Daily Prompt: I am a Rock

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Is it easy for you to ask for help when you need it, or do you prefer to rely only on yourself? Why?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us SELF.

Glacial erratic in Feldbrunnen

Have you ever had that feeling you were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Reflecting on my life, it sometimes seems that my destiny was I, me and myself. Of course mum and dad were great. I was unique, the only one, and they taught me how to eat, walk, sleep and be the perfect person I am.

It all really started when it was decided I should be educated. I was quite good at it really. In my first school I managed to work things out with a little bit of help and assistance from mum and dad. It was then the basic addition and subtraction and sorting out mathematical problems which were the necessities of every day survival. Mum did the shopping and had to know how to deal with the job, paying in money and being sure that she was given the right change. This was a case of not looking a fool and not being cheated and so she passed this essential knowledge on to me.

Problems began when I qualified for a higher schooling, a so-called grammar school in the British way of life. It was now not just a case of 1+1=2 but (a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²or something like that. I could actually do all that stuff some 45 years ago, but as the brain ages, so does the memory of how you did it. Naturally mum and dad were totally unable to cope with this game of numbers and letters known as Algebra and so it all began.

There was also the problems that Pythagoras invented to tease the brain in our school days, finding triangles with the squares on the hypotenuse of a triangle with a 90° angle being equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, where you finally wrote a Q.E.D. at the end to prove that that was that that was to be proven. How could a mum and dad work that out? Actually dad could, but not how I did it. He had his own way or arriving at a total, being a keen lover of football permutations and having complicated constellations when placing a bet on a horse (horses). He never really lost, now and again won, but always broke even. I was on my Todd (Todd Jones – alone for those not knowing the cockney language) with my scholastic problems and that was now to be the story of my life.

Not forgetting grammatical problems, where the local language incorporated using two negatives in a sentence which definitely did not result in a positive, as such problems were not even realised (example She ain’t got nuffing= She has not got nothing which in the normal way of speaking would be She has not got anything – get me?).

I was not one of those children at school whose parents dealt with life at a higher level. We were working class, doing it all by learning. Some learnt it and some tried to learn it. I was the cuckoo in the nest that had to learn it, with no visible help. And the foundations were laid on how to become a rock, without really wanting to.

The result of this Freudian experience is that I always had to did it on my own. I acquired a sort of psychological barrier between me and asking for help. As life continued, so did the problems. I organised my first excursion into the unknown, a move to another country and job, without support from anywhere. I just confronted mum and dad with the final solution. That seemed to be OK with them, although mum was sure that the foreigners might do something to her little girl. Everyone was a foreigner that did not speak English or live within bus distance of our home.

I survived. It remains with me that I never actually ask for help, but have made progress and at least hope that someone can help me. Of course Mr. Swiss is always there to assist when I have one of my surprising falls, through lack of balance or not looking where I am going and he always picks me up. Even that is not always a success, we are both not growing younger. My days of rock are dwindling and I am slowly becoming gravel.

It is not that I actually prefer to rely on myself, but I never learnt it another way. I just cross my fingers and hope that a good Samaritan is near when something happens to me.

Daily Prompt: I am a Rock

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17 thoughts on “Daily Prompt: I am a Rock”

TrashBash

04/09/2013 at 16:33

This is such a lovely read. I feel like I learn a bit about your life every post. Did you hear that the government have made a rule now that English and Maths has to be passed C or above? if you get lower in GCSE (O-levels) then you have to re-take till you pass or till you leave school. ALSO you can no longer leave education at 16, its 17! Be interested to see what you think, because lot your background and the circumstances you were in, it’s not unique when it comes to working class families but it’s not a working class problem either. However we can’t argue that if the money is there, then better education can be provided. I think public school kids are adept with confidence and the ability to be self efficient. However I think working class kids are streetwise and quick to just survive on the limited cards life has dealt them. Often making good of a difficult situation. Your story is inspired. x

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- angloswiss
  
  04/09/2013 at 19:16
  
  I took 7 O levels around 1963 and then it was just luck of the results. I got 6 and guess what, I failed in English. I had to take it again a year later as I was doing a secretarial course with shorthand, typing, accounts and all the trimmings and you had to have english. My first english was Cambridge or London university I think, but I know the 2nd exam was Oxford as that was easier. anyhow I passed the second time round. My best was Biology with a B, followed up by Maths with a C. I left school at 17-18 as I added a year on. We were mostly from the East End at my grammar school, Central Foundation, situated in Spitalfields market, which no longer exists. It amalgamated afterwards with Coborn school, although I was then long gone. We were lucky girls, as we were all born 1946, which was the baby boom years after the war and only the fittest survived and squeezed through the 11+ which it was then known as.
  
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cmd1122

05/09/2013 at 04:27

http://cieradesilva.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/daily-prompt-i-am-a-rock-why-yes-indeed/

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Pingback: Do I really need anyone’s help? | Rob's Surf Report
weliveinaflat

05/09/2013 at 08:48

One of the better things to learn in life is being strong enough to go it alone, because unfortunately, the world tends to be preoccupied with themselves. My parents are working class too and I have to learn it myself. But of course there is always hope. I always like to “boast” about turning ‘A’ level Math paper 2 completely empty. My math teacher was talented at putting people down but not teaching. I couldn’t answer a single math question. And yet I got a C for “A” level math. I must have been super lucky everyone else did badly for Math that year! The paper itself was ridiculous, D: Or I would have been the one retaking it. – –

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- angloswiss
  
  05/09/2013 at 19:13
  
  At least you did A level so congratulations. I never gave it a thought at the time as I did not know what to do with my A level afterwards and university was a foreign word to mum and dad. I just had the intention of leaving, getting out of the East End and going to another country and I did it. that was my further eductation.
  
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hungrydai

10/09/2013 at 01:20

Hi Pat. I had my settings wrong here. God, WordPress is so complicated to use. Now I’ll get notifications when you write. Hugs from Dai

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