Sudoku Cuckoo

I am mad for Sudoku. Absolutely mad for it.

I can see some of you shaking your heads in disbelief. More like shock and horror as well. Now, now, don't be quick to judge! Sudoku is not so much about Math but more about compartmentalising. Sheesh, I am crap at that too.

Those nearest and dearest to me would know that I am not a numeric person. I can’t tell the time. I can’t do currency conversions. When I was in the US with the girls, I thought that the exchange rate was 2.2 so I stopped myself from buying the entire mall because I thought everything was horribly overpriced. I found out only on the way back to Singapore that 2.2 was the figure I had stored in my pea brain because it was one of the figures for the competition we were taking part in. During sales, I have to wreck my head to calculate 30% off $89 and the Best Friend always comes in handy because my standard answer for any permutation is $49. During JC, when whatsherface was teaching us about polar coordinates, all I could think about was polar bears frolicking in the snow and covering their black noses when stalking their prey. Camouflage, you see. I remember vaguely that there was a question on polar coordinates during the A levels and we had to plot a thingybob. I was terribly crestfallen when everyone drew an ellipse and I had drawn a damn circle. Oh well, I got an E for C Math and I am damn proud of it. I thought I was going to fail. Wait… is E a fail grade? Bah, too late now.

Back to Sudoku – I only started a couple of days back and I am completely hooked! In London, there are these people on the street corners giving out the free paper and there will be a Sudoku section every day. The only reason why I started doing it was because I didn’t want to speak to my family. Yes, yes, petulant I know. We had gone to Greenwich (read Elle magazine on the way there and back) and went to watch The Lion King all in the same day. Too much too much! I was fuming on the bus ride back from the theatre because NO ONE would agree with me that taking the tube back would have been MUCH faster. Hence the Sudoku. On the bus, my annoying sister was breathing down my neck giving me what she thought were useful nuggets of information, “Put a 9 there. There’s no other number that can fit in the sequence. I am very sure! No doubt about it.” I TSK-ed her very loudly, turned my back on her and continued to stare intently at the grid. Dammit, she was right about the 9. SMARTY PANTS. Prth. I had to explain to her that for me, doing anything with numbers is an achievement because I never have anything to do with numbers.

At Heathrow, as I had to wait a good four hours before my flight, I went to buy a Sudoku book. These British Sudoku publishers are so thoughtful! My book had a mechanical pencil with (get this!) an attached eraser taped on the cover. Nifty isn’t it? My first grid took me an hour to complete. Such shame. The grids get progressively more difficult and the worst one I did was the one on the flight back. It took me frigging 12 hours (with naps and meals in between) to finish only ONE grid! With Sudoku, there is absolutely no room for error. (I sound so mathematical. I feel like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Again, the delusions of grandeur…) One mistake and you’re in trouble. With this particular grid, I had to erase the entire bloody thing a few times, once because I found two 8s in one column. And this was after two hours of staring at it. I felt like shit and the paper was wearing thin. The Aussie woman next to me kept on giving me dirty looks because I was muttering to myself and erasing vigorously. I hope none of the flakes flew on her. Maybe she thought I was some kind of Chinese mathematical prodigy – a genius in sweatpants. Well, I managed to finish the grid as we were making the descent. Oh, the joy was unimaginable. I wanted to hug the grumpy Aussie cow and do a little jig in the aisle.

My friends, it is 6am. I am jet-lagged and my eyes hurt from all the bloody Sudoku.

I can’t wait to get Sudoku for PSP! That is when I will stop speaking to human beings and quietly hone my skills and strategy. And slowly lose my mind to numbers 1 to 9…