Math is my friend. No really...

Okay so the other day, I tried to leave a friend's apartment by using the door that leads to her closet.

It was embarrassing. My navigational dyslexia is a joke among those who know me. For two years, I couldn't leave my office at LargeUniversityinCanada (LUC) without going the wrong way. I used to get lost when I would go for a run, though to be fair, BigCity, Canada, well its a BIG city. I have this wonderful friend who lived right around the corner from me, and when I would take care of her cat, she would give explicit directions how to get to her place, each time.

So all of this got me thinking. Am I really spatially challenged? Perhaps, I'm just spending headspace thinking great thoughts and hence I can't find my way out of a paperbag?

I blame my high school math experience on my current state of navigational dylexia. Math requires spatio-temporal-reasoning. Although the standard line is that women just don't have the same intrinsic ability as men, I think back to my childhood experience of mathematics and it just wasn't pretty. I remember feeling stupid in math class even though my report card for subjects like OAC Calculus and Algebra had A's.

It could also be that math was associated with feelings of embarrassment and inadequacy. My mom (who in general did some awesome things to encourage my love of learning) made these flash cards of multiplication tables (this is before you could buy it in the store). That alone is not a problem but I think she carried them with her everywhere. She used to flash me in the aisles at the grocery store, at breakfast, at the butcher, you name the place and she would flash those cards. Now couple that with our long trips to CottageCountry where, instead of playing ISpy like normal kids, we did math problems. My younger sister much quicker on the mark would always have the answer but my mom would say, "Now YoungerAndSmarter, let your sister answer." (Groan, groan no really its okay if she wants to answer Mom.)

But the nerd grooming didn't end there. No we had a Friday night Journal Club. Yes, you heard me, I said Friday Night Journal Club. Imagine a 16 year-old who, while her peers are partying, stays at home to give presentations on different science topics, things we had learned outside school.

Cough, cough, *nerd*.

So, despite the math phobia that I came to graduate school with, I feel I have come long way. I spent my entire PhD in a lab of math geeks (with the exception of BestFriend and FullofLife though both were really adept at math), led by my supervisor, GeneralSolutionGuru. I can read and understand mathematical models. I learned and developed sophisticated statistical methods which I programmed in a computer language to analyze my data. Yeah me!!

Oh and by the way could you, umm, tell me which way is home, again?