I'm Thinking... I'm Thinking

It's still Monday where I sit, so here I am. Monday is house-cleaning day, so I've just spent the last few hours scrubbing tubs, sinks, dishes, etc. Shannon's been sick (she's got what I had last week) but still did her part. Right now she's playing "Super Smash Brothers Melee" on the Gamecube but I'm going to bed as soon as I finish this. Plus she can totally smoke me at that game anyway.

So I've been taking a psychology course at UW on the Physiology of the Brain. It's been a challenge. My day job is a series of barely-defined "projects" that hardly have start and end dates. Instead, projects get pushed slightly forward each day; new tasks start so small and usually morph into other projects that either repeat or get pushed elsewhere in the org. All this is difficult from a sense-of-completion standpoint, but, as the class's assignment due dates is proving, my job's lack of focus on end results has also atrophied my ability to complete clearly-defined work by specified deadlines.

Still, I'm learning all manner of things! For example, "We Only Use 10% of our Brain." Total myth, dudes! We use 100% of our brains – there's no way us chimps would have survived with an organ that was 90% deadweight.

Also, as a left-hander I'm 40% more likely to recover full language ability after a stroke than a right-hander. That's because the brains of left-handers use both sides to process language, whereas right-handed people handle language function on one (the right) side of the brain only. If that side is the one that suffers the stroke, s.o.l.

See? I'm learning stuff! But now ask me about the 48 different sections of the brain, what does what, throw in the endocrine system, and I'll be the first to tell you that the reason I can't remember this stuff is… that I only use 10% of my brain!