Synae…what? Synaesthesia? That tastes weird.

There are some things I question in life. Like how some people have the phobia of the feeling of peanut butter stuck to the roofs of their mouths or how apparently some people have the phobia of ducks watching them... I think I have the phobia of cats watching me. Cats make me feel uncomfortable. They stare. It's creepy. Anyway, today I read about a neurological condition known as "Synaesthesia". According to trusty Wikipedia, "Synaethesia" refers to the neurological condition "in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second cognitive or sensory pathway". This sounds dull reader (oh! I mean readers! Hi Em!), but let me assure you it is amazingly fascinating!

For instance, one form of "Synaethesia" is known as "Lexical-Gustatory" which is a strand of sensory/cognitive confusion whereby people can actually taste words. The word "word" for example may taste like roast potatoes. The word "table" might taste like gummi bears. The word "sky" could potentially taste like cabbage. What would make things really confusing would be if the word "chocolate" tasted like soy sauce! Weird.

This makes me think about individual differences in perception and how the brain receives and processes information differently. Or worse still, receives information from the external world and contorts it. I often contemplate the affects of insanity and how people can have wildly animated conversations with themselves. I've seen people laugh uncontrollably, swear, argue, sob and discuss the weather with themselves being the only apparent audience. It would appear that whatever they are seeing is as clear as day...to them at least anyway. This concerns me and makes me think, perhaps I am insane? The way we interpret sensory information is subjective and the mind is our own private little world. For example, there is no way we can be exactly sure that how we experience pain from an open flame is the same as the person next to us. We can only make assumptions that their physiological response to pain induced from a burn is similar from their verbal descriptions of their experience. We can't feel what other people feel or see through another person's eyes... Anyway, going back to the point regarding my sanity, for all I know everyone around me could be a figment of my imagination! What if they were simply my own conjured-up apparitions. Thinking about these things makes my brain hurt and feel incredibly burdened so I will stop now.

These thoughts have been stressing me out so I'm glad I've dumped them on here.

On another note, tomorrow's to-do list:

Coffee with Meagan and Brodie
Borrow 'The Philadelphia Story'
Pirate as much music as possible (maybe even pirate pirate music. Sea shanties?)
And apps, apps, Apps! (job application that is, not iphone apps you nerds!)

Goodnight
xoxo

Blogotherapy

It's always the people closest to you that do the most damage. You know they have said something brutal when it sparks a 20 - 30 second physical breakdown in which you cant seem to take in oxygen and all that your body can muster is odd, wheezing sounds.

Humans never fail to surprise me in how nasty and cold they can be.

Preface

Thirteen months later and I have decided to embark on another post. This is for a handful of reasons a) I feel like my brain is turning to mush since finishing up uni last year and I need some kind of outlet to put ideas on paper (or screen) b) I was reading my myspace blog the other day and loved the fact that I have two years of my life pretty thoroughly documented and documented in such a frank and honest way, it makes for amusing reading c) Meagan inspired this d) I felt the need to add another layer of nerd to my already nerdy personality.

So I can make up a bit of lost time I will take note of a few significant events of the last year or so (purely so if I do print this off some day and compile some kind of journal I will have some context for the subsequent posts written).

* Completed my Bachelor of Arts and graduated from Melbourne Uni this year. After failing in my attempts to get into law this year (for a variety of reasons, my ineptitude and Jake getting his skull fractured in multiple places at the time applications were due), I will try again next year.

*In the meantime I'm planning to save money for a trip to South America next year, with the first 26 day leg hopefully being booked next week. The first leg will cover Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. I'm not going to lie, I'm going alone (with a tour group of strangers) and the thought makes me a little nervous to say the least but I guess it is one of those "character building" experiences. After the first leg I will be travelling to Rio for Carnival and staying in Brazil for another week or so for furthering adventuring.

*After much initial indecision on my behalf and enduring varying degrees of external social awkwardness, Rhys and I have been together for just over two months now. We became official the night spent in Melbourne after his two weeks in Japan and before his departure for Vegas the next day. I'm happy with him. I hope he's happy with me. He's a lovely person :)

*Three of my favourite people in the world are abandoning me next week (abandon seems a pretty harsh word for it, it makes me sound like a puppy they have dumped at Christmas time but I couldn't think of an appropriate and less dramatic synonym). Jessie is moving to Bendigo for 5 - 6 months, Brodie is jet-setting around the world for 4 months and Tan is moving to the Gold Coast. I'm excited for them, not so excited for me.

*I haven't eaten meat for six months now and am making a conscientious attempt to avoid purchasing leather products. Im all about "pleather" and synthetic materials now. Hardly high fashion but it would be hypocritical for me not to eat meat but still wear leather.

Ok, that's enough for now. This is boring me so I can only imagine how much this is boring an outsider if you are unfortunate enough to stumble across this. Finally, for the purposes of accuracy this will be an honest record (with the exceptions of the extremely personal and I will use pseudonyms when appropriate), however I will mostly try to avoid this. Honesty is the best and by far the most interesting policy.