Thank you for your take on the topic Kriston. I asked myself the same exact questions when I first noticed these distinct patterns back in high school. I always knew that there was always a normal level of variability in my performance, awareness, etc. on any given day.But my variability would leave me extremely competent on some days and completely lost on others. I was hesitant to call it anything but me not having my act together and so I worked extra hard to try to correct these problems, which I dismissed as the result of "poor self-discipline" and "distractibility".
Even with this effort, I could not achieve the A's I wanted so badly, even in subjects where tests revealed I was clearly gifted. (I scored 145,146 in broad math,reading respectively on WJ) At the time I still had an IEP for a diagnosis which still remains unknown to me today, and every year my family was coerced to declassify me because I was not qualifying for special services. I was completely lost to the source of my difficulties, since the reevaluations given to me didn't identify a learning disability or cognitive glitch or anything.
My theory is that my subconscious is very crappy. It does not sort things that I learn very well. I need to work very hard to organize new information that I learn and make sure it sticks the way it should. Unless I review something every single day I will begin to forget it. Thus, when long assignments for one class prevent me from studying for another class, I begin to fall behind in the other class. Studying for tests becomes reviewing old chapters in addition to new ones so I will remember the skill which the new material is based on.
"Sudden disappearance of skills", as I mentioned in the previous post, is a problem I've had all my life. I forget definitions of words I've used my entire life, sometimes even simple ones which gives the impression of me being tonguetied. Some days I will forget how to turn on my turn signal or windshield wiper, which makes me seriously doubt my driving ability. I don't think this is garden variety cluelessness. When I was younger I would forget how to tie my shoes and I couldn't ever remember my multiplication tables. Academically this is a big unknown because I am not sure if I will forget the events of a book we just read, or the chain rule in calculus, and not even be aware that I forgot them.
I do not expect perfection from giftedness. In fact, I would be happy with even moderate success which definitely does not require giftedness. I posted here simply because I don't want to be criticized for seeming "ungrateful" by parents of LD children if I posted on an LD board. I am not even discussing a potential/performance discrepancy in most of my previous post. I am describing skills I lack that seem to be present even in a person of average intelligence.
I am regularly clueless to where I put my car keys and I can't even remember what I ate for dinner last night. Most "absent minded professors" encounter these issues but are completely cogniscient of their topics of interest, while I can't even remember information which I find interesting or important on certain days.
I am sorry if I am not presenting this dilemma in its full depth. The best examples may escape me as I am searching through my memory for them. I would like to add briefly that this kind of "cluelessness" runs in my family. My dad is a brilliant lawyer but sometimes forgets basic principles of the law and will get stuck for days when he cannot open his mind enough to see the answer to something.
Hope this helps,
Jake
