work it, brain!
Owww. My hands and arms hurt from playing Guitar Hero. Hoooooooly crap.
I was able to pass through 7 sets on hard, but the 8th one has proved to be my downfall. I just can't beat those songs. I think part of it, though, is how fucking stiff my fingers are at this point. They simply can't move fast enough to keep up with the song, haha. AND, though John says it must be something I'm doing that makes me think this, I'm CONVINCED that the blue button on our guitar is stiff and doesn't press down as easy as the others. I'm working with a handicap, here!
Yes, there are real life things going on. I've started looking for a room to rent for the fall in Albuquerque, I've (mostly) registered for my classes, I'm going back to Michigan in June for my little brother's graduation (assuming he graduates, a future which is facing some serious jeopardy), and I'm seriously losing my motivation at work. I guess part of it is that I now know that I'm leaving. And, I have a lot of mouse dissections ahead of me, and I have to be honest, I'm really getting tired of all this mouse carnage. I really am. Just this last Friday I had to kill and dissect two of my favorite mice. They didn't even have names, I've just had them a long time and have always liked them. And I had to gas 'em and chop 'em up. Sigh.
I also recently finished reading the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and that combined with recent conversations I've had with John and Craig, his boss's boss, have changed how I view the functioning of the human brain, as well as my basic understanding of learning. I originally was going to write a huge long entry about it but I thought better of it.
I think, up til now, I haven't been giving my brain enough credit. With enough determination for continually repeated effort, it's surprising how much your brain can process, and how it can sink into your subconscious, to your benefit. Just taking the whole guitar hero thing as an example, the more often I do it, and the more different and difficult songs that I play, the more the patterns and the mechanisms sink in, to the point where sometimes, when I'm surprised by a suddenly difficult passage, and I feel like I'm just frantically flailing my fingers - somehow, I manage to still hit most of the notes. I've had a few experiences similar to this previously in my life, only now I realize what is actually going on and the fact that I can apply this method to just about anything I want to accomplish. It's not necessarily the quickest or most efficient method, but it's pretty reliable. And that's an interesting new point of view, to really truly know that I can learn whatever I want to learn with enough time and commitment. I used to think that if I had a lot of trouble doing something, that maybe there was some trick to learning it that I just couldn't figure out, or maybe I just didn't have it in me. So I've always been something of an easy quitter, and I think this new point of view might change some of that.
Damn. I tried to avoid making a super huge long post but I still ended up with a super long post. There's something I need to apply myself to - concision. Yoinks.
I was able to pass through 7 sets on hard, but the 8th one has proved to be my downfall. I just can't beat those songs. I think part of it, though, is how fucking stiff my fingers are at this point. They simply can't move fast enough to keep up with the song, haha. AND, though John says it must be something I'm doing that makes me think this, I'm CONVINCED that the blue button on our guitar is stiff and doesn't press down as easy as the others. I'm working with a handicap, here!
Yes, there are real life things going on. I've started looking for a room to rent for the fall in Albuquerque, I've (mostly) registered for my classes, I'm going back to Michigan in June for my little brother's graduation (assuming he graduates, a future which is facing some serious jeopardy), and I'm seriously losing my motivation at work. I guess part of it is that I now know that I'm leaving. And, I have a lot of mouse dissections ahead of me, and I have to be honest, I'm really getting tired of all this mouse carnage. I really am. Just this last Friday I had to kill and dissect two of my favorite mice. They didn't even have names, I've just had them a long time and have always liked them. And I had to gas 'em and chop 'em up. Sigh.
I also recently finished reading the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and that combined with recent conversations I've had with John and Craig, his boss's boss, have changed how I view the functioning of the human brain, as well as my basic understanding of learning. I originally was going to write a huge long entry about it but I thought better of it.
I think, up til now, I haven't been giving my brain enough credit. With enough determination for continually repeated effort, it's surprising how much your brain can process, and how it can sink into your subconscious, to your benefit. Just taking the whole guitar hero thing as an example, the more often I do it, and the more different and difficult songs that I play, the more the patterns and the mechanisms sink in, to the point where sometimes, when I'm surprised by a suddenly difficult passage, and I feel like I'm just frantically flailing my fingers - somehow, I manage to still hit most of the notes. I've had a few experiences similar to this previously in my life, only now I realize what is actually going on and the fact that I can apply this method to just about anything I want to accomplish. It's not necessarily the quickest or most efficient method, but it's pretty reliable. And that's an interesting new point of view, to really truly know that I can learn whatever I want to learn with enough time and commitment. I used to think that if I had a lot of trouble doing something, that maybe there was some trick to learning it that I just couldn't figure out, or maybe I just didn't have it in me. So I've always been something of an easy quitter, and I think this new point of view might change some of that.
Damn. I tried to avoid making a super huge long post but I still ended up with a super long post. There's something I need to apply myself to - concision. Yoinks.