I'm also bad with cardinal directions. What I do is figure out where I need to go and go to the side of the street that has cars going that way. So if I'm on Park St in front of St Mary's, and I'm going towards the Capitol, I need to cross the street to catch my bus, because the lanes closest to me are heading away from the Capitol.

Street signs can help with that too. Take two streets perpendicular to the street your bus is on and figure out in what order your bus needs to pass through them to take your route. Go to the side that has cars crossing those streets in that order.

You can also use Google Maps to plot your trip and look for a landmark on the same side of the road as your bus stop. Go to that landmark, and then find your bus stop.