Elephants Must Have Large Homes

Have you ever heard of a Memory Palace? If not, don't worry. You'll probably hear about it again soon. That's thanks to the Bader-Meinhoff effect. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The idea of a Memory Palace has its start in the ancient Greek poet Simonides. The short version of the story is that Simonides was reciting his poetry at a big shin-dig of some important people of the time and he fortuitously stepped outside for a bit right as a huge earthquake struck. The earthquake toppled the building, killing everybody inside. With the bodies being so badly mangled, they weren't sure how they were going to be able to identify anyone. Fortunately, Simonides was able to solve this problem by picturing in his mind where everybody had been sitting. Thus, all the bodies were identified and a new memory device was realized.

By attaching the memory of the people to a physical location, Simonides inadvertently created the concept of a Memory Palace. Usually when we remember something we do so by repetition (saying that phone number over and over until you can write it down, assuming you don’t have a pen or cell phone handy) or mnemonic devices ("If red touches black, you're ok jack, If red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow" to remember how to distinguish the coloring of a coral snake from that of a king snake, the former of which is venomous. I evidently expected coral snakes to be a much bigger problem in my life than they have thus far, since I instantly committed this mnemonic to memory the first time I heard it. Now that I think about it, a far easier and more practical mnemonic would have been "don't touch snakes in the wild." Problem solved, no rhymes needed. But then I would have to put more important information in its place and that just isn’t practical :)

Anyway, back to Simonides’ inadvertent discovery of the memory palace. Instead of remembering information in the ways listed above, with a memory palace you attach memories to visual concepts. So for example, if you want to remember all of the cranial nerves you would first imagine a palace in your mind (or house as the case may be). Then you would place that cranial nerve in a specific location in that house.  So for me the Vagus nerve (which in my imagination is a grey stringy nerve wearing a white Elvis suit ) would be placed in the kitchen because it is responsible for innervating certain organs in your gut, which is where food goes.  Then, when you need to remember the nerves it is just a matter of walking through your memory palace and seeing what you put in each room or area.

I think it is a fascinating concept and I am working on putting it in to practice in certain ways in my life. It is actually a bit more complicated than outlined above, because some concepts are hard to visualize. For example, if you wanted to remember a bunch of the digits of pi you would first have to come up with a way of visualizing a number. There are workarounds for this but it is a bit time consuming in the beginning.

The concept of memory palaces is interesting in and of itself, but I actually bring it up because of another phenomenon that it highlights. You see, I was recently watching an episode of Sherlock (which is a fantastic show except for the fact that there are only three seasons with three episodes each and I have already gone through all of them on a Netflix binge : ( Also, the fourth season isn’t coming out for another two years because the stars of the show shot to fame after Sherlock first aired and now they are busy making movies about Hobbits and winning Oscars. Sigh, first world problems…)

Anyway, Sherlock himself uses a memory palace to house his vast collection of knowledge and recall seemingly minute details of things. When I was watching the episode in which they first mentioned this I had a vague sense of Déjà vu because they were treating the concept as a new one, but I had heard of memory palaces before. In fact, I read a book about them not long ago called Moonwalking With Einstein.  It’s a pretty good book if you are interested.

I’ve had this experience before of learning about a concept or an idea that I have never heard before and then inexplicably hearing about it again shortly thereafter. Apparently there is a name for it: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

The Phenomenon takes its name from a movie called the Baader-Meinhof Complex, which is based on the true story of a West German militant/terrorist group that was active in the late 1960s.  You can click here for more information on the movie, but the plot line is actually unimportant to the concept of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, which is basically the experience I described above about memory palaces.  A person learns something new (like memory palaces, or coral snake stripe patterns) and then shortly thereafter comes across it again (while watching an episode of Sherlock or reading an article about camouflage.)

It’s not really that the information is coming up more often than it would ordinarily. The concept of memory palaces has been around for ages after all. It’s that your mind is really good at finding patterns, so that when you hear about memory palaces twice in a short amount of time your mind tells you that it is more than just a coincidence, even though it’s really not.  

I do think that in the case of memory palaces there is something more going on than just the coincidence of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. It seems to be becoming more common knowledge than just a random fact to share at the water cooler, and more like a permanent fixture in society’s collective consciousness. I can’t really explain it better than that but it does get me interested in the idea of how knowledge spreads. Now there’s an interesting topic (since I have likely bored you to death with this post already. Kudos to you for making it this far).

Oh, I forgot to mention how the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon got its name:  It was coined by a guy who heard about the Baader-Meinhof Complex (the movie) twice in a 24 hour period and experienced that same weird sense of déjà vu.

Anyway, to recap what we have learned from this post: 1. Start watching Sherlock (I need someone to analyze it with me!) 2. Don’t touch wild animals 3. I am the queen of useless information (seriously, now I know all of this information on the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon, on top of other useless information I have stored through the years (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species…Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezey, Bashful, Doc…Ice-cream sales go up in the winter… the heart of a giraffe weighs 25 pounds….seriously, this list goes on and on) but do I know any more about Biochemistry, which I should have been studying? No. Queen of self-defeating behavior at least.) 4. You are probably going to hear about something from this post in the next few days or weeks. Now you know why. Assuming the contents of this post are now safely stored away in your memory palace : )

PS- As a reminder to myself, here are some other things I ought to tell you about in upcoming posts: The beauty of the Spanish phrase No Me Nace, the awesomeness of moon cups, an item in Spain on my List of Possibilities, and why the Everglades are probably glad that Americans eat cows. Oh, and maybe a brief update on my life and goals, brief being the operative word.  Happy best day of the year! 

Hey Beastie Boys: Make Them Bring It Back!

The best part of the advertisement below, that is. Which is the re-write of the Beastie Boys' infamous 1987 hit "Girls." You know, that irritatingly catchy tune with lyrics like "Girls- to do the dishes, Girls- to clean up my room" and other misogynistic crap like that? Count yourself lucky if your ears have never been blighted by that little ditty : (

Mine unfortunately have, which is the main reason I loved this advertisement when I first saw it a few weeks ago. The video is called "Princess Machine" and it is for a product called Goldie Blox, a building set similar to Legos, developed specifically for girls. The idea behind them is to get girls interested in science and engineering at an early age to hopefully spur them to become leaders (or at least more present) in these fields. (Kind of a big job for some building blocks, but it's a start I guess.)

The ad features 3 friends building a Rube Goldberg type machine to change the channel from some other advertisement trying to sell them pink "girly" things. You can watch it below.

Or maybe here if the video isn't linking. 

There are some great things about the ad: the girls working together to build an awesome machine, their rejection of the idea that all girls must like dolls and pink things, the fact that they are still portrayed as little girls (not masculinized tom-boys) even though they don't fit the "traditional mold", etc. But the very best part of the ad, the re-write of that awful song, has sadly been removed. 

Apparently Goldie Blox didn't get permission before posting the song and some legal tussles ensued, with the end result being that the music in the ad was changed to what you just watched. Which, let's be honest, was kind of boring. 

But not to worry, I am posting the lyrics here for you to learn. Not because I believe that a toy can change the course of a girl's life (I don't), or that girls shouldn't play with dolls or want to be princesses (I don't). Not even because I really don't like the color pink (I don't. But I respect your right to like it). No, I am posting the lyrics for you so that when that awful song starts to play you can stop the internal screaming in your head (oh, is that just me?) and instead sing along with the new, more empowering lyrics:

Girls, you think you know what we want

Girls, pink and pretty, its girls

Just like the fifties its girls

You like to buy us pink toys

And everything else is for boys

And you can always get us dolls

And we'll grow up like them, false

It's time to change

We deserve to see a range

Cause all our toys look just the same

And we would like to use our brains

We are all more than princess maids

Girls, to build a spaceship

Girls, to code the new app

Girls, to grow up knowing

Girls, that they can engineer that

Girls, that's all we really need is girls*

To bring us up to speed its girls

Our opportunity is girls

Don't underestimate girls

Girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls

And I am asking the Beastie Boys to atone for the crimes committed against humanity when they penned that horrible song** and let Goldie Blox air their new, improved version for the betterment of mankind! 

I mean, the idea is that a girl can dream, right?

* While I do love these lyrics overall, I disagree with some of the unstated messages in it, like that the fifties was a universally horrible time for girls or that boys are not really necessary/needed. But given that it's either this version or the original, I'll take the lesser of two evils.

**I am pretty sure that the Beastie Boys have repented of their chauvinist ways and are committed to lots of charitable causes these days, which is awesome, but I still think they should let Goldie Blox use this song.  

Hello Again (Ready For Lots Of Ellipses?)

Yeah, its been awhile. In my defense, its hard to come up with something to write about that tops a safari in Africa. And I'm not gonna do it with this post so don't get your hopes up. But at least it will get us past that awkward stage where we are waiting for me to top my last great adventure. And with me great adventures happen fairly infrequently, so we could otherwise be waiting quite awhile.

So I will tell you about the little adventures of the last year or so:

* I got a brand new niece ( Actually, this happened while I was in Africa but I am just now realizing that I neglected to post about her. Her name is Sage and once she learned how to sleep she became absolutely adorable. She has the chubbiest, most squishable cheeks ever, but I do try to restrain myself from squishing them too much because I am trying to establish myself as her favorite aunt : )

* I moved to Provo (my brother likes to point out that it is exactly 4.5 miles from my parent's house. I like to point out that he can shut up : )

* I bought a kayak and have thus far succeeded at not drowning myself (probably because I bought it late in the season and was only able to take it out 3 times. Hopefully next season I will continue my not drowning streak.)

* I paid off my car loan (Not a huge deal really, but there was something very satisfying about receiving the full title in the mail with my name on it.)

 * I finally took (and passed) that dreaded organic chemistry class that was one of the reasons I changed my major in college (from Biology to Community Health Education). (I must say that I don't regret changing my major and I really think CHE is a much better fit for me, I just find it ironic that I am now having to go back and take those dreaded classes anyway. Live and learn I guess.)

* I also took (and passed) anatomy from the dreaded Dr. Shively at UVU (A school which reminds me just how lucky I am to have been an Aggie. As for Shively's anatomy class, that is a post for another day, but for now I will just say that he is not the arrogant monster people make him out to be. But his tests really are monstrous.)

* I studied for and took the GRE. (Didn't do so well on that one. Probably gonna have to keep working on it and take it again. grr.)

* I overcame my shyness and absolute hatred of asking anybody for favors for any reason (seriously, I would rather run a marathon, and we all know how I feel about running) and gathered 3 letters of recommendation and

* I officially applied to Physician Assistant School.

I am nervous about sharing that last one because even though I don't think of myself as superstitious I am probably the  textbook definition of it and I really don't want to jinx anything. But it has been a very long and difficult process for me to get to the point where I was even willing to throw myself into the ring to compete. So even if I don't make it in I can at least be proud of the fact that I tried.

Honestly, I really don't know how great my chances are (especially with my less than stellar GRE scores). It is extremely competitive- like thousands of applicants for 30-90 spots at each school. But I am trying to maintain a positive attitude and hope to at least get an interview. That way I will at least have a chance to win them over with my....uh...witty banter...and...um...non-ugliness? Oh and I'm not disgusted by most bodily fluids...so I've got that going for me : )

Anyway, if you believe in prayer, or wishing wells, or that thing that Oprah does where she sends out positive vibes into the world so she gets what she wants, maybe you could do that for me and help get me into PA school. I promise that if I do I will continue to answer all your probing questions only this time I will actually know what I am talking about when it comes to the medical ones : )

Safari

Well, I finally found the CDs my pictures were on so here is a little sampling of my Safari in Tanzania.

On day one, we headed out from Arusha toward Lake Manyara National Park. Having been to every national park in a 500 mile radius of Utah I wasn't so excited about this. I wanted to get to the Serengeti!

But before we even got to the park, we saw this guy and some of his friends on the side of the road. 

They are kind of like deer are around here only maybe a little more rare. That is, they mostly stay in the wild and don't get close to people but you will occasionally see some close to the road. 

When we actually got to the park I was a bit more excited when we saw some of these:

They were in troops of about 25 just chilling by the side of the road near a stream. It was pretty cool and I decided I liked Lake Manyara National Park a lot : ) I was happily watching these little guys when I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye. 

I glanced over and saw AN ELEPHANT!!!!!! 

It was an insane, surreal moment. I was standing in a Land Rover with 6 other people, looking out of the retractable roof, watching an elephant as tall as the car come lumbering toward us. In what kind of crazy situation does that ever happen?! That's when it hit me that I was on SAFARI!!!! In AFRICA!! AMAZING!

Here's a video of the moment:

When the Elephant walked past us, he stopped to drink from the stream and as he left he sprayed water at us. I think he must be used to tourists.

As we continued through Lake Manyara we saw lots of other animals- several kinds of monkeys, impala, zebra, dik-dik, gazelle, more giraffes and elephants, birds, and hippos. Some of them were too far away for my camera to get good pictures of but here are a few. 

The picture above is of zebras and a few wildebeest but it also showcases the Great Rift Valley, which stretches for hundreds of miles across Africa. It was another surreal moment as it sank in that I was standing in a place that I had read about in textbooks thousands of miles away. It was the abstract becoming real

As we left Lake Manyara that evening the hippos were coming out of the lake and wandering through the streams looking for food. The round looking rock in the picture below is actually the backside of a hippo. 

The next day we headed out to the Serengeti. (Which I did not know is also a National Park). This picture doesn't want to center, but here is a view of the Serengeti from a rocky outcrop. 

 

Serengeti means "endless plain" in Masaai and I would definitely agree with that description. When we first pulled in all you could see was a vast parched plain, not unlike parts of southern Utah, intersected only by one long dirt road stretching forever into the horizon. I wasn't sure how we were going to see any wildlife. Eventually you find little turn offs that take you to small watering holes and more rocky outcrops. It is pretty much exactly like what you see in The Lion King. 

The first creature we saw in the Serengeti (besides more gazelles) was this terrifying beast:

That's an ostrich and they are perhaps the scariest looking animal I have ever seen. My safari friends laughed when I told them that those birds are the stuff of nightmares, but I was dead serious. First off, they are HUGE. Like over six feet tall. And their bodies are MASSIVE! There is no way that their bodies weigh less than 200 lbs. Then they have these giant reptile like feet with talons on them that will rip your guts out. And their heads look like velociraptors. I don't have any problems with birds in general, but these things really freak me out. So I was a little nervous when I learned that we would be camping in the Serengeti. Outdoors. With the wild animals. In tents. 

Actually I wasn't really all that concerned about the animals, I just really don't like camping. My philosophy is if you are within 100 miles of a hotel why on earth would you sleep on the hard ground in the freezing cold only to wake at the crack of dawn with your neck kinked and your muscles feeling like you spent the night wrestling a bear?

Fortunately for my safari friends we weren't within 100 miles of a hotel so we camped. Here is proof:

See how excited I look?

And we actually awoke before the crack of dawn to see the sunrise on the Serengeti. Now, I am not what you would call a morning person. I have been on more than one sunrise hike and hated every one of them. Mainly because you get up during prime sleeping time to trudge through wet bushes and sit on the hard ground while the sun "comes up." Except the sun doesn't "come up" because you are in Utah and the mountains block its rising. So it just gets gradually lighter as you grumpily sit in silence with a bunch of exhausted, equally un-enthused teenage girls while shooting daggers with your eyes at the loopy leaders who made you do this and tried to force it to be a spiritual experience.  Needless to say, I did not have high expectations for sunrise on the Serengeti. 

I was pleasantly surprised.

Because it is a flat plain, the sun rises like a burning orange ball from the ground and illuminates the vast, quiet world around you. It was truly beautiful and I am so glad I got to experience it. 

After watching the sunrise we went out looking for more animals and hit the mother lode: Lions, feasting on a fresh kill of Zebra.

There were two lionesses and at least 8 cubs enjoying their breakfast and we got to see it up close and personal. Its amazing how close you can actually get to these wild animals. This picture shows a good perspective.

Lions get completely exhausted after they eat. They are like a combination of Americans after Thanksgiving and the laziest house cat you ever saw. You get tired just watching them walk! 

The cubs have significantly more energy though.

We spent the rest of the day driving out of the Serengeti and toward Ngorongoro Crater. This was a hyena saying goodbye. (I think hyenas look really cool and The Lion King definitely doesn't do them justice.)

Before going to Tanzania I had never heard of Ngorongoro Crater but it is actually very well known and has a large concentration of different species. The first one we saw was this baboon, mocking the sign he was sitting on by eating food he had stolen from a tourist on it. (Sorry about his indecency). 

They are actually very serious about this and if they catch you purposely feeding the animals you get fined. I wouldn't attempt it anyway because baboons are actually pretty intimidating. Not ostrich scary, but definitely not puppy cute either : )

I included this picture because everyone in East Africa LOVES Obama. So you see him everywhere. Probably more than you do in the US. 

These elephants wandered into our campsite and helped themselves to the water in our tanks. (Yes, we camped twice on this journey. I think that fills my quota for the next decade) 

Good thing we brought bottled water to drink : )

These "rocks" are actually hippos. They spend most of the day like this and only leave at night to go foraging.  They are surprisingly uglier than I expected, mostly because their ears are sort of red and inflamed, kind of like baboon bottoms. Still pretty cool though, and the babies are adorable.

We caught the tail end of the great migration, where the wildebeest and zebra move by the hundreds of thousands into Kenya. They go together because the wildebeest know the way and the zebra don't but the wildebeest have really poor vision so they rely on the zebra to help get them there. 

I would have figured that zebra were smart enough to figure out the way themselves, but after watching a zebra leave the safety of his heard and go wandering off on his own while two lionesses were stalking him I can believe that zebra are too stupid to know the way. Seriously, even after he saw the lionesses he kept wandering farther and farther away from his heard. And it took them forever to move out of the way of our vehicle. Not very bright creatures at all. 

We saw a lot more creatures on the last day of Safari, including more lions, flamingos, crocodiles, and rhinos, but I wasn't able to get great pictures of them. The rhinos are especially shy and don't come close enough to see well without binoculars. But here is a picture of some warthogs we saw.

And that was my safari (which means "journey" in Swahili by the way). And it was a great journey. If you ever wondered if you should go on a safari, my answer would be: YES! Most definitely! It was incredible and I sometimes still can't believe it really happened. I guess that means I will have to go again someday, just  to make sure : )

Baobabs

I still haven’t found my picture CDs but the good news is that they are backed up on the team computer in Tanzania and I can get them when the rest of the team comes back. That will be sometime in the next couple weeks. In the meantime I thought I would tell you about Baobab trees.

I first heard about Baobab trees when I read The Little Prince. In fact, the Baobab trees are about the only thing I remember from that story. Mainly because I was reading it in Spanish and my comprehension skills at the time in that language were…non-existent. I remember that the little prince talks about weeding out Baobab trees on his planet and I assumed they were something he made up, because they were so fantastical. They were giant trees that took up massive amounts of space and overtook everything in their path. (Or something along those lines. Like I said, I was reading in a language I didn’t understand.)

So I was surprised to learn that Baobabs are real trees and they are massive. So massive in fact that people have hollowed out the trunks and put things inside like bars or bathrooms. They don’t get particularly tall (about 100 ft.) but the trunks can obviously be very big around (35 ft in diameter). They also don’t really overtake other things because they tend to grow where nothing else will, often way out in the desert. They have a special tap root that digs down really deep to get to water that other plants can’t reach. Because of this they can survive long periods of drought, which are frequent in their native lands of Africa and Australia.

They are pretty distinctive and easy to pick out of any landscape. Most of the year they don’t have leaves and their branches are short and stubby and look like they should be part of the root system. In fact there are several African folktales that reference this. One says that God gave a specific tree to every animal and whichever animal got the Baobab was so disappointed with it that he tore it out of the ground and planted it upside down. And that is how it grows to this day.

Baobabs are actually pretty useful trees as well. They can be tapped for water in dry years with little harm done to the tree. (There are actually baobabs that have survived half their trunks being cut away by elephants digging at them. It makes them look funny but they just keep growing. ) Their bark can be made into string and woven into fabric. They offer a good degree of shelter. And their seeds are encased in pith that is high in nutrients like vitamins B and C. They actually encourage kids to eat it by coating it in red sugar and making it into a candy. (It’s not very good, but that may be because when I ate it nobody told me you are supposed to spit the seed out and just eat the pith : )

When I learned that Baobabs are real I put them in my journal on my “List of Possibilities.” It’s a list I keep of things I want to do or see or experience sometime. (Not to be confused with a bucket list, which to me is a little too much like a checklist. I don’t expect that I will see or do or experience everything on my List of Possibilities before I die, but that isn’t the point. It’s about dreaming and hope and even if I never see phosphorescence on the ocean at night or a green flash sunset, at least the possibility will have existed for me.) Anyway, it was really exciting when I came across my List while in Africa and was able to make a note that I did see baobabs! Lots of them. And they are as weird and gnarly as I imagined.

So the Little Prince and I differ on our opinions of Baobabs. He went about plucking them up like they were weeds. Me? I brought some seeds home and am going to plant one. I don’t know if it will work but “climb a Baobab” is now on my List of Possibilities and maybe, with a little luck, I will get to.

No Pictures!

I have been back from Africa for a few weeks now and was getting all ready to post some awesome pictures from my safari... but I can't seem to find them. I'm almost certain that I didn't leave them in Tanzania but no matter where I look that I might have put them I come up empty handed. Sooooo... no pictures for now. Sorry : ( On the bright side I did make it back home safe and sound and pretty healthy. I actually didn't get sick until my last week and even then it wasn't too bad. And I have passed the incubation period for Malaria so I am not likely going to get that either (knock on wood).

I will give you more details on my adventure soon, and (hopefully) pictures. For now I will just say Africa was a great experience I'm glad I got to have and I hope it won't be my last.

In Africa

The internet is really slow, especially when it comes to uploading pictures and videos. As a result you won’t get to see any of my pictures until I get back. Which is not a huge loss because I am not a great photographer anyway.

The women really do wear traditional skirts and carry baskets on their heads.

The humidity is intense. Like sweating when you walk out the door humidity. But it also creates a very lush and tropical environment. We live next to a field of coffee beans and banana trees.

The roads really are unpaved and rutted and you bounce along them any time you are in a vehicle. Which isn’t often because people walk everywhere.

Time is not as strict or important as it is in America. Today we were looking at planning something for the last week in July, which is not all that far away really, and the person we were talking to said, “ah, we can plan that later, we are not even to July yet.”

People are not as task oriented as they are in America. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. We recently demolished an old structure and we were determined to finish it in one day. The natives we were working with were satisfied with the work that had been accomplished by quitting time but we were unable to see any value in what we had done until the job was finished. So we finished it and were proud of ourselves and the natives impressed. But I think in the future I will try to be satisfied with the work I do each day, even if I don’t complete it all according to my timetable.

Boys and girls have very similar haircuts and so are sometimes difficult to tell apart. In the schools the girls wear skirts so that helps.

The clouds are fairly constant so its hard to see the stars. I have seen them once, but since it is the southern hemisphere they are strangely unfamiliar.

There are no McDonalds, Wendys, Pizza Hut, or chain stores. There is a “Wall Mart” but it is most definitely not the one based out of Arkansas : ) I’m not a critic of capitalism but it is nice to see a part of the world untouched by those aspects of globalization.

Soap doesn't lather the same way. My skin seems to be developing some kind of waxy protective coating in response. Hopefully that will wash off when I am home : )

People are incredibly friendly and helpful. It is rare to pass someone on the street without hearing “Jambo” (Hello) or “Karibu” (Welcome) or some other greeting. People will go out of their way to help you for just about anything and expect nothing in return.

People are not as poverty stricken as I expected. This is probably because I am in a touristy area that provides a steady income for many people. Most people are able to provide for themselves and their children and many people take in those who can’t. It is not a life of luxury for most people but neither is it one of complete destitution.

You have to look carefully for wildlife. I didn’t think there was much until somebody pointed out the monkeys in the trees above the fruit stand and a little boy brought a chameleon into the yard on a stick. Hopefully I won’t be so oblivious to it when I am on Safari this weekend.

I am learning and experiencing a lot of new things. Hopefully I will be able to share more of them with you later.