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This is one of those things that makes me say "wow," but I can't explain exactly why it makes me say that. I can almost identify with the girl you described. When I was much younger I could spend long long periods of time (sometimes a couple of hours) staring at tiles in floors, making patterns in my mind. Or I would stare at the pavement as I would walk and try to make patterns in my steps (i.e. one step in one square, two steps in the next, one in the following, two after that, etc.). I realize that this is fairly common (moreso than one might think at first), but it still amazes me.

I often wonder where this periodicity in thought comes from... Does the structure of our brains just lend to that? Or is there something more to it? And people like the girl in the story you were describing are fascinating. I wish that I could sit down for several hours at a time and pick apart the patterns I see all around me that I spend so much time thinking about superficially. And I hate to sound indelicate, but sometimes I think that people with OCD would be great working in this field. There's so much to keep track of; someone would have to be neurotically obsessive about patterns and details to have somewhat of a handle on it. I definitely want to learn more about how the brain finds patterns in general.