Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Stretch

My friend Jen issued a challenge the other day to stretch ourselves and see what our minds are capable of. I thought it was a great idea, but then wondered what I should do to work my brain muscles. I really want to strengthen my memory and my ability to think logically.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I've heard that recalling and recording memories you do have will strengthen your memory and help you remember even more. I figure it's worth a try. So I've started writing about some of my childhood memories in my journal. I might even write about some of them here. Even if it doesn't help me remember anything else, I'll have recorded what I do remember and I'll always be glad to have that.

I've been remembering what the house looked like that I first lived in. My parents live in it now, but it has been expanded and remodeled quite a bit and doesn't look much like it did when I was little. I also wrote everything I remember about my youngest sister being born. She is almost 11 years younger than I am, so I remember quite a bit. It was a lot of fun to remember all of that, especially since she is now expecting her first baby.

Since I'm not sure that writing down my memories is much of a stretch for me, I decided to take a class through BYU Independent Studies. They offer quite a few classes for free. I don't have to finish by a certain date, and I'm not graded or worrying about credit. All I have to worry about is learning the content. I'm excited about that. I'm taking the Basic Arithmetic course. I know I have learned all of this and more, but it has been a long time since I had to do much math and I'd like to freshen up a bit before getting in too deep.

Besides BYU there are lots and LOTS of free online courses available from some great colleges and universities.

The Master List of Free Online College Courses
The Master List of Free Language Learning Resources
University of Texas at Austin
Yale
Utah State University
MIT

That's only a few. My brain is tired just thinking of all you could learn. I'm remembering, though, that I'm a tortoise...not a hare. I'll get there!

4 comments:

Jennifer @ Fruit of My Hands said...

Thanks for playing along!

I would really like to learn more about how memory works. I have memories from when I was really young--not a lot, but a few specifics that happened before I was a year old. But the one that really baffles me is that I very distinctly remember eating a type of candy bar that was discontinued by the manufacturer years before I was born! I ate them all the time with my grandpa--I wonder if he had a huge stash somewhere? I wish I could recall more specifics about it, because it really baffles me!

I really like the open courses at Yale! I like to listen to the lectures to refresh classes I really enjoyed in college. Great idea.

Montserrat said...

Isn't Jen great! (She used to live in our ward before moving) I love the free classes offered through BYU. I use their religion courses for my gospel study. Funny I've never thought of taking the more academic courses.

Lynsey said...

I think that is a great idea. I am going to look into some of those free classes and see what I can refresh myself with.

nanajohanna said...

When I finished my RN last year I was so releived to be finished that I thought I'd never want to take another class. But now I'm looking for other classes to take, not just the continuing education for nursing, but other things too.