Thoughts are merely Emotions, not Words

    Have you ever wondered, when you try thinking of a word and you can't seem to produce the right word to show what you are thinking or feeling? This is because we think in emotions (I touched upon this in the "Deaf Individuals" post). It hit me when I was talking to my friend about observations of this girl that I had psychoanalysed, and for some apparent reason, I could not think of a word to explain her emotions. I then noticed that I was thinking and feeling her emotion in my thoughts but I could not develop the emotion into words. I also found it was easier to portray the emotion I was thinking, into facial expressions (I don't mean emoticons i.e., ":)", ":P", ">:(", (they are very ineffective to show real emotion). Another issue is my vocabulary does not span across emotion like, angry, delighted, disdainful, etc; and checking a dictionary to come up with the word decent enough to portray my thoughts, let's face it, it is a hassle. Now the next time you can't think of a word to portray an emotion, make facial expressions or think of similes of the emotion, it may give your audience some clue into what you are thinking or feeling.

Language 101... More or less...

    Did you know that the only thing that isn't genetically passed from parent to child, is the accent? Provokes some thinking. I myself, have always had a problem of mocking, or impersonating accents (I even lost a job because of it, it's a long story). I can analyse accents and dialects, and am able to tell the origin of said accent.
    So, I got to thinking how the American accent came about. As many of you know, the American broke away from the "Crown" seeking independence. Of course, ethnic and vocal independence. I noticed that there were some similarities with the Irish accent, using the "r's." I'll give an example of our dialects, here is a sentence, "The general saw a dog." The American accent would pronounce it like this (phonetically), "Thee gehnerahl saw aee dohg." The English would pronounce it (somewhat) like this, "Thee gehnuhruhl sawr aee dawg." If you are unable to depict the phonetic spelling, watch British television, 'nough said. The English accent has other "side effects." When pronouncing "saw," they add an "r" sound at the end, making it sound like, "sawr." Any "ah" or "aw" sounds, they sometimes add the "r" sound. With some words they even altered the spelling to fit their accent, namely, "arse."
    So this made me think, because every language has a different "rendition" of the english language, the pronunciation must be different. In my studies of the Russian language, I noticed they didn't have the letter "j," pronunciation-wise. To spell out "Jones" in Russian, you have to spell it "d-zh-oh-n-s." In German "w" is "v" like "Voltwagon" is "Voltsvagon."
    So to wrap things up, what I'm getting at is that because the English, Germans, and Russians speak the English language differently, doesn't mean they think the same of us, speaking their language!

Prescription Drugs? Easy!

    This year, I had to write a four page essay explaining a problem and my solution for my english class, I picked "Prescription Drug Abuse in Teens." I learned an abundance of information, so here is this info for your learning pleasure.

There are many categories, these are the ones I learned about:

Depressants, Stimulants, Narcotics,

Baby Mozart = Man Mozart

    Now, we have all seen the commercials about "Baby Mozart," babies who learn at an exponential rate because of listening to classical music. It appears ridiculous. But alas, I had hope in this theory, so I did a little self test (no, I am not a baby), involving being able to focus whilst doing simple cognitive work.
    This was around the time I was doing summer school at 0530 'til 1200. One day, I would listen to my classical music compilation; the next day, simple lyrical music. I had then noticed that the lyrical music affected my focus, thereon affecting my test scores. Classical music, on the other hand, improved my focus and test scores. I'm not saying that the classical music on it's own helped my scores, I'm saying non-lyrical music helped my scores.
    Now, to segway into what I'm getting at. Have you ever wondered why, when you pay no attention around you that you can still hear your name in a crowd? Or when you walk down the street, that your eyes fix on all the faces? Well, that is the subconscious' job, to do minor focusing. The subconscious, pre-installed with facial recognition, with voice recognition, and with word recognition, allows us to do everyday stuff without fully paying attention. What does this have to do with lyrical music? When focusing on one thing (i.e., school, books, art), the subconscious still focuses on outside stuff. When you listen to lyrical music while focusing on this task, the word and/or voice recognition is listening to your music and reminding you, "Hey, the guitar solo is coming up," or "Hey, I really think Lance Bass sounds gay in this song." So, as you are focusing on this task, your subconscious is nagging at you to listen to the music. Now back to the classical music. When listening to the non-lyrical/classical music, my subconscious had nothing to hone onto, improving my focus and concentration. Therefore non-lyrical/classical is today's "Ritalin."

The High Post...

-----BE WARY-----

<This post contains actual events in which drugs were used. The drugs used were 100% legal, 100% harmful, and yes, my mom knows about the events and experiences that occurred.> 

------READERS ATTENTION IS ADVISED-----

Associations Part II: Emotional Memory

    When I started working out, I was given some tips by a friend, one of which intrigued me. He said, "Pick a selection of music that you will only listen to while working out." I asked him why, and he said, "I don't know why, but if you listen to the music while not working out, it will mess with your brain." I got to thinking, I have had that kind of experience before. I was going on this long bike trip and all I listened to was Iron Maiden, well a few days after the trip I was listening to Iron Maiden and I had sudden flush of the emotion I felt while biking and the urge to bike. It wore off when I listen to them three days in a row, but I surprised me that my brain had made the association between the music, my emotion while listening to the music, and the urge to bike. Have you ever heard a song that you hadn't heard in a while and you have the sudden remembrance of the location in which you originally heard the song and my emotion. I first had that experience when I listened to "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, and I remembered being in Tennessee in my families old beat up minivan and it was on the radio. The rush of memory was overwhelming , but I loved the feeling!
    Here is another way the brain makes emotional associations (which I lightly touched upon in my last "Association" post), where a negative experience ties in emotionally with a surrounding. We've all had the arguments where they left an imprint in your psyche, where your brain takes a little snapshot of the emotion, the location, and the person arguing with. This is probably the worst ability the subconscious uses, because of the imprint it leaves on people and places.

Slipknot -- Musical Brilliance

    Ok, start throwing the stones now, I do listen to Slipknot. I'm not gothic, "emo," depressed, etc., I just know a ground breaking band when I hear it. Most bands these days are focused on self image and appearance, not the music they are creating, namely The Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, 'Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Etc. We have all seen their spooky music videos and the disturbing masks; well, they wear the masks to forget themselves and focus on the music. The ability to forget oneself and to focus on the musical aspects is brilliant. Think of bands that sound like Slipknot... Stone Sour doesn't count, thus there are no bands comparable.
      Now, you are probably saying, "Well, AC/DC was a great musical band and they didn't wear masks!" My answer is, AC/DC could care less about there self image, they were all about, sex, alcohol, and rock 'n roll. Now, think about Lady Gaga, you never see her dress in street clothes or normal everyday clothing, it's always some abstract dress or suit, she has been able to forget herself (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), and focusing on a new abstract identity, allowing her to focus on her music in a different way. This is very close to Slipknot's ideology, showing that music can be great if you forget yourself...