I reblogged about a Good Thing which J. Michael Straczynski and the B-5 costume people did, and - about an hour later - it helped me finally reach an itch which I haven't been able to scratch for several days.

Long story short, @dduane and I are putting together a shopping list to send for some Continental goodies - nothing elaborate, just interesting hard-to-find pasta and that sort of thing - and one of the pastas was the source of that itch.

I'd been trying to remember its name so as to order some, but the name rattling through my mind was close, but wrong, so close that if I could just pin down where the wrong one came from, it would make room for the right one.

And it did.

The pasta name is "Pipe Rigate", which looks like this:

However, the name I was misremembering was "Paso Leati", which looks like this (on the right)...

...because it was Londo Mollari's "fighting name" as a member of the Couro Prido duelling society in the episode "Knives".

Ragù, garlic and Parmigiano Reggiano are not involved.

Sheesh.

one is bun,two is shoe,three is tree,four is door,five is hive,six is sticks,seven is heaven,eight is gate,nine is line,ten is hen

the way you use it is this:

say you want to remember 3 things: you want to watch knives out, you need to pick up your sketchbook from your art teacher, and you need to go to the library.

1: knives out. imagine a bun. hamburger will do. now imagine it full of knives. when you remember ‘one is bun’ you’ll remember that it’s full of knives, and that will remind you

2: sketchbook. imagine a shoe. now imagine it’s drawn, in a sketchbook. when you remember two is shoe, you’ll remember that it’s a drawing of a shoe, and it’ll remind you

3: library. imagine a tree. now imagine it’s surrounded by fairies, flying in and out of doorways set in the trunk, carrying books. the tree is a library. when you remember three is tree, you’ll remember the library.

--helping you keep those old topics fresh--

Hello everyone.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about how I study for midterms and finals. So I wanted to do a quick post explaining my process. One thing to remember though is that everyone’s learning style is different, so one person’s method may not work for another person. I’d suggest that you check around and gather a bunch of study ideas and then choose what works best for you or forge your own. For me, cramming doesn’t work! I try to set myself up throughout the semester, so i can prevent cramming. This is my workflow each week or each time I’m giving a new reading assignment.

#1. The first thing I do is summarize the material. My Psych 101 textbook actually did this for me, so that’s where i got this idea, way back in my first semester. Basically, for each section within the chapter, i write a few sentences explaining the main idea. From my experience, i’ve noticed that most textbooks say the main idea, then uses examples, then says it in another way, then uses more examples. So, one or two sentences turn into a page or two.

#2. Once i’ve figured out the main idea, i write it, along with it’s section title, in my notebook (or you can use evernote). I have a notebook for each textbook and i have a few sentences explaining every section of every chapter. Be sure to write the chapter, section and page number so you can find it quickly in your textbook.

#3. After I have the section  summarized and cataloged, I study the material and read it all thoroughly again then make flashcards. I have four ongoing flashcards decks i use (a) terms/definitions, (b) study questions, (c) people or scientist, and (d) studys/clinical trials that are mentioned in my text. For each section/chapter, I update my decks with any new cards. By the middle or end of the textbook, my decks are huge but since i used spaced repetition flashcards, it’s not that daunting.  I study each deck for about 10-15 minutes a day. This is time during my commute, or when i’m waiting for something or when i’m laying down but can’t sleep. I find all kinds of otherwise wasted time during the day to wipe out my cards. 

#4. I revise on a schedule, according to my revision tracker. I find it useful to remind myself of previous reading assignment periodically to be sure it’s fresh. I use the 1 day, 1 week, 2 week, 1 month, 3 month method. After each summary in my notebook, i write the five dates that correspond to the method above. So for example, once i read, summarize and study a section, i come back in one day to review my summary....if details are fuzzy or i cant grasp the summary, i read through and study more in depth, then leave it un-bubbled & come back the next day to try again. If i can recall and understand it well, i bubble in the star in my tracker and move on. In one week after i bubble in the star, i come back and do the same, and so on. Usually after the fifth star is bubbled in, i’ve completely learned the info. 

#5. On a regular school day (m-f), i usually spend one or two pomodoro sessions (per course) going through my tracker and refreshing old info. Additionally, i usually spend two or three pomodoro sessions each week doing new sections. On the weekend, I spend one pomodoro per section for any section that i find super difficult. Also, if i’ve been lax on my flashcards, i will do a pomodoro or two to catch up.

#6. Closer to the test date, i go through my tracker and sort out the sections. For sections that aren’t on the test, i’ll put and X on the left margin. For sections that are surely on the test, i put a check. If i don't know, i leave it blank. In the right margin, i rate the section according to my confidence level. A for easy stuff I definitely know, F for sections i just cant remember or understand, and C for soso sections. In the two to three weeks before my midterm/final, i focus on sections rated F that are surely on the test. Then F sections that I’m not sure if they are on the test or not. Then C sections that are surely on the test. Then C sections that I’m not sure about.

Well i hope all of this makes sense. Just ask if you have questions.

Resources

Printable: Revision Tracker PDF

Pomodoro Apps: Forest -or- Tide (free & my FAVE!)

Spaced-Repetition Flashcards: Cram -or- Anki -or- Repetico

You’ll see a lot of online handles (usernames, I guess is what most people call them -- handle is a holdover from the BBS days I grew up in) with numbers after them because the word or combination of words or name or whatever was already taken.

I’ve never been good at choosing that kind of name, when I’ve wanted one, but now I’ve found a simple trick.  This only works if you have both colored letters and colored numerals -- or some other synesthetic trait tied to letters and numbers where the two can be easily compared.  But I’m going to describe this in terms of color because that’s how mine works.

Take the word that I wanted to start with.

Look at the colors of each letter in the word (or the whole word, if you want to go that way and if the color is different for whole words -- but it’s easier with individual letters).

Then, for each letter, choose the closest match in numbers to that color.  It doesn’t have to be an exact match.  Just the closest match you can find.  If there’s no possible even remotely close match, skip that letter (or use an underscore or dash or some other symbol you’ve chosen to represent a blank spot) and keep going.

So like... Amelia

A is blue, M is red, E is green, L is transparent-ish (but has weird properties with regards to the letters it’s next to in a word, sometimes), I is white, A is blue.

That’s all the detail you need -- there are far fewer numbers than letters, so you want the possibilities as broad as possible, even though you of course will have specific shades of each color in mind, and possibly properties like shininess roughness and personality and etc.

So:

0 is black, 1 is white, 2 is yellow, 3 is red, 4 is blue, 5 is sort of an olive brown(1), 6 is orangish brownish but more on the orange side of things, 7 is on the slightly more blue side of a medium-light purple/lavender, 8 is green (a hard one to pin down because it glows and things like that always throw me off), 9 is another reddish-orangeish-brown but more on the brown side this time, and that’s all the numerals.

AMELIA = 438_14 or 43814

So then your handle can be amelia43814 or something like amelia438_14 depending on your preference -- and you will have a much easier time remembering it than you would some random number.  Never mind that the red of M is more a dark brick-red and the red of C is more a brighter candy-red -- they’re still similar enough that they’re easy for me to remember as going together.  So you’re far less likely to forget such a username than you would if you used random numbers, and you don’t have to reveal any personal information like birth year unless you want to (a lot of people I’ve noticed, have online handles like Ashley1983 -- if you don’t want the entire world to instantly know your age without even asking, that may not be the best choice).

And again, if letters and numbers have some attribute other than color that you’re capable of using instead, go for it.  It’s just colors are the most common form of conceptual grapheme-related synesthesia (personality and visual texture, I’d imagine, would be close behind).

(1) I’ve gotten in trouble for saying “olive green” and “dog turd brown” to describe the same color, the color of five -- someone decided I must be lying(2), even though I’ve taken part in synesthesia genetics research that requires you pass tests proving it’s real synesthesia.  

But to me those are two shades of the same color, and someone had once described a color within that shade-system for me as “olive green” so I just assumed such a description would apply to all colors in that area, which include certain greens, browns, dark yellows, and dark beiges.  Also there are olives and dog turds that definitely share the same colors -- both in areas considered green and areas considered brown.  

My having my own designations for where colors cut off is sort of like my having my own designations for different types of pain, some of which I would never imagine could all be under the same umbrella-wod “pain”, some of which  I would never imagine other people see as separate.  Where people draw distinctions between certain sensory experiences can be both cultural and personal.  My mother has certain turquoise-like shades where she never knows whether to say it’s blue or green, not because she can’t tell the various shades apart (both she and I have passed with 100% accuracy a very hard test of differentiating minute differences in color, so we obviously didn’t catch the colorblindness that runs in the family) but because she divides up the borders of certain colors in a way that is unique to her.

(2) This person was bent out of shape about me for all kinds of reasons, some better than others, but I can’t stand people who, instead of being honest and saying “I just don’t like you,” instead habitually try to pick at and find fault with people about things like changes in the way they described the color of “5″ when they were just learning how to describe colors of that sort..  That, to me, crosses an ethical line.  All of us cross lines like that from time to time.  It’s painfully (or perhaps, much more dangerous -- painlessly) easy to believe ill of someone you don’t like, and that bias can creep into your thoughts without even trying.  

But IMO it’s everyone’s job to at least try and behave ethically in situations like these.  Because the cost to your personal enemies may be higher than you intend it to be.  And even if you did intend such harm... that’s a serious sign you need to change some things about how you deal with disliking people.  Because this sort of thing can easily lead to obsession, stalking, bullying, and other negative behavior towards others.  It’s the same reason most little kids have to be taught not to just haul off and smack someone they don’t like.  What this person did was the verbal equivalent of whacking me upside the head because I was playing with hir favorite toy.