When I was an undergraduate a long time ago, it was the well-established habit of third and fourth year psychology students to pounce on unsuspecting innocents like myself and subject us to a battery of psychology tests, none of which we got paid for (just catch any of this happening these days!). However, the test measuring verbal versus spatial ability and scored on a percentile ranking, has been of revelatory value to me for my whole life since then.

Why? Because the researcher confirmed my dawning suspicion that I was never designed to be a homing pigeon, and gave me a lifelong excuse (explanation? Take your pick….) for getting myself lost at the drop of a map. He found that my verbal ability was above the 95th percentile, and exceptionally high. ( See! Born to be a writer….) HOWEVER, my spatial ability was exceptionally low: below the 5th percentile. I can still remember the baffled look on the budding psychologist’s face as he read off my results. “How on EARTH do you manage to get about?” he enquired, in a voice carrying equal measures of pity and incredulity. And, dear reader, I have been pondering that question ever since.

So I just loved this post….

Getting Found by Getting Lost

200 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013

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