I once won a spelling competition at school because I was the only kid in the class who knew how to spell ‘chaos’. Unfortunately I was also the kid who didn’t know their 4, 6, 7 & 8 times-tables. If I could have cracked multiplication I could have so won that scholarship to ‘genius’ school where you didn’t have to wear school uniform! I couldn’t even cheat – calculators were the size of a house brick.
1 Comment
Lysseus
29 August 2005 at 08:08I fell behind in my math tables as well. Later I went on to a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, but I now spend most of my spare time studying the structure of story.
Still, you might wonder how it might have shaped you, had you gone on to genius school, and where you might be today… what have you gained for what you have seeming lost?
For myself, I sometimes feel the echoes of those roads not taken, as though nothing really ever is lost, and somewhere our deeper longings unfulfilled are realized and made manifest.
Of course, that’s the poet in me, who believes in worlds upon worlds, and how very precious it is to grasp the fullness of a moment.