Ok I got it now.

Here's what inspired the last post:
Book, Devotional Classics by Richard J. Foster and James Byron Smith. Chapter...i don't know. Excerpts from Frank Laubach (a missionary to the Philippines in the early 1900s)'s letters to (doesn't say)

he saaaays:
"Two years ago a profound dissatisfaction let me to begin trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour. Other people to whom I confessed this intention said it was impossible. I judge from what I have said that few people are trying even that. But this year I have started out trying to life all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, 'What, Father, do you desire said? What do you desire done this minute?'"

One week later
"For the past few days I have been experimenting in a more complete surrender tan ever before. I am taking by deliberate act of will, enough time from each hour to give God much thought. Yesterday and today I have made a new adventure, which is not easy to express. I am feeling God in each movement, by an act of will - willing that He shall direct these fingers that now strike this typewriter - willing that He shall pour through my steps as I walk - willing that He shall direct my words as I speak, and my very jaws as I eat!
You will object to this intense introspection. Do not try it, unless you feel unsatisfied with your own relationship with God, but at least allow me to realize all the leadership of God I can.  I am disgusted with the pettiness and futility of my un-led self. If the way out is not more perfect slavery to God, then what is the way out? I am trying to be utterly free from everybody, free from my own self, but completely enslaved to the will of God every moment of this day."

He goes on to talk about, over the next several days/weeks, how he seems to be simply floating along at the leading of God, the way a "violin responds to the bot of the master"

I have always wanted to do this - be like this - just stop doing all the other stuff in my life and hang out with God. There have absolutely been times in my life when I've been closer to that or farther away from it. Missions trips and retreats and random "really good" weeks, when I am really focused on God and really good about spending time with Him.

 Part of me has always wanted to just quit life and become a hermit, but even if I spent all my hermit time talking to and studying and thinking about God, I don't think that's what He'd want...I think He'd want me to do more restructuring my current life - strengthening my connections to Him and things of Him at the expense of other connections the way my brain stores information at the expense of other information.

I can really only do that to a certain extent if I want to at all pass my classes. But it's an interesting thing to think about, and good food for thought, and something to lean more towards than I have been, even if I cannot actually adopt this "spend a majority of every hour meditating on God" sort of thing. I do it more. I can strengthen that connection, until it becomes easier and less effort to recall that "information". Until, as Laubach said "Now I like God's presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind - as he does many times a day - I feel as though I had deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life", and "to (merely) see someone is to pray for them"

Meta-learning

Disclaimer: rambling philosophical never-getting-to-the-point lies ahead. Not my fault if you're confused at the end...this is how it goes in my head and it's not my responsibility on my blog to reorganize my thoughts so they make sense to you. Who do you think you are?? I'm the only one who reads this anyway. 

Ahem hem.

Learning about learning. Metalearning. We had a lecture about learning and memory last week...so I'm sitting there trying to cram information into my brain. Information about how the brain crams information into itself. 

Pretty awesome to think about. 

What happens is that information is stored as connections. Each neuron is receiving something like 30,000 inputs form other neurons, and putting out similar amounts. (or maybe more...or less...depending on the location it really could range from 1 up to anything. Not the point.) If you see something, information goes to the visual part of your brain. When you're remembering what you saw, you're activating the same connections that were used to see it the first time. The more often you think about seeing it, the stronger those connections get. The connections for the things you saw once and never thought about again slowly get weaker and go away. Use it or lose it. 

So the more you think about stuff, the easier it gets to think about that stuff. 

The less you think about something, the harder it gets to think about it in the future. 

Problem is you tend to strengthen connections at the expense of other connections.  The information is stored in the RELATIVE strengths of connections. 

So that saying "one thing drives out another" really is true....which kind of is not a good thing for medical school, whose goal is to put a MASSIVE amount of information into your brain and get you to be able to recall ALL of it with high accuracy and speed. But they taught us, in medical school ironically, that it's really hard to do that. 

DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THE PROBLEM HERE??? 

I've kind of known this for a while, because everyone knows the more you keep reviewing something the less likely you are to forget it. A million times I've learned stuff that I knew I'd need in the future, but after a while forgotten it, and then thought "I should have kept reviewing it!" but there is SO MUCH information that by the time I review everything I have to remember once, it's been too long and I've lost the memories from the beginning of the review. 

Buuuut, you can add more connections so you can have more connections that are strong (and more that are weak...but the point is more that are strong)

I feel like my life is the same way. The more time I spend doing anything the more I want to do it. The more I sleep the more I want to sleep, the more I'm on facebook, the more I want to facebook. The more I'm home the more I want to be home. The more I study, the more I - wait, nope. The more I study the less I want to study. ;-)

Buuuuuuuuuut you can't add more time to the day the way you can make more neuron connections. We're constantly reshuffling our time within the day, within the week, within the month, or year. Everything you do is at the expense of something else. I don't like that! 

I've realized that this is basically a rant against time. I just became sick of thinking about this so I will conclude. 

Conclusion: I can't wait until I get to Heaven and there is no time constraint and probably no forgetting and never having to choose where to invest your time, because you can do everything. 

Brought to you by the letter P

Ahem.

It SEEMS TO ME

that having an exam within the next 3 days is the best way to get me to write a blog post. I am so not in love with Neuro night now. Pathways, pathways, pathways. Starts here, goes to there, inhibits there, which inhibits there, so inhibiting the inhibition leads to activation there, and then it travels here, crosses over there, then crosses back over, over there...stupid brain. Too smart for its own good. LITERALLY.  Anyway.

P is for procrastination.
This is seriously the worst bout of studying I've ever done in my life. I don't feel ANY stress to study. Worse than last time. But we have fewer lectures, so I'm less behind  starting out than I was before, so maybe that's why.

I'm seriously beginning to wonder if my brain somehow knows exactly how long it needs to study given the time I have and the information it needs to cram in...and then is exactly as productive as it needs to be to achieve that?

Because I ALWAYS hit a wall the night before a test. This is just earlier than usual. But it's sort of like the night before a test since tomorrow is mothers' day and I'll be spending the day NOT studying, with my mother and grandmothers. Who knows.


P is for Press handstand.
"What on earth is a press handstand?", you might ask. An excellent question. I will show you a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEy5-dQVUk0

There you go.
It's REALLY DIFFICULT to do a press handstand. Like...REALLY. But I have AAAAAALWAYS wanted to be able to do one. Since...forever. And so I decided I am going to. I've been on this kick a few times before but it's never lasted for more than a couple of days. So I am going to set GOALS this time so maybe I'll actually stick to it. There's a bunch of different drills you can do to strengthen the various muscle groups needed at different points in the handstand so I'm gonna do those a million times a day until I can get myself up into that crazy handstand. So I know my goal is really unrealistic, but I don't really operate well unless I'm under some pressure, so I'm aiming for being able to do it by June 18 when my roommate goes back to California, so I can show her before she goes. As like, a going away present or something. :-P That's about a month, and as long as that sounds....the press handstand is really hard. especially when you start from sitting. So we shall see. ;-)

Oh yes and my HPSP (Air Force) application is IN and I should be hearing back within a couple of weeks. Can't WAIT!!