Typical

While I had been playing around with the idea of writing a blog for a while, it wasn't until CML started their Learn&Play program that I had a little push in that direction. And in typical ADD style, I started in the middle with the fun and interesting things to do. However, CML is tracking progress numerically, ie: first do this, then this - so now I have to go back and fill in lots of the blanks to be officially caught up. Actually, today I was playing with Flickr's API Postcard Browser. OK, this is way too much fun. I put in Banff National Park, where I visited the summer after my senior high school year way back in dinosaur ages. The pictures are lovely, almost like I had been on that trip recently. I should also say I love playing with Flickr, and can spend hours there. It can be like taking a trip to anywhere you fancy, or you can look at pictures of animals, or kids or whatever. I just love seeing how the world works. I also get a kick out of seeing what people think of my old home town, via the pictures - lots of lakes and snow and icicles, and of course, lots of pictures of the Smokey the Bear statue in our downtown park. (Only YOU can prevent forest fires!) I used to climb all over that statue while I was growing up. My brothers actually got up to Smokey's head once. Don't ask me how they did it, or got down for that matter. I was only brave enough to top the head of one of the cubs.

OK, back to the Learn & Play exercise: Out of the 7 1/2 Habits of Successful Lifelong Learners, we are to identify one that is very easy and one that is difficult. It's been very interesting reading other participant's blogs and seeing where their successes and difficulties lie. Many people have identified the habit "View problems as challenges" as their most difficult, while I find that for myself that is a daily occurence. I am constantly running into problems to solve because my brain doesn't process information as most others do. I am not good at reading facial expressions and body language, so I have to pay closer attention when someone is talking to me. Many people have told me I'm a good listener, but they don't know that its not so much listening as trying to figure out what they're really saying, and I can often get it so wrong. I've been labeled quiet, but that's because I'm usually so overwhelmed with information barging around in my brain, that it takes me a long time to process what I should be paying attention to, and by the time I figure that out the subject is often long past. So I would say every day can be a challenge, and I face it without thinking much about it. I've read over and over how ADD people are resilient - they keep coming back over and over trying to figure out whatever is blocking them from succeeding or learning.

My toughest habit would be "Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner." I don't have a lot of confidence in my learning abilties. It usually takes many many tries for me to understand something. And often it's being taught or explained in a manner my ADD doesn't pick up on. There have been so many times where I've asked, what to me was a perfectly legitimate question to explain something, and the instructor has given me the strangest puzzled look, or an exhasperated sigh, as if I should have already understood this part. One quickly learns not to ask questions in that environment. So I do my learning on the sly. I'll find someone who's really good at something, and who I trust implicitly and then I'll ask the questions I want and need to ask. But I still always have the feeling that everyone else knows something I don't know, but should. That doesn't build confidence, that's for sure.