I am, in essence, a cartographer by trade. I make maps. I do more than that - but unless you’re in the field - it will sound like gibberish to you, so just trust that I make maps. Sometimes I get to play with satellite photos too. I love my job.
I got into the field of Geography in college because of my long time love of maps. But - my love of maps is deeper than just “Wow. Cool Map.” It’s more like, “I have no idea where in the hell I am, please save me dear map.”
You know how people say “I have no sense of direction.” Well, that is such an understatement for me it’s not even funny. I can get NO WHERE without a map. Or very VERY accurate directions. Don’t give me that “Turn left at street ‘A’” shit - no - I need to know how many miles it is to street ‘A’, what are the landmarks by it, and is it a left turn on or off of a major highway without a light - because I don’t do those.
Here is a prime example of my very, oh-so-VERY, bad sense of direction.
In order to properly decide if something is EAST or WEST of something else (Like, if someone says - “Is Knoxville in East Tennessee?”) I have to take the following steps -
- Visualize a map of Tennessee with Knoxville marked by a star.
- Acknowledge that the star is on the right side of the state.
- Visualize a map of the United States
- Acknowledge that California is on the WEST coast which is on the LEFT side of the US.
- Go back to the thought of Knoxville being on the RIGHT side of Tennessee
- Since California is on the LEFT, and it is the WEST coast, then Knoxville, which is on the RIGHT, must be EAST Tennessee.
See? I can’t just instinctively answer those questions. Luckily my process is a quick one and the person asking the question doesn’t know the inner turmoil I have to answer it. Unfortunately - dependence on this technique gets me screwed up sometimes.
Someone asked me recently where the city we’re vacation is at in relation to another city. This is all along the gulf - so I envisioned the map of Florida. Unfortunately - I was seeing it from HUNTSVILLE’S POINT OF VIEW.
Yes, I was looking at a map of Florida in my head from my current city’s point of view.
(DONT ASK. I DONT KNOW WHY MY MIND WORKS THIS WAY.)
So my left/right California-is-the-West-Coast technique got me all turned around and I may have told the person that the city we’re going to (in Florida) is WEST of the city in Alabama they asked about. Which - it’s totally not. Florida is EAST of Alabama - so no city in it is WEST of Alabama, but because of my bass-ackwards way of looking at the cardinal directions, I got them all confused. And how do you explain to someone -
“Oh. I’m sorry. The city in Florida is EAST of that city in Alabama - not WEST. I was confused because I was looking at it from Huntsville’s point of view.”
This post just hits too close to home.
Also, (assuming that your cartographer husband is anything like my cartographer husband) are you constantly being mocked for your lack of directional sense and your need to get directions based on the location of nearby Targets?
I’m the same way! I’ve told my hubby I need one of those navigation deals in the car. I can’t even give good directions and usually since hubby is there next to me I’ll point to him since he can do it quite well.
That is actually pretty close to the way my warped mind works as well. Although sometimes even regular maps fail me. My saving grace? Explicit, written directions thanks to Map Quest. They have saved my ass so many times, I cannot even begin to say.
ummm… I hate to point this out, but there is another serious flaw in your logic.
While indeed MOST of Florida is EAST of Alabama, if you are talking about a city that is in the panhandle of Floria is most certainly CAN be west of a City in Alabama.
Please don’t shoot the messenger from NJ (that would be NORTH of you
hahahahahahah, and might I add…hahahahahah…… I’ve soooooo done the TN thing. Of course I think I’m the only one that has lived in a city for 7 years and gotten lost going home.
lol
Please do not feel bad. I’ve lived in and around Huntsville, AL for ALL of my life - and yet when you posed the hypothetical question: “Is Knoxville in East Tennessee?”, my first thought was “I don’t even know where the heck Knoxville IS!” The only thing worse than being directionally challenged - is being me! I couldn’t point out more than 10% of the US states on a map, and honestly - I don’t care (I can point out Alabama, and that’s all I need - right?).
Set your Tvivo/vcr/ whatever…. tomorrow the Today show will feature a concert by the cast of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL.
ha! that settles it. we could never go on vacation together. the police would find us wandering the streets with tears streaming down our faces crying “where the HELL are we?!?”
My husband is also in the mapping business (he’s a Photogrammatrist…he does the scanner-y-ma-jiggy-thinga-ma-boo) and the SOB gets lost ALL THE TIME. He’s also a fan of “shortcuts”, which is really just the very long way around to where we want to go. I had no idea is was inherant in the trade. Can’t wait to rub it in when I get home
Oh boy. I am male and am hopeless at directions. It doesn’t help me to know where the sun is. I do see a map in my head with the North up and West to the left and East to the right, but this won’t help if I don’t know what direction I’m facing with the map in front of me. In my defense, I can parallel park my car.
Hmmm. I always have to think for a second or two about which coast I live on (!). Then, I have to think about Pacific Coast Highway being in CA so I don’t get my oceans mixed up.
But I can find the food court in any mall. For reals.
dude? YOU MAKE MAPS FOR A LIVING! How can you NOT have a sense of direction.
Also? I have NO idea what you are talking about.
I always think of west as left, and east as right, so if I’m driving south, and turn left, I think I’ve gone west, but I haven’t and it makes my head want to explode. Thankfully the two cities I mostly drive in have simple directional landmarks, such as : mountains = east, ocean = west, and river=north, hill=south. Brilliant!
I feel ya. I ROCKED geography in high school, and to this day I can lose myself for hours crawling around Google Earth. But when I moved to far western SC (the opposite end of the atlantic, heh) I got all confused because everyone referred to my area as the ‘upstate’. But since we were close to the NC border, I automatically assumed they were talking about NC. Because that would make us the ‘downstate’, right?
Did I mention I’m naturally blonde? No?
Totally post unrelated, but exciting news for us Brits… Krispy Creme has opened up some outlets in London! I kid you not , You can now buy Krispy Creme donuts in Harrods! Who would ever have thought it! Yesterday, passing the new kiosk outside Holborn Tube I was thinking of you
Whoops forgot to put my name on the last post
Okay, so I’m catching up on my blog reading after the baby, so I’m commenting on hella old posts, but anyway…
I am from San Diego, so I totally think that the ocean is to the West, no matter where I am. My work deals with North Carolina, where that is clearly not the case, but I regularly say that I am working in Eastern North Carolina (you know, the side away from the ocean.)
Living in the Midwest is the worst for this issue since there are no ocean or mountains to direct me.