Category: CDICL

CDICLCurious DavidHumor

Curious David Redux: Something Old… Something New …

DSCN5292

Today is “Celebrate Carroll” day. For me it is a a day of reflection. I’m sitting in my Humphrey Art Center office awaiting any students who may come by for some help. If   When they do come, I’ll ignore the phone, close my computer screens (Dell, Mac, Ipad, Iphone) and give the students my full attention. It is my Way. Being a professor has brought me so much joy.

Right now the office and art building are quiet even though my door is open. I have taken advantage of that quiet time to rediscover the dictation capabilities of my Mac and to upgrade my Camtasia screencasting software.  I think I’ll teach its use to my research assistants since it works across both Macs and PCs.

I am more than usually sleep-deprived this morning due to a night Brewers’ game and a barking dog who feels obligated to alert me about the deer outside. Often my best ideas for writing emerge when I am in this cognitive state. But also the typos, slips of the tongue, forgetting to include email attachments, and other “oopsies” manifest themselves.

As I think about the blog pieces I hope to write next year, I see their being organized around my “wedding” to this institution. Hence there will be something old (Curious David Redux), Something new (current events in psychology, the world, or in my life), something borrowed (taking or reflecting upon the ideas of others, and my Carroll Blues!

Yesterday I had a delightful tea time with Friend and colleague Peggy Kasimatis who had just published her first novel, Not Pink. She encouraged me to publish my not-so-fictional work about Camp Carroll.  She nudges well. I enjoy wordsmiths such as she and colleague BJ Best.

Earlier today I had some delightful electronic interactions with several trustee and former trustee friends and from a dear former colleague now in the Netherlands.  Later today I’ll be having lunch with another colleague, and friend (Dave MacIntyre) whose Dad (Bruce) was one of my early mentors and role models. Such a richness of relationships have blessed my life.

I especially enjoy this year the office presence of my student research assistants. In their presence (and with their talent development) I find myself happy, productive, and more youthful. With this week’s announcement that the Rankin renovations are on schedule for my return to an office there, I am hopeful that I can expand their numbers from the three that I presently have. (I already have a waiting list of three.) I’ll have some 200 boxes of materials to retrieve from storage, peruse, use, or discard. Stay tuned.

 

Brain HealthCDICLCurious David

Curious David Redux: Ten Brain Enriching Resources


As I continue my investigations and writing about brain health and brain training, I am interested in “vetting” resources that I think are best evidence-based, rich in fact, and readable. Here are ten current favorite resource links. Click them for details.

  1. Harvard Medical School Guide to Cognitive Fitness
  2. Alzheimer’s Association Articles
  3. Dr. Michelle Braun’s insights (also visit her Psychology Today blogs and her web page): 
  4. A recent Oprah wellness presentation
  5. National Institute of Health/ Aging Resources
  6. Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Way Forward (2017)
  7. The Human Brain Project
  8. The Global Council on Brain Health
  9. Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
  10. Brainfacts.org
AgingBrain health supplementsCDICLCurious David

Curious David Redux: Brain Health Resources

P1110785

Today I made additional considerable progress obtaining, reading, and vetting information about brain health issues. Thanks to Alvaro Fernandez at Sharpbrains.com for corresonding with me about the forthcoming 3rd edition of the Sharpbrains Guide to Brain Fitness. I look foward to “attending” the 2018 Sharpbrains summit in December. LinkedIn feeds are now alerting me to a number of resources about Brain Health Summits (such as this one)  and dead-ends in pharma funded research (such as this one).

Increasingly there is a need for paying attention to the good work of organizations such as the  Truth in Advertising Organization (truthinadvertising.org). Recently they did good work exposing false claims about memory enhancement supplements such as Prevagen.

I still hope to pull all this information into one place in e-book format before I leave Carroll for the summer on May 13. I have now discovered several easy ways to convert WordPress files into Word or pdf formats. Stay tuned!

 

 

CDICLCurious Daviddogs

Curious David Redux: Paean to My Best Friends

A few minutes ago I finished reading Sigrid Nunez’s beautiful novel The Friend (more about it can be found here).

I still am choked up in tears from reading it. It strikes close to home, and it triggered reflections about my best past and present canine friends.

Curious David Redux: Here are some of my earlier reflections about dogs who taught me lessons. As the biped protagonist in Nunez’s novel comments to Apollo, the Great Dane, “Remember, I’m only human. I’m nowhere as sharp as you are.”

P1060473

Dogplay2 (1)

Reflections:

Today I am “dog-tired”–it was a three dog night yesterday as we celebrated a birthday with dear friends.

Several summers ago I was humbled at how much I have yet to learn about teaching and about learning. A friend Mary directed her  beloved, devoted blind Newfoundland Ernie to “rescue” me by, on command, swimming out to a rowboat where I feigned being in distress.

Blind Ernie

I was saved as he towed me back guided only by the loving voice of Mary.

Reflections: It has been 6 months since Robin the Newf left my life. She leaves me with many fond memories and enduring lessons about patience, love, persistence, forgiveness, coping with pain, loyalty, and playfulness.

New parents

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Her successor, Leo the Great, already is reminding me of all those lessons and, in his own way, offering me new things to learn.

Leo2

 

Leo1

Reflections: Robin and Glenn the Big Dog and Mollie the Golden Retriever and Queenie and Duchess and Snapper and Freud and Leo have made me laugh and cry, exhausted and rejuvenated me, and constantly pointed out to me the frailties of being a human. My father-in-law, Walter G. Schmidt deep love of dogs was extolled in his eulogy given by the Reverend Charles Valenti-Heine:

…”And that world, for Walter, included his beloved Canines. Lucy, Canis, Oaf, Chaucer, Trollope, and Freud, the last-named because Walter was told that the companionship of a good dog was of greater worth to people than any other therapy! The one time I remember Walter speaking in church was when Trollope died, and he stood up during joys and concerns to opine: ‘If there is a place in heaven for Presbyterians, then surely there is a place for greyhounds.’

I have had many dog role models both real and fictionalized. As I child I fondly remember Mr. Peabody and his seven-year-old sidekick, Sherman. I am attracted to the nonsense of dog cartoons in the same way that my dogs are attracted to scents.  Though many of my friends claim I behave more like Scott Adams’ cartoon character Dilbert, I have often learned from the philosophies of his character  Dogbert and from Snoopy.

Rudyard Kipling  and Lord Byron have warned us of how dogs can capture your heart! Dogs continue to teach me so much! Some day soon I hope to be their full-time student.

Robin

 

Do dogs match their owners in physical appearance? in personality? There is an interesting body of research dealing with these questions. Under what circumstances does pet ownership reduce stress? increase it? Why in the world did I spend $250 tonight on pet treats? Perhaps I still am affected by my first reading of Argos‘ blind enduring faith. Robin, the patient gentle giant, knows.

Here is some anecdotal evidence provided by one of my playful students that owners like me (though there was sometimes confusion between Robin and me and, presently, Leo and me as to who is the owner) may start looking like their dogs!

Newfed