In the United Kingdom we spell it as “Maths” but in the US they spell it as “Math” and both ultimately mean Mathematics, but it can be up to you what way you rather it spelled when it is shortened, I will admit that calling it math does sound more neat and tidy, but I am so used to calling it maths now that that’s likely what I’ll stick to, there is also the argument that the long-form mathematics does have an S on the end, so you can argue that saying maths is actually more correct than math as it includes the s on the end. It can be quite the hot debate sometimes between people in the UK and US.
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Anyway, maths is something that I actually am not at all fond of as I am pretty much terrible at it, well in Primary School actually to correct myself, I don’t remember it being too hard, but I know that I still never enjoyed it, I believe most don’t as it is fairly boring. But it was into secondary school and beyond where I really begun struggling with it, one of the reasons for this could possibly be due to missing a year and a half off of education as it kind of correlates, which was further stoked by my already lack of interest in the subject and when you have Autism that lack of interest really has your brain shelving it away.
This then creates problems of remembering what I had learned, due to not being interested in it, the information simply would not stick, I’d learn to do it very temporarily, the specific thing we focused on in the maths lesson, but then within a few hours I would have forgot how it works and be right back to square one, which is even more relevant than ever saying “square one” as the maths books have those square grids that you write numbers in so it is actually quite a good analogy if you think about it. It didn’t matter how much I studied on it; the information would just fall out as soon as I stopped doing it. Don’t even get me started when letters are brought into maths through algebra, because that goes right over my head, as far as I am concerned, numbers are for maths, letters are for English, excusing my stubbornness and simple-mindedness, because obviously it’s much wider than that, but I wish it was that simple as it would make things easier for me if it didn’t exist, but I understand it has a purpose in life at the same time.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think if I really forced myself to learn it, perhaps I could, but it would certainly have to be combined into something that I am interested in for it to really, really stick. My mind is just terrible with remembering numbers, I even have to think a while to remember my own birthday and I am useless at remembering phone numbers, PIN numbers and anything else that involves numbers, it just falls out like a sieve. Sometimes I have a sudden moment of genius and manage to solve a complicated maths question somehow, but I have no clue how that even comes about and most of the time it is a big rarity and probably a lot of luck is also involved.
Another thing I also disliked was showing how I worked out maths problems, which provided a lot of the marks for tests and exams, which most the time I was never able to explain how I solved something if I ever solved it at all. Maths just isn’t my thing, it doesn’t make sense to me like how Geography and many subjects within science (ignoring the mathsy’ parts of science) can make sense to me and be easily remembered from the very first explanation, I could easily cram that information within a single lesson and it’d stick forever, which is why I was sad that I never got to do a Geography GCSE and also didn’t get put in the highest set in Science enabling me to get above a C, but I won’t be surprised if being in a lower set in Science was due to my lack of mathematical knowledge holding me back.
I’m pretty sure Geography perhaps has some maths-like elements in it as well, but maybe due to my immense interest in Geography, it would also enable me to get better at any maths that was involved.
So yeah, I got a G in maths, back when that was how it was graded, I understand they use numbers now to give a GCSE grade (internally screams), but whatever, if you don’t know G is the lowest grade you can get, there is also a U below that but that simply just means “ungraded” like if you didn’t do the exam at all or if you broke the exam rules or something, so I at least gave it a try. But I got what I had generally expected for the subject.
Luckily I live in a world where most things are paid using a bank card now, where the adding up is done for you and change isn’t involved, although I can obviously pay for things using actual money, I’m not that bad, but I go with whatever change is given to me because I am absolutely unable to calculate change, which is also why I’d never be able to work behind a cash register, for my mind there are just so many different combinations of giving the same amount of change that I’d never figure it out as I’d need to learn each and every one of them which is obviously not feasible, most people can just “get it” through a few examples and figure it out from there, not me, I’d learn a few examples perhaps, then if I was presented one of the many other combination of coins and notes that I was not used to and I had to give change using that, I’d probably end up having a panic attack.
So yeah, working behind a till isn’t for me.
Despite not being fond of numbers and maths overall I am still very much into political analytics and numbers and data, so go figure, as I said if numbers are incorporated into one of my interests then I’ll be able to understand and learn from them.
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