Thursday, April 3, 2008

eleven

there is an unexplainable phenomenon happening in my life. i hesitate to even write about it because i think i might be crazy. at the same time i want to write about it in hopes i’ll break the cycle or this post will be evidence of my once sane life.

three or four times a day when i look at the clock, the minutes will be 11. so, for example, 6:11, 3:11, 9:11, and the other day i got my first 11:11. this has been a daily occurrence for almost a month and it is driving me nuts. i do not look at the clock frequently so i am especially taken be this freakiness. not sure what to do or what to think.

Posted by tyrant at 04:29:31 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

so, what’s it like?

i have been asked several times what it is like to be dyslexic. i usually cannot articulate it but tonight i feel like trying.


let me start by saying that i have spent quite a bit of time reading about my learning disability. i felt by becoming educated about it i could somehow help kick it. i did not kick it but i did learn to better cope with and feel comfortable with the condition.

when i try to describe to people the issues i have, especially currently, i tend to get responses like “you should try concentrating harder or reading words more slowly.” i also get the “oh, everyone struggles with that so it’s not really a big deal” a.k.a. “you are not dyslexic you are just dramatic”

history and current issues: they first “diagnosed” me with dyslexia in 2nd or 3rd grade. i was having both behavioral and academic trouble in classes. this is when they found out i had a severe near sidedness. once this was corrected, things got a bit better, with the exception of the new nickname of “four-eyes.” i do not recall particular instances that caused them to notice i was still having issues but my parents were called in for a conference with my teacher and i. i recall having to write my alphabet and numbers. i then recall, not sure if it was the same meeting or a different one, my teacher explaining the difference drawing a 4 and a 9. i think i was using the same symbol for both and this was an issue in handwriting and in math. from third grade until sixth grade i had to do additional handwriting assignments that other students did not have to do. occasionally my class would have an in-class project but i would not get to participate and had to sit somewhere else in the class and practice handwriting. this was embarrassing for me. my coping mechanism for handwriting is to write in all caps. every letter is significantly different from one another which helps a great deal. i still to this day have the cursive penmanship of a small child.

as i mentioned in the post before this one, the primary issue with my dyslexia currently is reading comprehension and recollection of detail. generally speaking, i average about 20 pages per hour when i read and it is a very exhausting experience. this is painfully slow especially considering how little information i retain. i still find it challenging to describe what it is like for me to read. largely this is because i do not have another perspective to compare it to. i feel like words to me are like objects or more like heireoglyfics as opposed to seeing letters that form words that have meanings. visually, my eyes tend to be drawn more to the white space in and around letters and word spaces instead of the actual stroke of the letter. my coping mechanisms include: reading on paper, reading on my computer with the text blown up really big, laying a colored transparent sheet over the text i’m reading, reading out loud, and walking around while i’m reading. side effects include being a highly intelligent, hard working student that makes c’s; never being able to pursue an interest that involves a solid math base (like my desire to be a computer scientist, seriously)

**If you know of anyone dyslexic and want to share this, please do. I would love feedback and to hear other peoples stories.**


Posted by tyrant at 04:45:25 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

me don’t learn right

i just came from my sociology professor’s office. we got our tests back today but i did not have time to stay after class and look at it so i went to office hours. i knew beforehand that i scored a c on the test. i was upset about the grade because even though i did not study very much for the test, i do keep up with reading and go to class. my mind was put at ease when i went to the study session the night before the test and knew almost everything we talked about. when i sat down to take the test the next day i felt like it was easier than the previous one, which i scored a c also, and was confident in my answers.

as my professor and i were discussing the answers i got wrong i explained to him that this sort of thing is not unusual and that actually all my test grades in all of my classes this semester have been c’s. he asked me why i thought that was and i explained to him i have a difficult time during constraints of time like test taking. he asked if i knew why that was and i told him about how i was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and that i still struggle with comprehension and recollection of information. i told him that i knew i have a right to disclose that information at the beginning of the semester and choose not to because i have been treated like i was stupid person instead of an intelligent person with a learning disability. we talked a bit more, mainly about strategies for studying and being sure that i read the questions correctly on the test (which i do but i’m dyslexic :-P) he then said something that hit home and was a reminder that i needed to hear.

he and i talked before about me a bit and he knows that i’ve gone to a lot of different types of churches and, since am older than the normal undergrad, i have some life experience that comes into play in the classroom. he basically said that it’s not important what i think about what we’re are learning in the context of how it relates to my life (even if i know a particular thing to be true), it only matters that i be able to answer questions based on the information given in class. in academia it only matters that you can regurgitate what the authors and professors say about the subject. this is a, brutal, truth that i am already aware of but have forgotten this semester. i am learning so much about myself through my classes this semester that i forgot i am really supposed to be some sort of academic android.

my confusion comes in because with the classes this semester there is so much discussion in which instructors want your opinion as seen through what you have read. the test is really the only time you are producing sheer fact. even with research papers you are interpreting information and forming ideas based on how you perceive the information you have read. so the point is that i do not learn in a way that academia wants me to. i feel like this is not learning but memorizing and that it contradicts the over arching philosophy of most universities to discover, explore, create, etc.

my sociology class and my communications and culture class i will like not get higher than a c because most of the overall grade is based on exam grades. my history of photo, i will likely be able to rock a b because there are a couple of papers in addition to the test scores.

Posted by tyrant at 00:24:13 | Permalink | Comments (1) »