school

Ever noticed how only the very strangest of the learning mnemonics you used as a child are the ones that stay with you to adulthood?

Yesterday afternoon I actually started laughing out loud at myself as I tried to orient myself to the four directions of the compass. In doing so, I mentally drew a compass in the air—east on the right, west on the left—and finally placed myself facing north.When learning directions, I was never entirely certain if, when looking north, east was on my right or on my left. For some reason, I just had trouble making it stick. But, it turned out, I wasn’t the only one, and a fellow student piped up with his “easy way to remember the directions on a compass.”

He said, “You can remember to go clockwise, right? Start with north, and move around the compass like a clock, and say the phrase ‘Never eat soggy worms!’ and there you are—all four directions!”

Damn him.

“I’d noticed that when you were working with numbers you often wiggled your fingers.”

A very simple motion, that. Look away momentarily and it is easily missed: an arpeggio played from left pinky to left thumb, and occasionally even crossing over to the right hand. What am I doing?

I’m multiplying.