Leaky Sponge

People say that children's brains are like a sponge, soaking up information anywhere they can find it. If that’s really the case, then I feel sure that at some point early on, someone picked up my information sponge and wrung it out a little.

Often, very basic information about the world and how it works seems to have trickled its way out of my brain and been left somewhere in a puddle of abandoned information. And I’m not just talking about the kind of information you never use, but also very basic things that you learn at primary (elementary) school. Things like basic multiplication tables and long division; why there are seasons and how electricity works. Want to know what 8 x 8 is? Don’t ask me! 245 minus 73? Hand me a calculator then!

It’s a very strange thing to find that you’re lacking in basic skills like these, especially if you’re not a stupid person. I may not be able to do long division, but I can design a playground that meets four different kinds of legal standards, fits into a small space and know exactly how much it will cost all in the space of about 20 minutes. I can read an entire novel in less than a day. I can use just about any computer program you put in front of me, and have it mastered within an hour. So why on earth do I have to think so hard about things I should have learnt when I was five?

Perhaps it's just that since I've been a nerd from the day I was born, I’ve come to rely too much on digital devices to provide these kinds of answers for me. Calculators and computers have made that part of my brain that deals with basic maths obsolete. My brain has decided to expunge all the information that it didn’t really need to hold on to, and as a result all that is left is a mind that has a firm grasp on vocabulary and technology, and little else. It would explain all those other blank areas in my mind where things like ‘history’ and ‘geography’ subjects should reside.


Is it too late to reverse this kind of knowledge loss? Can I bring it all back? And is 30 too old to be learning things that could be taught to me by my eight year old niece?

A Serious Question

Is it possible to think about a person so much that you inadvertently draw them into your life? How is it that after not thinking about someone for over 2 months and hoping that they were out of your life they can suddenly re-appear? It’s like the second I let her slip into my thoughts her evil little mind heard her name and materialised to continue wreaking havoc.

Ok, whingeing about evil women aside, I have a serious question:

Why is my spam always in Russian? How am I supposed to know what means of increasing my manhood are available if it’s in a foreign language? How am I supposed to understand the pleas of the Russian diplomat who wants me to help him transfer millions of dollar if I can’t tell what it is that he is saying? If I can’t read it, then it really is just junk and as such, the junk email folder is living up to its name in ways that it never really did before.

Barking Mad

The dog next door is barking and I cannot concentrate on what I'm writing. It has been barking since I got home at 6 tonight and it has barely stopped. It's a wonder that it hasn't passed out. It was barking yesterday when I got home from work, and the day before that and the day before that. It is constant and it has begun to eat at my patience because it has been doing this every day, all day for the past 2 months. Generally things like this don't bother me but this dog barked from the time I woke up on Saturday (8am) until the time I went to bed (12am) non-stop. Without exaggeration, the dog could not have been quiet for more than 10 minutes during the day.

If i yelled non-stop all day, every day for 2 months, I don't think I would have a voice left. Do dogs lose their voice? Is it possible for this dog to bark itself quiet? Maybe tomorrow the barking will sound a little hoarse, then the next day it will be faint, and the day after it will just sound a little like a frog is croaking nearby. Maybe I will look out the window and the dog will be lying down with a mug full of warm honey milk and a packet of soothers looking sad and sorry for itself.
Maybe it will go to the doctor/vet and the doctor/vet will tell him that if he keeps barking, he might lose his voice permanently. Maybe he will buy a laptop and decide that emailing and blogging is a much better substitute for barking himself stupid and he will quietly browse the internet all day long. Maybe he will realise that his barking is a result of his mother not loving him enough, or feeding him for long enough, or maybe he will realise it's because he is lonely and he will be happy because he has the internet on his laptop and he can join a doggy dating site so he never has to be alone again.

Maybe he will just be quiet so I can think some sane thoughts.

I have begun looking around the house every time it barks to see if I can find something sharp and at this stage I'm still not sure if the sharp object is for the dog or for my own ear drums. I'm pretty sure that a few more days of this and I will know the answer for sure.