Stroke of Insight

Imagine for a moment that you're a neuroscientist. Now imagine that you've had a stroke. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Online Winkelen

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany . In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in
Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Don't Mess With Little Old Ladies in Texas

It's a good way to get your ass kicked!

The Danger of Imaginary Friends

In the history of mankind, more lives have been lost and destruction and suffering caused in the name of Imaginary Friends than by any other concept. Most adults who talk to imaginary friends that tell them what to do are called "mentally ill" or "delusional," except certain special types, because evidently that kind of delusional is okay. This is because all of their real friends have the same Imaginary Friend because they're not allowed to hang out with people who have a different Imaginary Friend (per the Imaginary Friend, of course). So, because "everybody does it," and they're afraid not to because the Imaginary Friend has told them that "Bad Things" will happen if they don't, the people all share the in the special Imaginary Friend delusion and call it "religion." The even people build big special buildings that cost lots of money for their Imaginary Friend to live in, most of the time a whole bunch of them in the same town. Then they give It a percentage of their income, even if they don't have enough for themselves, because apparently Imaginary Friend needs money too.

Since the special Imaginary Friend kind of delusion is protected -and even encouraged- by their leaders, it's even more okay. Because, come on, if the people don't have to think for themselves because their Imaginary Friend does it for them and tells them what to do, that can only be good for the government, right? Think about it. If the government can convince the poor gullible people that Imaginary Friend wants them to support the government's policies even when they're foolish and that if they don't, "Bad Things" will happen, that can only be good for the government.

When the people meet somebody with a different Imaginary Friend, they argue about which Imaginary Friend is better. Then, because it's an argument that can't be won because it's about Imaginary Friends, everybody gets mad and calls all the real friends they know who have the same Imaginary Friend so they can have a real war with the people with the different Imaginary Friend, to prove whose Imaginary Friend is the bigger badass - with real weapons, injuries, loss of life, rape, pillaging and destruction to back it up.

That's just silly. I don't want to play.

Way to Go Band!

Man, oh man, our band kids here in Fundietonfieldvilleview, Texas are an amazing bunch. They competed in the UIL concert & sightreading contest Wednesday and earned straight first divisions in both. That, coupled with their straight ones in marching back in the fall, earned our little ragtag bunch of band nerds the much-coveted Sweepstakes Band award for the first time since the 2002-2003 school year. As "the mom that goes to stuff," I had the privilege of witnessing both events. From my seat at the back of the auditorium during the concert event, I watched 2 of the 3 judges bobbing their heads and appearing to really be enjoying themselves. During the sightreading event (where the kids have to perform a piece of music they've never seen before after their band director talks about it for 4 minutes), they didn't sound like they were sightreading at all. It was flippin' awesome.

Soooo, the party will ensue at my house next Saturday. It's going to be a blast they've worked hard to earn. This coming week is Spring Break for The Girl. Hopefully, we'll have the pool ready to go by then.

Individual Differences

I've been busy re-organizing my files and files and files of testing protocol blanks. Really, I didn't realize just how much I'd accumulated and how horribly disorganized they were. Now everything neurocognitive rehabilitation-related is in one file, everything assessment-related is in 3 files and all of the important articles and lectures are in another file. 'Tis all good. Over the course of the reorganization, I ran across this and thought y'all would appreciate it.

The Fable of the Animal School

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of "a new world," so they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying, and to make it easier to administer, all the animals took all the subjects.

Duck was excellent in swimming, better in fact than his instructor, and made passing grades in flying but was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming to practice running. This was kept up until his web feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. Nevertheless, average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that but Duck.

Rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up work in swimming.

Squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class, where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed charlie horses from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and a D in running.

Eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel had the highest average and was Valedictorian.



I have not clue one from whence this came. If you know the author, please let me know so that I can give them due credit.