I've not been blogging, I've had a busy week or two, and been feeling really felt stretched by life's various challenges... in the midst of which we've been appointing a new administrator to my brother's business Charles Newmarch French Polishing Ltd (http://www.charlesnewmarch.com) And not a moment too soon.! I've been been rather out of my comfort zone for many months (long story) as instead of getting on with the website and marketing, I've grappled with vat and hmrc and p whatevers and a range of procedures that challenge my finally acknowledged (at least to myself) dyscalculia. Give me a telephone number and I'll give you back a wrong one..... It's been another of life's learning curves. For years I've run businesses, worked in creative people jobs, co-ordinated complex and large scale events and projects, mostly pretty well, only to fall at the same metaphorical hurdles: keeping track of forms, time sheets, returns, bookkeeping etc, at which point time seems to shift to another dimension where a minute becomes four hours and I also seem to revert back to the intimidated school girl who's bullying (male) maths teacher told her told her he couldn't be bothered to explain twice if I was too lazy and stupid to listen him properly the first time...(how old am I for goodness sake!?) ***
Some years later, when I was managing a youth cafe, and stressing over the accounts, a colleague suggested I probably had dyscalculia, like she had. But the thing is, I've learned to manage it on a day to day basis, although under stress it's a different matter.. so it's literally taken till tonight, until I started writing this blog, to actually look it up on the internet. This is what I just read..
Being dyscalculic is not a recognised disability, so you won’t even get a car sticker allowing you park in otherwise forbidden places.
However it is argued that some people find it very satisfying to discover the origins of their problems – to be able to put a name to an issue that has plagued them for years. In short, it helps them to be able to say “I’m not stupid or lazy – there is a genetic reason why I cannot add up well.... http://www.dyscalculia.me.uk/
So there you go.. this illuminating article also includes a list of other indicators.. like not getting those 'a man walks at 3 miles an hour up a hill, but his dog comes back at half past two, so how many dog biscuits can he eat in an afternoon?' kind of questions, and the fact that team games make no sense to me because I can never remember the rules (and not just the offside one..)
I recommend everyone to check out this website - if it doesn't apply to you personally, it might at least make you a little more understanding of those of us who are very entertaining company at a birthday do in a restaurant, but can't for life us us work out how much change everyone should have if you insist on splitting the bill 'fairly'.. or why some of us are not into football and it's not because we're girls....
Anyway - back to the office, and there I was, short listing the other day and contemplating the irony of one of my recurring life themes. For someone so uncomfortable with financial stuff, I seem to regularly attract it - it's the aspect of my entrepreneurial tendency that always leaves me feeling crap and short of time. I can do the big picture stuff, I understand it all, but really I'm not a bookkeeper. (does Richard Branson do his own books? I don't think so..) Here I was again, up against deadlines, time running out, working long hours, not enjoying my work, feeling too heavy to move, and desperate to get out into the studio, but too tired. 'OK Universe,' I said to myself, 'This one again! I hear you.. but show me which path to take this time... ' So many paths in this Labyrinth of LIfe seem to lead me back to this same spot!
Now this is going to sound like I made it up: - but, honestly, as I thought this - a tiny spider, the same size as carspider, but dark brown, ran across the wall next to me, over the calender (on which the helpful legend 'Use time or time will use you' was emblazoned) and quickly disappeared. Spiderwoman as money spider. 'Time is money' I took her to be saying. 'You're on the right track - don't hang about in here doing something you find de-skilling, when someone else will love to do it and needs a job'
So last Friday ( the lucky 13th) We appointed a new lovely person who's good at numbers, and my kiln was connected up to the mains, making my studio now into a functioning ceramics workshop. Hurrah!
and a couple of days later......
Who'd have thought Tarantula spiders, one of the most ancient of creatures, technically too fat and heavy to grip a vertical glass surface, would have a solution to climbing that no-one except Peter Parker had noticed till now?? (There's a few arachno-images on this site, you have been warned)
My daily horoscope has given me this for the last few days ''Mantra: I will find new solutions to old problems.'' Good idea , I'm working on that with my own life coach.. But I also say, sometimes the oldest solutions are just as valid... just ask Tarantulaspiderwoman
'Carol - go do something you love and everyone will be happier and better off.. find a new team member. Employ a good accountant. Get on with being an artist and a coach and stop feeling like it's not 'real' work just because you love it! Yes you can hang on in there against the odds, but you know you can use that silk better!'
So here I am a week later - having spent the day in conference with a client, working on images and contemplating my first sculpture commission; having suggested an ongoing Facebook Group consultation process as I work on it (how very modern of me) I'm determined to learn how to spin silk from wherever it makes itself available!
PS>>> the image is electron microscope traces of spider foot silk
***PPS the female maths teacher I'd had the previous year at school was so good at her job that I 'got' everything and was top of my class. I can't remember the positive things and encouragement she must have given me. Why do we hear more readily, and internalise for years, the negatives? And isn't being a good teacher a wonderful and often underrated skill when even I can be good at maths given the right conditions? I might not be good at percentages or geometry, but leaving Mr Sarcastic behind, I went on to my get GCE 'Commercial' maths after all.. Stupid indeed!
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