Unbridled Learning

Brain Waves That Distinguish False Memories From Real Ones Pinpointed
For the first time, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are able to pinpoint brain waves that distinguish true from false memories, providing a better understanding of how memory works.

Wow!  Imagine the implications of this for crime witnesses!  I have always thought memory was incredibly fickle, especially since I’ve been married and had kids.  We can all see and hear the exact same thing and have five different very sincere memories of what happened.  We all perceive things so differently.  I wonder if perceptual differences would still count as true memories.  And then there’s always the fact that when you hear a story and maybe see a couple pictures of an event, that becomes part of your memory.  I’ve seen many times kids get confused about whether they really remember something or not, and whether it happened to them or a sibling or they just heard about it somewhere.  I wonder if brain waves can distinguish that too!

Yesterday the kids were with grandpa all day because I had to go to the school office to do some work.
Today, we had tickets to see the Wizard of Oz put on by some theater group. It is Ben’s favorite story of all time, so we had to see it! It was cute.

Then we hung around downtown, ate lunch, went to Barnes and Noble and the used bookstore. On the way home, Ben wanted to go by Grandpa’s house and borrow the first Harry Potter book, because he wants me to start reading the series with him.

Interesting topics of conversation today: We talked a lot in the car about how mountains and volcanoes, and the Hawaian Islands were formed. Ben was asking lots of questions about it, and I explained the whole plate tectonics thing. I think I lost him at the end, lol.
Also, Ben brought up protons, neutrons and electrons, and that these are what atoms are made of. I can’t remember why. Then he started talking about the states, and how if North Dakota and South Dakota were combined, there would only be 49 states. He heard that on a tv show I think. We started talking about all the different shapes of the states and why they were shaped that way, the smallest and biggest states and countries, and when we are ever going to go to the world’s tallest waterfall in South America and how long it would take to drive there.
That was all within the 25 minute drive to the play.
Kevan was reading his Darwin Awards book, so he didn’t talk much, but he did mention this random math problem he did to figure out how many points he would get on a game if he left it running for 3 days getting so many points per minute, and how long it would take him to get x points.

At the bookstore, Ben read nine “early reader” books about a puppy named Muffin. Kevan read a Time Almanac for kids. Then we went to a used bookstore, and Kevan read a couple Archie comics and Ben read (looked at) a coloring book of the states, and looked at the pictures of the states we had been talking about earlier.

After we picked up the Harry Potter book from Grandpa’s, Ben started reading it to himself. After he had read 3 pages, he told me there were 309 pages in the book. I told him he he had read about 1/100 of the book already (ok, it was really 1/103 of the book). He asked what that meant, and I said if he cut the book into 100 pieces, he would have read 1 of them. He decided that fractions were the same as dividing, and that he likes fractions.

When we got home, me and Ben read a few pages of Harry Potter; then me and Kevan watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Boy Scouts was cancelled. I’m getting ready to go read to Ben some more.

Tuesday night, Kevan, Ben and I decided to sleep in our new pop-up trailer. I wanted to make sure I knew how to use it, and that everything worked before we actually take it somewhere. Not that we have anything to pull it with yet, lol…

So I popped it up myself with a little help from Ben. We pulled out blankets and pillows, laptops and food. We ate junk food and watched Ben’s new Brer Rabbit movie he got in his Easter basket, and Kevan played online on one of the laptops. It was kind of cold until we all cuddled together under my fake-down comforter. It was pretty comfortable! I didn’t have my own pillow since we were all so close together, so my neck hurt a little in the morning, but other than that it was great.

In the morning Kevan and Ben started playing games on the laptops. Then Ben went inside, and I did some of my paperwork in the trailer with Kevan. Then we decided to fold up the trailer. Once we got the stuff taken out and the trailer vacuumed, it took less than 10 minutes for Kevan and I to pop it back down again! We’re ready for camping!!