3. Burrata

One thing I always wondered about is how are memories stored? What biological purpose exists for us to store information and why do we feel a sense of nostalgia when revisiting memories? What makes us care about certain moments over others where we store in our brain and deem it as memory? Today, I set out to find the answer to these forever lasting questions that I had but never answered.  According to Dr. Marshall, memories form our “internal biographies” enabling us to remember our relationships and past experiences. She continues with explaining how the memory is split up into its core senses, (sight, smell, sound) which become “distributed to different areas of the brain.” To retrieve memories, we utilize part of the brain, known as the frontal lobes, used for “attention and focus.”  Emotions also directly affect our memories. Steimer describes a research study by “Psychology PhD student Jadyn Park” who found out that “emotional arousal enhances memory encoding” through t...

Last weekend while I was finishing up on the POAS quotes about Norman Rockwell, my 22 year old sister was working in my room when she asked me a thoughtful question: What is your love language? Now you would think that’s just a harmless question just to spark conversation, but it felt more than that. That POAS assignment got delayed by an hour just because of how interesting answering that question was, and hearing my sister who is 6 years older than me, I was intrigued about how much we differed from each other.  Credits: SimplyPsychology Out of the 5 common categories that love language falls under (acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation, gift giving, and physical touch), each person usually favors one out of the 5, and it can also differ when you’re receiving or giving love. For me, I love spending time with my friends and family, and I always want to make time for them even if it is to my own detriment (as you can see from my POAS quote). I also found that I give m...

Every day, when I wake up in the morning, a majority of the time, I don’t remember whether I had a dream that night. Yet, a feeling lingers. Something happened. Something happened, but for the life of me, I just can’t remember. By the time I’m out of bed and done brushing my teeth, that feeling is gone. We can’t really describe it in any way, but I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. Or at least I hope so, so I don’t sound crazy. When I wake up, if I do remember any part of my dream, I often try to take the pieces and attempt to piece them together. Why was I there, at that location, with this person? It just doesn’t make sense. I usually end up reconstructing it in a way that I think makes sense, but is probably far off from the original. Let’s be honest, some of my dreams are the weirdest situations ever. Every time I go back to try to take those original pieces and fit them into a new puzzle, those pieces have already changed. I don’t remember the “original” memory. Sometim...

Katsushika Hokusai. Chrysanthemums and Horsefly . Ink and color on paper. c. 1833–34, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Web . This poem isn’t about any memory in particular. I saw the picture you showed me, of a lemon sponge cake with chrysanthemums and Hydrangeas sitting politely on the supple top, and zest of grapefruit clinging  to the sides like droplets on oily skin. I really liked it. I think we should come together one day and make it real.  My mother showed me how to make chicken curry last night, and I wanted to try it with you. I know you love the blank, white taste, How the blood vessels turn brown and tender near the bone and the pillowy flesh is stained golden with spice. But I prefer your sponge cake. It feels lighter. Yesterday I walked into your home and I saw lemons on your front porch, so I helped you pluck the fruit from the tree in the back and drag the ripped paper bags to the front. Of course I’ll help. I don’t mind spending some extra time with you. Whe...

Why do we blog? Is it because of the indispensable flow of 5 writing points per week? That should definitely be a factor, but is that the only reason? The assignment itself says that blogging is meant to encourage us to “own our writing” and to encourage “authenticity.” If you own something, you by definition don’t just disown it the minute it’s published: it’s still yours.  Blogging is kind of like a public journal that you own. From quarter one, we’ve continuously compiled a colossal collection of blogs, not just our own but those of our peers too. All of the thoughts you put in these blogs are being stored on Blogger (at least up to a certain point in time) and even on Google Docs for you to keep for as long as you’d like. Through our blogging cohorts, we are recording younger versions of our collective selves along with a small piece of our identity for our future selves to look back at. It’s like a photo: it’s a snapshot of your identity at this specific moment in time, which ...

  Jaycee Snelson Week 13: Making Memories This topic for our blogs could not have come at a more perfect time. Currently as you are reading this, I am making memories as I explore the wonders Japan has to offer. I have wanted to visit Japan for a while now. I love the food, culture, and history of the country. For me this vacation has been in the works for three years now. When I told my parents I wanted to go, all those years ago, they told me I needed to come up with an itinerary for the trip and then we would discuss it further. So, I came up with a devious plan. I used each of my family member’s kryptonite to make this plan happen.  First my mom. She is a huge Disney fan. In fact, one of her dreams is to visit every Disney park there is. So I knew that telling her there was a disney park in Tokyo would work. In fact, the Disney park in Tokyo just happens to have Belle's castle, my mom’s favorite princess, making convincing her to go even easier. Now I just had to worry a...