doodling

Doodling is good for you! Read this article:

Take Note: Doodling Can Help Memory

By HealthDay - Fri Feb 27, 8:48 PM PST

- FRIDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- You might look like you're not paying attention when you doodle, but science says otherwise.

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that test subjects who doodled while listening to a recorded message had a 29 percent better recall of the message's details than those who didn't doodle. The findings were published in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

"If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream," study researcher Professor Jackie Andrade, of the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth, said in a news release issued by the journal's publisher. "Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task."

For the experiment, a two-and-a-half minute listing of several people's names and places was played for test subjects, who were charged with writing down only the names of the people said to be attending a party. During the recording, half the participants were asked to simultaneously shade in shapes on a piece of paper without attention to neatness. Participants were not told they were taking part in a memory test.

When the recording ended, all were asked for the eight names of those attending the party as well as eight place names mentioned in the audio. Those asked to doodle wrote down, on average, 7.5 names and places, while those who didn't doodle listed only 5.8.

"In psychology, tests of memory or attention will often use a second task to selectively block a particular mental process," Andrade said. "If that process is important for the main cognitive task, then performance will be impaired. My research shows that beneficial effects of secondary tasks, such as doodling, on concentration may offset the effects of selective blockade."

In everyday life, Andrade said, doodling "may be something we do because it helps to keep us on track with a boring task, rather than being an unnecessary distraction that we should try to resist doing."

See, i knew i shouldn't have gotten in trouble in 5th grade for doodling during science!

snow!

snow in cerritos, southern california? yeah, right!

But these past few days, pretty white flowers have been blooming on trees, and falling on the ground while rain comes pouring. white stuff + wet stuff = SNOW!

allergies.

cough. sneeze. scratches face. scratches arms. scratches legs. scratches head. wrinkles nose.

those are typical signs that you have allergies. Or you just discovered that you are allergic to a fat cat. yeah, this past long weekend, i found out that i was allergic to 范阿姨's used-to-be-small-but-now-pregnant-looking-orange fat cat. five minutes from departing their house, i was sneezing the whole time in the car, while very sure that i WAS allergic to that cute big demon. even though jie ji and colosseum didn't really believe me. and then, when i got back home, i got bumps or hives on my face, so daddy had to take me to walgreens and buy some wal-dryl (benadryl knock-off). A few minutes later, i was fine.

But still, it is quite a mystery, because i have always played with the stray cats around the neighborhood, and never have i had an allergic reaction. Pearl said that it's probably just something that happens when you get older. >:(



great. now i can't have a cat anymore (not that i was really planning on it). at least i can still eat melons, nuts, and bananas, unlike pearl.