actually...I don't know my mobile number but because I've typed Bens mobile number out so many times I know the tone each key on the telephone pad makes, which makes a little tune, so if he needs his number for anything, I just sing it to him...which is pretty neat. I also sing my parents phone number, although their phone number has been the same for so long that I don't need to recite it to the tune anymore.

But anyhow. There's a little ramble for you. Maths, you're lovely, and you can tell me so much about the world around me, but I just don't get you.