a B in Biology! Wow, I know, I'm still in shock. I didn't fail. I don't have to take it again.
When other kids, with that look of awe and amazement, would ask me how Michael was SO smart, or how he knows everything, I started giving this explanation, "Well, I was once a brilliant genius but I gave him a lot of my intelligence and memory when I was pregnant with him, so he has it now." Kids who know me as their yard duty, teacher's aide, and/or Primary teacher would look at me sceptically, but I'd continue, "Yeah, and then Nathan, and then Jessica, and then Jacob took the last of my brilliant mind. They're all super smart, and I'm lucky to even remember my own name now." Then the kids look like they could believe it - especially the part about knowing my kids are super smart and the part about me forgetting/mixing up names.
Actually, I've always had a hard time memorizing exact proper nouns ("a noun that is used to denote a particular person, place, or thing" dictionary.com), or at least memorizing all the names of everyone/place/thing I like to learn about and I am absolutely horrific at spelling them correctly. I use words like "thing-a-ma-bob" and "what's-its" and "you know, that guy who ... "
I work hard to memorize at least a first or last name of living people in my life. Between my own family and extended family (with all my aunts and uncles, and my cousins, and my cousins' kids), and all the adults/parents from work and church and neighborhood, and ALL the kids at school and church and in the neighborhood - that's like ... I don't know, at least a thousand. And I remember all sorts of things about them, except specifics like the correct spelling of their names, and their birthdates, and being able to actually say the name of the person I mean at the time - I know who he/she is and their name, but I have to go through a few wrong names before the right one finally comes out.
But kids especially know that I know them, that I remember them. Kids who moved away or graduated years ago still come up and get a hug or say hi when we see each other in town. One poor kid, I felt so bad - I remembered him and what a sweet and very fun and goofy kid he could be and the group he hung out with and who his little cousin was and his grandmother who volunteers at the school. I remembered that he was the same age as one of my sons, but my silly memory guessed Nathan instead of Michael, and so at the end of our lovely conversation in the produce department, which he and another past student had come over and initiated, when I said, "you must be going into 8th grade now," he looked crushed and was suddenly quiet and said, "no, I'll be a Sophomore." I felt awful - especially because I very specifically remembered that the other boy had been in one of those 2 grade combo classes one year with Michael and that he was in the grade older than Michael, so I had just said (correctly) to him, "So, you must be a Junior now" before my blunder to the other boy. It had nothing to do with me guessing his age by his appearance, it was just my silly memory mixing up exact info.
That's how it is in my college classes too - I may remember where I was sitting and the instructor's lecture and the group discussion when we learned about a particular thing, and I could write a great paragraph on an exam about what I learned, as long as I don't have to give specific proper nouns (like names, cities, dates), but of course that's exactly what they want. As I'm learning, it's like a movie forms in my head without subtitles and connects all the pieces together using general names and 3-D moving visuals that make sense to me instead of using exact proper names. For example: the flatworm has a mouth that can close which gives it an advantage over jellyfish which have a constant opening through which food enters but also can quickly escape, but the roundworm has a body cavity which is an advantage over the flatworm who doesn't have that nice fluid filled area cushioning it's gut, making it lose it's lunch with any movement, and that segmented worms and mammals, birds, lizards, fish, etc. have an even more complex body cavity than roundworms. Oh, and the roundworm has an "in" and an "out" which is MUCH BETTER than the flatworm which only has one opening to perform both functions - gross! But the exam asked something like "describe the advantages/disadvantages of the Nematodas and the Cnidarians and the Platyhelminthes in relation to each other." I panicked - which was which?!?!? I know the answer, just not with those words - in fact I don't even know the question with those words! I remembered something funny in class when we were saying the word Cnidarians and drawing the radial symmetry of jellyfish so I matched those up, and plates are flat like the no-body-cavity-flatworm so I put those together, but I honestly couldn't remember if Nematodes were the roundworms or the segmented worms I'd studied so hard.
Between Biology and Ancient-Medieval World History this last semester, my brain is fried and it will take a while to heal, maybe a lifetime. ... And what was your name again? and where do I know you from? and who am I?
