There's this concept that exists in psychology which states that people are far more likely to remember things if they are in the state they were in when they first learned them. It's called State Dependent Memory, and I tell you the name of it not because you are interested in psych, but because you can google it and get a better description than whatever I manage to come up with. An example I remember from a TV show that reflects this is when one of the characters was late because he had never driven to his destination sober and had a difficult time recalling how to get there.
I tell you this because I had an experience like that today. Well, mine didn't involve alcohol. It involved runner's high, which in the interest of making this post actually readable and not a bunch of useless definitions, I will refrain from describing. Again, google. Anyway, I went out jogging today, but it involved more walking than jogging because I also went jogging yesterday and I was a little sore. When I go jog, I usually head into the U of M campus and then stumble around there until I find a path to stick with, then follow it for a while. This is how I figured out I have state dependent memory when I jog because I got lost. And not lost in the way I usually use the word lost, where I go "oooh look at me I'm on a path I've never been on where I can see a road that will take me back home oooh look how lost I am", but in the sense of "I don't believe I know how the hell to get home." That's the type of lost I was today.
When I had this realization, I slowed to a walk, which I always do when I'm confused on which way to go next. Then, I tried to remember how I had gotten to where I was, and could not recall any details of the path I had taken 20 minutes earlier. I knew I had been on University Ave for two miles then turned, but I couldn't remember what that turn consisted of and how to get back there. Not to mention that I don't like retracing my steps when I jog. It ruins one of the reasons I'm outside jogging and not in a gym somewhere. I enjoy the novelty of taking multiple winding paths and seeing different buildings. I don't enjoy being on a treadmill and staring at the same wall for half an hour. I seek varying environments, not the same thing I saw before I got lost.
After attempting to find a new path that would take me home, and deciding that such a thing did not exist, I reluctantly stumbled back onto University Avenue and made the trip back. Though I couldn't recall the path I had taken to get on that road in the first place, so I ended up switching up my return route in the end. But I struggle to remember my exact path, and I might not be able to figure it out even if I went out again. I do tend to take some weird turns and go off the beaten road. Though if I was jogging while I tried to figure it out, I do believe that it would come to me as if it was second nature. State Dependent Memory in action.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
The Double Meaning of Sketches
I try to make the titles of everything I do as witty and creative as possible. In the context of this blog, it serves to give the reader the false belief that the content they are about to read will be thought provoking, though in actuality it's just my mindless rambling. So consider yourself punked, Ashton Kutcher style.
Random segue aside, the first sketch I want to discuss is the same type of sketch I discussed in my previous post. That's right, I'm still trying to teach myself how to draw. I haven't given up quite yet. And, much like my attempts to teach myself guitar, I am actually making progress. Just a few nights ago, I drew the cartoon version of my friend that was described by my friends as decent. Compared to the normal "atrocious", I'd say I'm moving on up in the art world. Not to mention it gives me something to do when I'm not reading. I think to fulfill my art graduation requirement I'll take a drawing class or two. It may end up being a fun adventure that will strengthen a skill which I severely lack. Trust me, most of my sketches make my soul cry. On second thought, there may be a lucrative business to be made with soul-crushing drawings. I could design Hot Topic shirts for a living.
Now for the second type of sketch. A friend of mine had the idea for creating a sketch group where we would create videos centered around campus life and other comedic ventures. He proposed this last semester, but we are finally working at it and making some astounding progress. The script for the first video is already completed, we have a list of at least 30 items of other things we will attempt to do, and many people are already on board to help with their respective talents. What fascinated me most about this was the meeting we had today. The first script involves the use of many forms of alternate energy sources to.... I don't wanna spoil anything. Suffice to say, there are multiple usages of non fossil fuels that function to provide an obstacle for the protagonist in a way I will not spoil. That's when a revelation struck me. While we are using this for comedic effect, someone else could watch our final product and interpret it as a political message. None of us meant for that to be inherit in the script, but as clear as day, the symbolism is present. Approaching it from a psychological perspective, as I am apt to do, I think it speaks to a natural drive in humans to craft a work that includes symbolic elements and a cycle of events. Pretty much every story has a common structure, with a cycle of events that led to a resolution. Almost all movies are predictable in a sense because of this, and I think the reason that this is even present, that I am even able to notice the subvert implications of what are video could be interpreted as, reflects a commonality amongst the human population. There are multiple layers to everything, and I believe one of those layers is universal to everyone that inhabits planet Earth.
Random segue aside, the first sketch I want to discuss is the same type of sketch I discussed in my previous post. That's right, I'm still trying to teach myself how to draw. I haven't given up quite yet. And, much like my attempts to teach myself guitar, I am actually making progress. Just a few nights ago, I drew the cartoon version of my friend that was described by my friends as decent. Compared to the normal "atrocious", I'd say I'm moving on up in the art world. Not to mention it gives me something to do when I'm not reading. I think to fulfill my art graduation requirement I'll take a drawing class or two. It may end up being a fun adventure that will strengthen a skill which I severely lack. Trust me, most of my sketches make my soul cry. On second thought, there may be a lucrative business to be made with soul-crushing drawings. I could design Hot Topic shirts for a living.
Now for the second type of sketch. A friend of mine had the idea for creating a sketch group where we would create videos centered around campus life and other comedic ventures. He proposed this last semester, but we are finally working at it and making some astounding progress. The script for the first video is already completed, we have a list of at least 30 items of other things we will attempt to do, and many people are already on board to help with their respective talents. What fascinated me most about this was the meeting we had today. The first script involves the use of many forms of alternate energy sources to.... I don't wanna spoil anything. Suffice to say, there are multiple usages of non fossil fuels that function to provide an obstacle for the protagonist in a way I will not spoil. That's when a revelation struck me. While we are using this for comedic effect, someone else could watch our final product and interpret it as a political message. None of us meant for that to be inherit in the script, but as clear as day, the symbolism is present. Approaching it from a psychological perspective, as I am apt to do, I think it speaks to a natural drive in humans to craft a work that includes symbolic elements and a cycle of events. Pretty much every story has a common structure, with a cycle of events that led to a resolution. Almost all movies are predictable in a sense because of this, and I think the reason that this is even present, that I am even able to notice the subvert implications of what are video could be interpreted as, reflects a commonality amongst the human population. There are multiple layers to everything, and I believe one of those layers is universal to everyone that inhabits planet Earth.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Words and Pictures
I could probably spend an hour detailing stories of my experience playing Words with Friends. It's a very polarizing trip: either I feel ecstatic because I just scored 30 points for a two letter "word" (xi is by definition a Greek letter, which to me doesn't mean it's a word) or I feel like I should cheat just to have a chance to catch up to the score my opponent has garnered. Recently, I lost 400 something to my mere 260. I guess sometimes I don't try to rack up a huge score on my turn, I try to play the coolest word. Like Rhino, which is only 8 points, but getting it all to fall in place is difficult. Especially given how I seem to have a problem obtaining vowels. I've had to play multiple turns where I didn't have any vowels to play, and strangely when that happens they also like to give me letters that are difficult to use without vowels, v. I'm not sure what to do with two v's and no vowels, and I'm too proud to swap tiles, so I just spell out simple words like to just to get some points that turn. Again, I could go on and on about this but it's a fairly boring topic. But if you ever feel stressed about school or whatever, just play me in a game of Words with Friends. It's a guaranteed confidence boost (for you at least.)
Lately, I've discovered there are plenty of times were I will be sitting around with nothing to do. Well, I mean I have homework but I'm not doing it. Rather than spend twenty minutes on Facebook when that happens, I've decided to try to teach myself how to draw. Which is similar to my continued attempts to teach myself guitar, in that it would work so much better with an actual tutor and I highly doubt I'll ever go anywhere with it. Or maybe I'm wrong this time. Perhaps the spirit of Andy Warhol is buried deep within me, waiting to be giving a pencil and paper and time to craft a masterpiece. Cause really, how hard is it to draw cans of soup? Just to get myself use to the concept of actual drawing and sketching, I think I will stick to drawing that which has already been drawn. For instance, there is an Angry Birds bookmark sitting in front of me, squawking at me, and I may just practice drawing a few birds and pigs. They look simple enough. At the very least, it'll give me something to do and will exercise different parts of my brain that have gotten rusty. Maybe I'll imitate some cartoonists drawings, but I think that I'll stay away from people for now. Baby steps, and any other cliche metaphor thats appropriate.
Lately, I've discovered there are plenty of times were I will be sitting around with nothing to do. Well, I mean I have homework but I'm not doing it. Rather than spend twenty minutes on Facebook when that happens, I've decided to try to teach myself how to draw. Which is similar to my continued attempts to teach myself guitar, in that it would work so much better with an actual tutor and I highly doubt I'll ever go anywhere with it. Or maybe I'm wrong this time. Perhaps the spirit of Andy Warhol is buried deep within me, waiting to be giving a pencil and paper and time to craft a masterpiece. Cause really, how hard is it to draw cans of soup? Just to get myself use to the concept of actual drawing and sketching, I think I will stick to drawing that which has already been drawn. For instance, there is an Angry Birds bookmark sitting in front of me, squawking at me, and I may just practice drawing a few birds and pigs. They look simple enough. At the very least, it'll give me something to do and will exercise different parts of my brain that have gotten rusty. Maybe I'll imitate some cartoonists drawings, but I think that I'll stay away from people for now. Baby steps, and any other cliche metaphor thats appropriate.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Scholarship Weekend Brah
The last four days or so in Auggietown have been quite awesome, to say the least. On Thursday I got to help the other section of the Liberating Letters class with their trial. This gave me an excuse to be as ridiculous as I could in an hour and a half period. I actually ended up being two witnesses and the bailiff. My first role was to play Poseidon. To get in character, I made a very crude trident. Also, because I had/have a cold and my face was super dry and cracking and bleeding (not an attractive sight), I put a band-aid under my nose, and my friend insisted that I have a mustache. The Odyssey doesn't specifically say that Poseidon had a French mustache, but its implied (not really). As Lord of the Surf, I decided that it would make sense for Poseidon to talk in a surfer accent, and end every sentence with "brah." So that's what I did. I also played one of Odysseus' men, which was boring expect when the Prosecution asked where I was when Odysseus got back to Ithaca and I replied "I was dead." I keep the same mustache as Poseidon, cause it was covering up my cut up face, which probably hurt the believability of my performance. Being the bailiff was also quite the experience. Since witnesses can't swear themselves in (who know?), Groven's son was the one to swear me in, and diss me of course. He takes after his father it would seem. I also managed to show that I was quite snappy with the swearing in process as well.
Anywho, I should talk about Scholarship Weekend now, since that's the name of this post (brah). Thursday night, I made sure that my room was clean, tidy, welcoming and all that jazz for the kids I was gonna host. I finally got around to washing my bedding even. But one thing was missing: an email telling me who I was gonna host. Turns out some people didn't get assigned anyone. I was bummed. So I tried to steal someone else's kids. I figure if some people had four they had to fit in one room, they may as well give me two, right? Right. So I spent half of Friday trying to get someone to host. And I almost did end up hosting for someone who had baseball practice, expect out of nowhere baseball practice got cancelled. So my only chance to host a student vanished as quickly as it came. But the rest of the night went amazing. I was to help set up the Big Show, but by the time I showed up it was already done. Whoops. Then myself and another participant had to find a third participant and ran around campus trying to recruit someone, which we managed to do just in time. For the Big Show, I read texts from Bob, got my paper writing skills attacked, read S**t Auggies say, demonstrated owling, and got complimented on my boxers while I was worried about falling off stage mid owl. I wish that had been part of rehearsal so I would've had time to come up with a better response. Still, it was pretty awesome.
Anywho, I should talk about Scholarship Weekend now, since that's the name of this post (brah). Thursday night, I made sure that my room was clean, tidy, welcoming and all that jazz for the kids I was gonna host. I finally got around to washing my bedding even. But one thing was missing: an email telling me who I was gonna host. Turns out some people didn't get assigned anyone. I was bummed. So I tried to steal someone else's kids. I figure if some people had four they had to fit in one room, they may as well give me two, right? Right. So I spent half of Friday trying to get someone to host. And I almost did end up hosting for someone who had baseball practice, expect out of nowhere baseball practice got cancelled. So my only chance to host a student vanished as quickly as it came. But the rest of the night went amazing. I was to help set up the Big Show, but by the time I showed up it was already done. Whoops. Then myself and another participant had to find a third participant and ran around campus trying to recruit someone, which we managed to do just in time. For the Big Show, I read texts from Bob, got my paper writing skills attacked, read S**t Auggies say, demonstrated owling, and got complimented on my boxers while I was worried about falling off stage mid owl. I wish that had been part of rehearsal so I would've had time to come up with a better response. Still, it was pretty awesome.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Coming to you live from the classroom!
The title of my bittersweet return to blogging (more on that in a minute) is my clever way of announcing that I wrote this while I was fed up with my Computer Programming assignment (more on that in half a minute). Though, I suppose no one will read this while I am still in class so it's not really live, but it's live to me. So yeah.
The reason I am blogging and not programming is because I no longer understand what the issue is with my code. It keeps telling me "reached end of file while parsing," which is completely foreign to me. So I googled what parsing means. Essentially, the computer is attempting to figure out how my sentence is structured, and it's figuring out the grammar of my line of code. My best guess is that I don't write a complete sentence with my code, and that's why it won't run. Programming has a habit of throwing unnecessary words out of the window, so I'm not sure why it needs to figure out if I'm using proper sentence structure. The problem appeared out of nowhere, then it suddenly disappeared, and now it's back. It did not return with my patience, which it stole upon its first appearance, and so I decided now would be a fitting time to resume blogging.
Cause it's been like, forever. I haven't written any new posts in about a month and a half. It wasn't until a friend told me I had to resume and "update my fans" that I even considered it. Though, I always knew this day would come. I always knew my blog would show up on my doorstep on a Thursday afternoon, and ask me if it could come in and get out of the rain. I always knew I would invite it back in, when I pictured this moment in my head; I just didn't think I'd say yes so easily. But it's been so long. I wonder if we'll ever be as close as we were once. I'm also hoping I manage to not drift away from my blog once we rekindle our relationship with each other.
I feel like there is so much more to say, but if I get it all out now, what's the incentive to continue writing? So I'll save it for another day. Not too long though. Like a lost lover, my blog and I have much to catch up on.
The reason I am blogging and not programming is because I no longer understand what the issue is with my code. It keeps telling me "reached end of file while parsing," which is completely foreign to me. So I googled what parsing means. Essentially, the computer is attempting to figure out how my sentence is structured, and it's figuring out the grammar of my line of code. My best guess is that I don't write a complete sentence with my code, and that's why it won't run. Programming has a habit of throwing unnecessary words out of the window, so I'm not sure why it needs to figure out if I'm using proper sentence structure. The problem appeared out of nowhere, then it suddenly disappeared, and now it's back. It did not return with my patience, which it stole upon its first appearance, and so I decided now would be a fitting time to resume blogging.
Cause it's been like, forever. I haven't written any new posts in about a month and a half. It wasn't until a friend told me I had to resume and "update my fans" that I even considered it. Though, I always knew this day would come. I always knew my blog would show up on my doorstep on a Thursday afternoon, and ask me if it could come in and get out of the rain. I always knew I would invite it back in, when I pictured this moment in my head; I just didn't think I'd say yes so easily. But it's been so long. I wonder if we'll ever be as close as we were once. I'm also hoping I manage to not drift away from my blog once we rekindle our relationship with each other.
I feel like there is so much more to say, but if I get it all out now, what's the incentive to continue writing? So I'll save it for another day. Not too long though. Like a lost lover, my blog and I have much to catch up on.
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