Remembering

What are the sounds that evoke emotions the most strongly for you?

Whenever I hear crickets, I get immediately and viscerally thrown into a certain mood that's connected strongly with certain memories. But it's not quite the same as hearing crickets and thinking of, say, camping one summer: it's more like the sound recalls an amalgamation of multiple memories and the emotions associated with all of them, blurred together into something equally composed of campfires, melancholy, darkness, solitude and perfect companionship at the same time.

Memories are complex, beautiful things. As a neurobio major, I get a lot of exposure to the functional side of memories - cases that proved the different types of memory, where those memories are "stored". At the broadest level, we have two categories of memories: implicit and explicit. Implicit memories can't be expressed verbally and include procedural memories, like how to ride a bike, as well as memories we associate with classical conditioning. Explicit memories can be communicated and are either semantic (facts) or episodic (tales of our lives). I wonder, though, where these visceral/emotional memories fall in this system. Maybe it's more accurate to call them them sensory memories.

I think there is a certain type of memory which you can describe, with difficulty, that stems from sensory stimuli, but doesn't match with a specific event or episodic story in your life. This type of memory is almost affect to affect matching, as in what you feel now maps to how you felt before, but maybe in multiple occasions. The smell of your elementary school. The sound of snowplows going by. A feeling-memory floods through your body and makes throws you into a different feeling. Many of my memories are like the synopsis of a book, or movie: "remember that time when..." and you recreate the scene, you see the people moving through it, you watch it play out. In comparison to the sensory memories, it's like describing a scene rather than experiencing it.

That ties into something I've wanted to convey for a very long time, but haven't attempted to because I don't think I can communicate it. But here goes. You're walking down a street in a city on a rainy day. You can experience this in two ways:

1. You think to yourself, "I am walking down this street on this rainy day."
2. You do not think, you simply walk down the street in the rain.

One is meta thinking, one is not. The first is oratory, descriptive, analytical and the second is experiential, sensory. To do the first requires distancing yourself from yourself but to do the second is to be yourself. People probably do not march down streets during rainstorms actively thinking about what they are doing but the principle can be extrapolated.

(Oh what you don't make pedantic and obscure lists about meta analysis for fun?)  Now I can't think of a way to return to a more concrete blog post. Curtain down! No transition!

Sensory/visceral memories are extremely fleeting and strangely, often sad for me. Are they for you? What stimuli send you into actually feeling what you have felt before?

what's this connie? two posts consecutively and not a full day apart? well, don't get excited yet because this is all trivial. a fart into cyberspace, if you will.

i'm so tired of studying half-heartedly for my final, and i have a cold that prevents the usage of my nose. noses, wouldn't you know, are kind of important for biological function. they're so under-appreciated, until they go. then you're stuck wondering okay body, what if my mouth were suddenly incapacitated and i could no longer breathe through it? would my nose unclog itself? or would i just suffocate to death because my body part is too stupid to realize that it's working against the rest of the organism, and let me go gasping to my death while merrily producing mucus, like someone very carefully locking their bike up while a horde of unwashed huns and every dictator that ever lived armed with nuclear bombs is approaching over the hill. never mind the goddamn bike!!! (answer: it would not unclog itself. i ran the experiment by holding my breath).

this is not an honorable post and now i shall exile myself to my notebooks.  

sidenote: i always forget that tahini is ground sesame seeds, because it sounds like a hawaiian fish. but i looked up a recipe for hummus and it has tahini in it. yummy.

ETA--
this morning, i had a dream i was playing soccer with a soccer team. we were playing a really good team but we were winning against expectation! the score was 5-3. it was a very realistic dream, with none of those weird pauses or interludes, strange scenery switches or physics-defying happenings. so we were playing and one of their forwards managed to break past the defenders and charged towards the goal--it was one of those goals where only the goalie could stop it but couldn't decide whether to run forward to take the ball while the person was dribbling or whether to wait and block the shot. our goalie kind of flopped between the two, so the ball went in, and the score was 5-4 and everyone was so charged AND THEN I WOKE UP. it was like watching the world cup and right when the game got tense, potentially close, all the power went out. this might not convey how frustrated i was to wake up. i tried to go to sleep and change back to that dream channel but alas. now i can't ever find out what happened.

still bothered

Ain't got no education

One of my favorite young adult novel authors, John Green, makes youtube videos with his brother Hank Green, in a channel called CrashCourse.  John Green's videos are about world history and Hank Green's are on biology (he has degrees in biochemistry and environmental studies). I just watched one on DNA structure and replication because I think I get nostalgic for intro level science. And/or probably would forget what the basics are if I didn't constantly refresh it. 

When I google things for classes that lead to videos, the videos are followed by comments along the lines of "man thanks for doing this, that was so much easier to follow than my professor!" For the good ones I mean, not the ones with 386 dislikes and 5 likes, made by a drunk college student with a Sharpie of knowledge. I feel like in classes/textbooks/most traditional sources of knowledge, you unwittingly enter into a contract that on the part of the professor goes: "thou shalt not disseminate this knowledge in an easy, digestible, interesting manner." It's understandably difficult to teach introductory material to a large number of generally disinterested students who are mostly there against their will but I still get the nagging feeling that a lot of what we're taught is taught in a specifically esoteric way. 

Why can a thirteen minute youtube clip cover the same main points as one chapter, two lectures worth of material in a traditional classroom style? What is the most succinct way to teach something without turning it into simply spitting out facts? The way I see it, knowledge acquisition consists of pretty much two parts: 

Semantic information + the glue, the connections, that make such information meaningful

If all you have is the semantic information, you just have a bunch of facts floating around in your head. I'm saying that because I guess that could be one criticism of non-traditional methods of teaching, like online videos. But while I was watching that DNA one, it covered everything that I remembered or gleaned from the analogous unit in AP Bio. I don't know if that's because my memory's bad, I didn't get enough glue in between the concepts, or if maybe a lot of what ends up being useful information can be distilled into just that much. 

This Don't Teach In An Accessible Way contract continues beyond introductory material. Have you ever read a scientific paper? It's like reading Charles Dickens/Jane Austen--a page long paragraph to tell you that yes, she thought the soup was cold. People are impressed by lengthy scientific sounding sentences and while that isn't the only motivation for writing like that, I wonder if it's at least a portion.

I got off topic. I meant to write, since these new non-traditional ways of teaching seem to be quite effective, to what extend should they replace or be used with the traditional ways. What if your professor is terrible but you can watch Yale's Open Courses and learn physics that way? Does a virtual school that allows you to select teachers based on how good they are, wherever they are, have merit over one where you're forced to get whatever arbitrary professor you get? Or is there still something about being in a physical classroom that trumps however good a virtual teacher is.

Actually this is all pointless wonderings because this website exists: http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/02/100-incredible-lectures-from-the-worlds-top-scholars/

I miss my friends who are abroad right now. Come home soon you guys. 

I really hate how I'm so non-confrontational. But actually, I have no problem getting into arguments with my family probably because they're the only people that I know will be there no matter what. Poor family.  I'm pretty sure that I don't argue with other people because there's nothing, ultimately, tying us together that isn't ephemeral. It could end at any point in time, so I don't shake the boat--I guess in my brain, the boat always sinks. Is that sad? I don't know. 

There was a tremendously beautiful sunset today. It permeated even through my shitty mood. Here, have some pictures. 

Hello hello

Hello internets. It's been awhile since I posted anything, mostly because I've lost the drive and time to sit down and write out what I think. Especially since, as jack and I talked about awhile back, writing in itself can be a way to explore thoughts so too often what I start out with branches into numerous other things and I end up spending too much time on the blog. 

Over spring break I went to Detroit to volunteer at an urban farm, which was a truly great experience. Here's a link to the blog about that, which I wrote for altbreaks (the program) in my assigned capacity as blogger: http://uwalternativebreaks.wordpress.com/spring-break-trips-2012/detroit-michigan-spring-break-2012/. It even has pictures! Now this blog is like an onion. Because it has a blog inside of it. 

What else? I read this essay from The Atlantic which is yet another internet response to the internet's effects, namely those of facebook, but this one stands out because of a) its sheer length and b) how in depth it goes. It's a commitment but if you're willing to make it, you'll get a lot of interesting thoughts out of it. Interestingly, I recently deleted my facebook in no connection to this article but for some of the reasons that it mentions. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/8930/

Check out this band! http://delicatesteve.bandcamp.com/album/wondervisions. If you'll forgive me, I'll put on a Pitchfork/Stereogum hat (or is that too un-hipster? A raw organic straw woven fedora) for a moment and describe them as: instrumental, irreverent, crisp, quirky and unafraid to mix up gorgeous plucked guitar melody with space sounding synth, to have no discernible time signature, to make a track thirty seconds long. It's like walking into a rainforest of candy canes and psychedelic colors. I love music that's rich and complex and THIS BAND ROCKS OMG YAY. </fedora>

I'm reading this book called For The Love of Physics, by an acclaimed MIT professor. It's about physics. But it's physics in a digestible, even tasty, form. This guy's enthusiasm comes out so strongly that it can't help but influence you. While reading it, I thought these things (i wrote them in a word file so it's imported):

1) Reading about parallax, and the often cited example of parallax using your eyes and your finger; I had the urge to actually measure the ratio between parallax distance and distance to my finger, so I could come up with the proportional constant. It’s so entirely different when you passively take in ideas, be it from a book or from a lecture, as when you create it from your own interest. Take physics lab for example; when I went to physics lab, it was to do something that the “other” (curriculum) had set out for me to do and hopefully gain insight from. What if, instead, I was very intrigued by parallax and went to lab to measure how effective parallax is at short distances from long? It’s bottom up rather than extracting information and it FEELS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. Think about it. You come up with the idea, you are interested, you set the parameters, you consider what might go wrong and how to address it…every little thing that you hear not to do in lab or you must remember not to, etc, is already accounted for in your organic setup instead of memorizing what your ta says. Creation, creation, creation.

2) The truly great aren’t just talented, they are passionate. Learning doesn’t stop once you leave the classroom. Walter Lewin being constantly astounded by the wonderful beauty of nature, but mathematically not only purely appreciatively. Dr. Lokuta and figuring out how a semilunar valve works while he was drying his daughter’s hair and getting her ready for school. Pondering “in a quiet contemplative moment” is very real! Only the vast majority of people don’t and that’s why you get the standouts. Because they do.

So. Otherwise, life has been pretty good. I ran past my and Becca's (why is that the most awkward configuration in grammar ever? is that even right?) future apartment on my run today. Soooo excited to live in the Monroe St neighborhood and be in a less crunk environment than Langdon! Peace :) 

bleheheheheh

Two Gems From Tonight:


1) "You mean the one next to Sharpoko?" with no disrespect meant to this lady, I didn't realize that a chinese accent could translate into written speech


2) "nards...the store for retards!" where they sell alligator safety scissors.
my sister and i get along really well. 

dananaNAAnana

Whoo boy physiology is insane. What can I say? No can do no moah...for five minutes.

Dinesh my lab mentor leaves for India on Friday so I have to take over caring for the mouse colony (colony, as if they are some offshoot of the great mouse empire) earlier than I would've thought. Or wished, really, since it's all very confusing mendelian genetics and backcrossing and crossbreeding and genotyping. Choosing how to maintain a mouse colony with the least number of cages while not necessarily knowing what genotypes the mice are is like one of those optimization calc problems, minus the calculus. I don't envy being the one to start a colony. In fact, being a post-doc appears to be incredibly time-consuming and brain space consuming-- Dinesh was telling me how he hasn't seen full daylight in the past four days or so and wasn't aware the trees had budded. 

Speaking of which! I biked past allen centennial gardens to get to soil sci this morning and saw that the magnolia tree by Kronshage was in full bloom! The tulips by the gardens have not only budded but are similarly blooming. All along lakeshore the trees are unfurling green tips which are fast turning into pre-leaves. While this is all very beautiful and life-affirming, it has given me the most godawful allergies I would like to say that are known to mankind. They only briefly abated in our lab room deep beneath MSC. Curses upon you, pollen!! For turning me into what seems like a plague vehicle! Or more accurately, curses upon you, overactive mast cells. Also, it is worrisome because these flowers/plants should not be at this stage of their life in March, on the day after the first day of spring. This whole month has been an exercise in what is wonderful to experience (80 degrees) but disturbing in what it implies about our climate and ecosystem. The lakewater is really low this year. I think it's due to the sparse snowfall we had, so we didn't get a lot of meltwater in the spring. That's pretty worrisome. Also the fact that we had warm temperatures which melted the snow away but didn't necessarily melt the frozen water held in the soil at that time is worrisome as well, since it means that we might not have recharged our water reservoir in the soil. 

After studying with Athavi and Emily for four hours in Grainger I accepted that I needed to take a break or my brain would expel information out of both ears like a physiological teakettle. I took my dinner to the lake and sat on the steps there. It was pretty much fully dark out by then. Side note: I'm gaining an alarming fondness for ducks. I used to think they were so common just like squirrels. But now I fixate on them when I'm by the lake and observe things such as how they list to one side when they stand on one foot, or how their feet must be paddling very fast to move them quickly across the water, how they sometimes do this weird head-bobbing thing from side to side that looks quite deliberate...yeah. See. It may just be because they lend themselves to observation well, being the only animals on the lake most of the time and often the only animals we people can observe continuously without them running away. I saw the muskrat very close again tonight. Hello Grandmother Muskrat. 

I think it would be cool to have a kind of teach-for-your-friends thing, where you have a group of people get together and teach each other stuff you learn in class, or life, or what have you. When I notice all the random things I've learned, like micropore recharge, I wonder what things other people have learned in class. Stuff like that doesn't really come up in day to day conversation, and so we never really know what others know. Everyone is such a wealth of information, I just wish we could access it. Instead of a book club, an ideas club, or a discussion club...Ben Fox would join. That's such a fantastic name. Ben Wolf! In my imaginary world, Ben Fox and Ben Wolf would meet each other and Chris Han and Crystal Han would get married. And there would be trees that grew cereal and libraries would have all the books in the world.