Auditory multitasking.

JG put up a reading challenge that she is going to do.  It is called the 50 book challenge. Stunningly you have to read 50 books in a year.  Should be do-able!  I'm in.

One thing I have been discovering about having the podcasts is the odd things that it does to your head.  I find that I am not able to listen to it and hear another conversation.  It is the relentless nature of the podcast. Naturally, it refuses to respond to any distractions I may be enduring and doggedly continues onward.  It also has, like the devil in those medieval paintings, the advantage of perching on my shoulder and whispering in my ear.

That's one aspect.

Another is that it affects your hearing.  I never go around with both earphones in as I want to be able to hear ambient sound around me, but something odd happens when I do this, and there is essentially a form of auditory multitasking I am calling on my brain to perform which it is startlingly ill-equiped to deal with.

Thinking about it we almost never have auditory imput that is both exclusive and different for each ear.  Our brains are not meant to handle this.  I get an odd feeling in my head when it happens.  More so that when two people are talking to me simultaneously.  Closer to the sensation I get when two people are talking to me, one in English and one it Catalan.  You can pretty much see the processors overheating when that happens.  This is even odder.

Another oddity is the near complete loss of the ability to locate sounds in space.  We were at Cosmo Caixa this weekend and there were some auditory experiments using stereo headphones. One of them was the sound of someone shaking a box of matches and you could trace where they were all around you, over and behind you, even down low on the floor behind your chair.  Quite amazing.

With one headphone in?  Gone.  This, I believe is not exclusive to the speech nature of the imput but would occur equally if I were listening to music.

Finally was a weird and quirky bit of distortion I got the other morning.  I was walking along quite early with the dog when I was utterly certain that I heard a very young baby cry out.  You know that cry that babies have in the first few weeks/two months?  That one.  I was in a little park and I had a really good look around, and not surprisingly did not come across an abandoned baby.  (Thank goodness)  Then I heard it again.  I still could not locate it in space at all.  This was a baby calling out.  I looked over at a sign that was attached to a metal barrier with electrical ties and which was blowing in the wind as the likely culprit so I watched it while waiting for the sound again.  Heard it again, and even looking at the sign, I was not sure where the sound came from.

After this I stopped the podcast and removed the headset.  Then I waited again.  I briefly debated going home, there was clearly no abandoned baby there, but the fact that it sounded like such a young child drove me to remain till I was 100% sure what the sound was.  Once the headphones were off I easily identified it as the sign moving, but was quite surprised to discover that it did not sound much like a baby crying at all when I had both earphones off.

This distortion to the sound was what I found most interesting.  I think I should have been some kind of neurologist, because I would love to know what was going on in my head at that point.  What weird quirk was distorting the noise to the point that I could not only not distinguish its location, but I was also quite unclear about the nature of the sound.

It will be interesting to see if I become a more skilled auditory listener under the onslaught of experience or if I just mess with my head.

Fascinating.

Cosmo Caixa

After getting Eldest's hair stylishly cut last night, we went into Cosmo Caixa today.  I adore the place.  We all do.  Youngest even mentioned that it makes her sad to leave.  It is an amazing place.  Right now they have a (very small) display on about Darwin, including some objects that he collected with his own hands, which is pretty cool when you think about it.

Below is the pattern from the shell/carapce/? of an ancient giant armadillo.  You have to like the flower patterns, no?

They also have a -simulated of course- rainforest, complete with underwater viewing.  This fish is every bit as enormous as it seems in the photo.

This little fellow came fluttering and peeping over to us, I believe that he was enamoured with the man's bright yellow-green runners....

Hmmm, the capybara photo doesn't seem to have made it.  Looked a bit like Chuck on a bad hair day.  From the right angle.  He's got just a few pounds on him.

The little guy below was in the same cage with him though...I like his light blue chest offset by the lovely green beak, no?

Believe it or not, those big brownish looking old dust rags are flowers!

Sea horse.  What can I say, they had a tank of sea horses. I was good and I am only posting three photos.

Hard to have too many photos of sea horses, especially when they are holding tails.

See 'em hiding there?

They had a live nautilus!!!!!  How cool is that?  Sadly we didn't see it swim which would have been super cool, but it was just amazing to see one at all.

Fish.  I love them, must go back to the days in the Bahamas with all the snorkelling.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we were all see-through?  No X-rays anyway.

We had a lovely time.

Wonderful

Hockey

Live blogging the women's hockey final. CTV, bless them, is live streaming it.  I have to download a windows product into my Mac to do it though. Not too happy about that.

Now I just can't get in!!!!!

12:39am I can get the score board on the top.  This will not make for a great game.

12:44 All I can do is read the stats.  We've had two shots on goal and they have a hooking penalty.

12:45, now they have a shot on goal.  This is not a fun way to watch hockey.

12:47, we've got three shots on goal and I am going over to an American station to see if I can watch.

12:50. The Americans are only going to live stream the men's game.  Rage!!!!

12:52  CBC has a chat!  I'm supposed to be happy chatting about the game!?!?!?!

12:54  I hate the IOC.  Look what MSNBC had on their site:


Due to Olympic broadcasting regulations, NBC is only allowed to show Olympic competition video on the internet to users in the United States and U.S. Territories (including Puerto Rico). Users outside of those locations will still have access to an extensive set of non-event video content on NBCOlympics.com including the video listed below.




12:55!!! WE SCOOOOORRRRRRED!!!!!!!!


This is so sad.  So pathetic just looking at the scoreboard.


12:57.  I am not sure I can stay up till 3 am watching a score board though.  Just a little too pathetic.


1:03 I'm going to bed.




.......later..........


on too little sleep, 


We WOOOONNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


YEAH!!!!!

Soup soup soup soup and bannock.

I baked bannock today on the stove top with lots and lots of oil. One could almost say that I deep fried bannock today on the stove top.  I had intended to include a picture of it, but we ate it too fast.

Mmichele had a photo up of a bannock that see had seen cooked, and it is BIG.  That was part of the inspiration.  I used to make bannock quite a lot, especially on the boat.  Every single member of my family adores it.  Me too.

I also made it because we've been eating a lot of cabbage and beans.  Cabbage and beans can have a rather drastic impact on one's digestive system.  I am accustomed to eating a fair amount of both items, but the man has (to our delight) been making this killer-good soup.  Cabbage and beans and potatoes.  I almost feel Polish.

It is very very very tasty.  Because we don't have a fridge, things have to be eaten up or they go off.  The man has been making really big pots of soup.  I have been eating soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a couple of days.  This has been making my life a wee bit awkward.  Ya see, I teach.  The classes are small and not terribly well ventilated.  Yesterday I had six hours of back-to-back classes.   The only bathroom is permanently occupied between classes, has a very thin wooden door and an open transom window above it.  There is not a lot of auditory privacy from the masses of students lined up in the narrow hallway outside the loo.

All this means that I have no way to relieve my distress.  Shall we say.

I opted out of soup this morning at breakfast.  Much better.  When faced with the soup again at lunch today I made bannock.  The man was faintly offended.  I was forced to explain my issue with his utterly delicious soup.  Then I ate my bannock.

Here's hoping for a peaceful evening.

And soup for dinner.

Oh, by the way....

Today had a grand surprise in it.

I was at work, tooling away doing my thing.  Indeed I was working away at the computer when one of the women I work with mentioned that she was getting married today.

'Yeah yeah yeah' I said.

'No, really!  I'm getting married today!'  She's in her early 50's divorced with two adult kids and a long time partner.

I turn around, 'your kidding me!'

'No!  I'm getting married today!'

NO WAY!!!!!!!!

Yes way.  It was very cool.  She wasn't infact getting married, the Catalans have an intermediate stage which I suppose is like a formalised common-law status, but you do have to go down to the town hall and sign a paper and register.  She's trying to be all cool about this, but they did decide to wait till her husband's birthday, and she did mention it to me.  And looked kind of pleased.

So I mention it to another woman and word spreads.  Later, about half an hour before we go for lunch, I hear great shrieking and laughing.  This happens often enough that it is not worth going to investigate, sort of a normal state of the place.  My bud comes back and mentions that one of the women wanted to go to the town hall and throw rice at them as the come out.  Sadly we were banned.

She wouldn't even let us go to the hall, even if we promised not to bring rice.

Fine, fine, fine.

She packed up and left a few minutes early, we all wished her well from where we were working and off she went.  I gave her long enough to get around the corner - maybe 45 seconds - and tore down to the other office where everyone else was working.  Said we had to go and at least shake their hands as they came out.  Delighted hope on all faces.  I said we had too.  We stormed out of there so fast the papers were spinning off the tables in the turbulence.  One woman, in three inch heels took off running through town in search of flowers, and got some!  Another woman and I went off towards the town hall, walking slowly so that they would be inside when we got there.  As we crested the hill we saw her sitting on the church steps in the sun waiting.  We tried to run for it, but she'd spotted us.  When we got there she was still talking to her partner on the cell phone and made some funny derogatory comments about us, called us 'bledes' which are chards.  Used for silly women.

He showed up a bit later, as did the woman with the flowers, and youngest who happened to be going by.

We were banned from going in to the town hall by the happy couple.  We asked if we could stand outside the glass doors while they signed.  OK.

I kept sticking my mobile in through the doors to take photos and it makes a REALLY loud clicking noise, so they kept turning around and catching me.  Finally the people who work there waved us in.  (Small town, I know half of them anyway) and invited me around to take their picture from the front.  Then urged me to go further in.  Finally one of the guys there got out a camera and took all of our pictures.

Then we went to lunch.

It was delightful and hilarious and good fun.

The fellow at the town hall had already sent the photos by the time we got back from lunch.  When I got to work the 'bride' saw me coming and ran down the hall laughing to drag me in and see them.  Then another person spent part of the evening photoshopping them a bit.

What a delight.

Lovely.

So glad they don't hate us for it too.

Help and amazement

At the risk of alienating every last one of you, today is utterly beautiful here.  I am sitting outside on the balcony typing in the sun.  The sea is blue and shining and ruffled by the wind.

Strangely it seems to be making the locals a little hostile.  I commented on the beauty of the day to everyone at work and got responses along the lines of, "I hate winter".  Well, me too, but this ain't winter honeys.  I wonder if they had been outside yet that day.

Then, when I was walking home revelling in the sunshine and gentle breeze carrying my scarf and without a jacket, a woman walked past me going the other way.  She was well bundled up.  She snapped at me, in a quite aggressive tone of voice, "Well.  For Some of us it's a cold day, and for some of us it's warm."  She had that huffy tone of voice one associates with obnoxious old ladies.

Not sure what it is that's setting them all off.  I'm happy as a pig in mud, or a Canadian in the warmth!

On another note I need some help.  One of my adult students - a woman - is suffering from depression but wants to read in English.  This, I think is a good thing, but it leads to some difficult title selection.  She needs an upbeat book, with a lot of dialogue (it is much easier to understand) and without too much difficult vocabulary.  She also wants a book where things happen, where there is some action, not purely an interpersonal tension and resolution of tension.

Ideas anyone?

Please?

NB, eldest just came home and seems also to have been poisoned with bitterness and ennui by this spectacular weather.

Ungrateful and weird.  No?

Popcorn phones

Gonna have to try this, the trick is getting enough phones together.

Freaky.

Catalogues

Catalogues.

Am I the only one who feels this way?  I love catalogues, I always have. Even though I grew up in the city we used to get the Sears catalogue, goodness I enjoyed going through that.  Then there is the Ikea catalogue, an LLBean catalogue came through the door, goodness knows how that happened.

Marine catalogues, what a joy, especially the more esoteric ones.  We have a catalogue on the boat from a company that makes fasteners, you know, carriage bolts, machine screws, silicon bronze, brass, 16/10 stainless steel....I am a font of infrequently discovered atypical in a woman information.  It was a great catalogue.  Marine plumbing, you name it, I love it.

I am so glad that I don't get catalogues from art supply companies, and book catalogues, never seen one.  I even like going through the catalogues for teacher's books and those are pretty darned dry if you ask me.

There is something about it, for me anyway, the sense of potential, what could be, yet still a sense of mystery because you cannot actually handle the items, so you don't notice their flaws, there is that delightful feeling that everything in the book is wonderful.

Of course one must be realistic once it comes time to order, yet....there is that time when it all seems so grand.

On line, somehow it isn't quite the same, something about having the book in your had lends to the magic of it all...

Another time I'll tell you about the Fuller brush man who used to come to our house.  He had the neatest box full of tidily tucked away treasures.

Another time.

Why were they doing that and where did they get that thing.

The other day I was going into BCN in the morning.  A normal kind of trip, early, rush hour.  Not something I have to do often thankfully, but normal.

As we were getting onto one of the main roads, we stopped.  So did everyone behind us (a good thing) and everyone ahead of us was stopped for some distance.

There was a cop car up ahead stopping the entire line of traffic.

A little weird.

Finally he let us all go on and join the mass of congestion further up.  Everyone started craning their necks trying to figure out what the heck was going on.  As we approached the bottle neck, we discovered that it was entirely intentional.  There was a whole series of cop cars parked across the road reducing traffic to a very slow crawl.

The cops were the Guardia Civil.  Serious cops, honestly, scary cops.

They had machine guns, and they were eyeing the passengers in every car.  One might be forgiven for wondering who they were looking for.  EVERYONE was on their cell phone talking to someone, asking them to turn on the news and find out what was going on.

This was all kind of creepy, and then we went past the last car which was parked perpendicular to the regular flow of traffic.  Behind that car was a big big cop.  In his had he held a chain, and the chain was laid out behind him on the ground, about 20 feet of it or so.  This was not like any chain I have ever seen.  Shiny fresh bright silver and studded with those spiked balls you see in medieval warfare, maces or more specifically morningstars they're called, or like giant coltrops which were used to stud the road and stop horses.  Like this, but smaller.

(Image from the wiki page)


Clearly, attempting to speed through the check point would not be a good idea.  Everyone gasped at the site of that.  Never seen anything like it in my life.


Still wondering what it was all about.  Doubt I'll find out though.  Sort of like the drug take-down I ended up stuck amongst (sort of) last summer.

You never do get the whole story.

weirdness.

Water water water......

I am starting to think that we are going to have to start building an arc or something over here.  The most stupendous amount of rain the last couple of nights.  Today's canvas a day project faced unusual difficulties as the lights kept going out on us and so it is alternately painted by candlelight, overhead flourescent and headlamp.  I am kind of fond of the headlamp, brings me back to the days on the boat.

Hmmmmmmm.

The internet also keeps going out on us.  Makes me realise how much more isolated I would feel without it.

A woman I know was woken up last night at 2am by four rather lovely looking firemen knocking on her door.  Apparently her downspouts had broken and a kindly neighbour had phoned the fire department to tell her that her ground floor was flooding terribly.  Many of the houses here have fully enclosed back patios that have walls and buildings up either sides.  If the downspout breaks that is draining the roof, your back patio rapidly begins to think that it is a swimming pool.  Add that to the cat flap that she has....

When she left for a meeting this morning that she simply could not skip, she left her house literally ankle deep in water on the ground floor.  Ankle deep.  No one home but the cat and it is raining more tonight.

Good grief.

Maybe I should go over and check out the house, no?