Lately, my sister Eileen has become quite obsessed with solving the Rubik’s Cube to the point where she is now quite a Rubik’s Cube aficionado. She figured out how to solve it by watching a video on YouTube, which consists of using different algorithms to solve the cube. She can often be seen holding the Cube and muttering different sequences of algorithms that look as if they would only be at home in a periodic table: Ri, L, Ui, F, D,... Coupled with this, she twists the Cube with lightning fast speed, which, somehow, I can never seem to do. Actually, once she tried to teach me how to solve the cube, and our conversation went something like this:

Eileen: “Okay, do right, up inverted, right inverted, down.”

Me: “What?”

Eileen: “No, no, you turn it clockwise.”

Me: “That is clockwise.”

Eileen:”No it’s not, it’s how you look at it, see, like that.”

Me: “Like this?”

Eileen: “No…”

And so on, Eileen would continue to try to teach me, with almost saint-like patience, until inadvertently I would grow tired of it and eventually give up. Then she would take it from me, and in under five minutes, would have the whole thing solved, while I stared at her with a mix of admiration and frustration. Okay, so what if I’m like the only person on this continent who can not seem to be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube? I told Eileen that for my birthday she can get me a 2×2x2 one and I’ll try that. Or better yet, a 1×1x1…