a very long forgetfulness.

so dr. john medina, a family friend, brain researcher, teacher, and generally overwhelming person for the strength of his love and the vociferousness of his mind, has somehow taken it upon himself to actively mentor me in the process of sifting through my spaghetti-piled career path. and he is alarming for the way he engages me, for the manner in which he waits for my eyebrow to arch with interest, then dives headlong into some phenomenally fecund tangent to illustrate his point--quarterback fran tarkenton's invention of the deliberately broken play [the benefits of premeditated improv] or the circle of fifths as the unwavering structure beneathcharlie parker's improvisational music [the observation that the most breathtakingly sudden creations possess a simple-but-rigid foundation] or fox2p, the uniquely human gene that lets our thoughts translate into language with immediacy and ease [honest, useful communication as a skill and commodity]. he is like charles wallace murry (the younger brother from the wrinkle in time books) trapped in the body of a bearded, venerable george costanza. (remember charles wallace? he's the kid everyone in town thinks a retard, cos he always looked so serious and never spoke. not one word. then, one day when he was 4, he started to talk. in complete, complex sentences. ideas poured out of him.) yesterday medina was analogicalizing about the transference of information from shortterm to longterm memory, and i asked him how long that takes. he got this crackle of excitement behind his eyes and was like,

really want to know? how long do you think--how long for any piece of information to lock in and never be forgotten? and i was like,

hmm...90 minutes? and he got this kind of giddy smile and was like,

yeah, no. 10 years. it takes 10 years.

and i was like, f me. right? how do they figure this shit out? i have only the sliveriest sliver of a clue. but. he's teaching a new university course in the fall about the biology of learning, and i get to take it. ..maybe i have a natural interest for this kind of stuff; more likely it's a hybrid result of teaching distractful teenagers and my RA work at iLABS -- whatever the reasons, I think my interest in learning to learn is a sustainable one. which is exciting. super-extra-duper-for-reals exciting. it's going to be a lot of work.