left-right up-down

[dubdobdee]

OK all my life I have been extraordinarily bad at sorting left from right, as regards the names of the directions -- if I develop a method, I can use it in local time for a while (for example the duration of a single drive) but then the dyad just gets irretrievably muddled in my head, and I have to drop it and start over.

As it happens, I'm a good solo map-reader -- probably because left on the map is the same as left in the world, and I don't have to name it to myself to know I'm complying.

The thing I sometimes get muddled about on maps is up and down: or more accurately north and south. I invariably look at a map of New York as if north is south, as if upstate would take you towards Washington. And I ghot utterly muddled in clermont ferrand on my trip there six weeks ago, for the same reason. I was apporoaching from the north, and consistently read the street-map I had as if its bottom edge was the edge I was arriving from. As if it read the same way I was travelling: in fact of course it was exactly the opposite.

I was tired at the time -- this probably didn't help. But it simply didn't occur to me why I was getting so lost: I was blaming it on the fact that CF is built on a volcano, and all the straight streets are kind of circles not lines (which is true but didn't explain why the sun was where it was; I'd been using the sun all day, to check I was more or less going south -- now suddenly in the city I was baffled that it was behind me when it should have been in front me, and so on).

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha "ghot"

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I have never been able to call 'left' or 'right' - somewhere there is a wire missing. Giving directions in the street to people I often just sort of wiggle my arm in that direction and go 'you know, that, way'.

At school this had one advantage when I was excused from having to do the marching bit of army corps by the NCO since my inability to turn in the correct direction when ordered was making his squad look bad!

However I am a genius when it comes to reading maps and hardly ever get lost, even without one, so it is not linked to sense of direction.

[jauntyemma.livejournal.com]

you need a satnav! My dad insisted on taking me out for a spin in his new car at the weekend and was waxing lyrical on the wonders of the satnav and how it has promoted marital bliss (my mum is an appalling navigator) etc etc. I think the best thing about it is the calm confidence the voice has ie it quite definitely says right or left instead of going 'ooh left... no right... wait follow that blue van....'.

Anyway his works in foreign parts too and was apparently a godsend when navigating around small French towns.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Our road has got about five times busier recently and I'm sure it's because a satnav has identified it as a short cut between Colliers Wood and Mitcham. Pretty soon satnavs will have an impact on house prices and then what will middle england do eh?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i disapprove of satnav!

[jauntyemma.livejournal.com]

my dad's favourite feature is the thing telling you your eta as he can then tell my mum she's falling behind the schedule if she's driving too slowly...

[spittake.livejournal.com]

I still have to look at my hands to see which makes the L for left.

I am terrible at giving directions unless I have a map in front of me, and then I am awesome at it.

And I am not so hot at telling you which way is north or south, unless I'm in Manhattan (thank you, grid system.)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

of course the manhattan grid runs nothing like true north-south ;)

[spittake.livejournal.com]

east = right of 5th Ave & west = left of 5th Ave, that's all I need to know

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

but that only works if yr walking UP 5th avenue...