It's Catching!! (Updated!)

I have come to the very scientific conclusion that learning disabilities, specifically ADD, are contagious.

For those of you who don't know, I work at the Teaching Learning Center at Union. We assist the learning disabled students on campus. I love my job (or at least like it), and have learned a lot about disabilities during my eight months of employment there. But in no offical manner was I informed that contracting a learning disability of my very own was a viable job risk. (Is this nondisclosure a form of job security for the higher-ups? And if so, shouldn't I recieve services as part of workmans' comp?)

Exhibit A: Today at work, I was sent to the ad building to return a test. Upon arriving in Humanities and finding not a soul around, I decided to run another errand one floor up and then return to find someone to sign for the test. Once the errand was completed, and proud of myself for remembering a third errand that would have been very characteristic of me to forget, I returned to our office. It was only as I walked through the door that I realized the manilla test envelope was still in my possession.

Exhibit B: Also at work, I was shredding old files today. Before each file is disposed of, I was to fill out a form with pertinent information to the file on it, in order to record that the file was indeed disposed of properly. (My thoughts on the worthlessness of this task are fodder for another post.) On one particular student, after filling out the information required, I proceeded to shred the entire file save the final three pages. Suddenly I realized that the disposed file form was nowhere to be seen. I had indeed shredded it along with the file. This caused searching through the shreddings by both Ben and I in order to retrieve the information necessary. Accompanied by this process was the inevitable, "Oh Katie..." look from Ben, which I'm becoming accustomed to, but still occasionally manages to make me feel slightly brain damaged.

Exhibit C: Last night, my roommate was telling me a story. I was looking at her and nodding in the appropriate places, even responding correctly at times. Five minutes after her story was complete, I looked up from my computer and said, "What did you just say?"

Exhibit D: Last week at work, I e-mailed all the teachers who have students taking exams with us. I informed them of when we needed their tests, and then graciously asked them to call our office with any questions or concerns. I then listed our phone number. Only it wasn't our office number. It was my room number. This was another instance of the "Oh Katie..." look.

There are other factors. I've found concentrating on things, especially only one thing at a time, to take much more effort this year than it has in the past. I simply must multi-task, or use all my brain power to hold my attention on the subject at hand. I commonly misspell or reverse words, such as my just spelling "commonly" with three m's. Yesterday I spelled my name wrong. I switch subject matter in conversation at terrifying speeds. Sometimes when I'm talking to a person about one thing, I am suddenly thinking about something they said or wrote to me hours or days earlier. The subject at hand is then completely neglected and will probably come to me four days later when I talk to this person again.

Ben and I discussed this phenomenon briefly today. He, too, has noticed the contagious nature of learning disabilities around our office. His self-diagnosis is for both ADD and dyslexia. For me, I think ADD will suffice. Mustn't be greedy with these new contagious disabilities, you know. Ben is more politically correct in his phrasing, and says that his disabilities were "acquired" since coming to the TLC.

Either way, it's catching!