Smell You Later

Humans have very strong scent memory. Tell us about a smell that transports you.
Having been born in India, I had a sense-ational childhood. I mean I have been exposed to a whole variety of colours, sounds, tastes and smells that still linger in my memory.

Some of the fascinating scents are sandalwood, jasmine flowers, camphor, agarbatti (different scents like rose, lavender, sandalwood), lime, curry leaves, coriander, freshly cooked sambhar and rasam, sweets like peda, barfi, gulab jamuns, jalebis and the smell of earth after the first rains.

But one smell I love is the smell of the pages of a new book.

The smell of new books depends on chemicals used in their manufacture and this can vary from volume to volume. Old books have a sweet smell with notes of vanilla flowers and almonds, caused by the breakdownof chemical compounds in the paper

British chemistry teacher created the infographic to demystify the differing smells of old and new books and to reveal their chemical compounds

Other interesting posts in this category:
1) https://apeacefulblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/lavender/
2) https://myeatprayrvinglife.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/i-smell-the-trees/
3) http://longwalksanddarkchocolate.com/2015/06/04/daily-prompt-smell-you-later-2/
4) https://alotfromlydia.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/a-day-in-smells/
5) https://flowersandbreezes.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/smell-you-later/
6) https://philfillinglife.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/ginger-is-the-smell-for-me/
7) https://shameport.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/eau-de-cologne/
8) https://whoison1st.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/lemons-and-limes-and-rhubarb-oh-my/
9) http://blainecindy.com/2015/06/04/grandmas-lilacs/
10)https://maniparna5002.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/that-memorable-fragrance/

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Do you remember?

(This is the text of my Advanced Project 4 speech from the Humorously Speaking manual that I delivered at my club yesterday evening)

I can’t remember the number of umbrellas I have lost  or the number of times I have misplaced my keys.

Sometimes when I have left home for work – I have the “Did I” moment.  Did I switch off the iron?  Or Did I lock the main door?

Distinguished guests, fellow toastmasters and friends –

In this fast-paced world with a growing population we have to remember so many names, so many phone numbers, facts, figures, internet passwords – it is really mind boggling.  But technology gave us paper , the printing press, the typewriter, the computer, the internet and the smartphone and we have progressively outsourced our memory to these gadgets.

Inside our brains temporal lobe is the hippocampus (sounds like hippopotamus) responsible for converting short term memory to long term memory and the amygdala (sounds like a queen from a fairy tale) which processes emotions and can record events..

When I was a child I could remember times tables,  Gandhis date of birth and when the battle of Plassey was fought.  Then when I was going to get married I could remember my wifes birthday and even her mothers birthday.  I had the memory of an elephant.  But after marriage I find it hard to remember our anniversary date, birthdays etc.

The most effective way to remember your wifes birthday is to forget it once.

When I go grocery shopping I always keep a list with me lest I should forget one item and go all the way back.

A University of Cornell study found that women remember better and can multitask whereas men are more focussed on a single task

In the movie Finding Nemo – Dory, one of the main characters can’t remember if she’s coming or going and Winnie the Pooh also had a poor memory.

Just 2 weeks back I attended a seminar to improve my memory organised by Singapores only memory champ and guiness book record holder Nishant.

He said that the reason that we have a bad memory is that we do not exercise our brain enough

A toastmasters meeting is the ideal place to exercise our brain – A speaker can throw away his script
The TME, language evaluator , General evaluator, timer and Ahcounter also have to pay attention throughout the meeting and  have to be alert all the time.

Do we ever forget to brush our teeth, take a bath or eat our  lunch?  We are creatures of habit and unless we make it a habit to remember we will tend to forget

A man was invited to some old friends’ home for dinner. He preceded every request to his wife by endearing terms, calling her Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, etc.One of the friends was impressed since the couple had been married almost 70 years, and while the wife was off in the kitchen he said to his buddy:

“I think it’s wonderful that after all the years you’ve been married, you still call your wife those pet names.”His buddy hung his head. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I forgot her name about ten years ago.”

 

As we grow old, our brain can suffer from dementia and Alzheimers disease due to atrophy or lack of use.  So some ways to improve your memory are

–       Get a good sleep – stress is not good for our memory and a good nap can recharge you and leave your mind fresh to grasp like a sponge

–       Llead an active life – we lead a sedentary lifestyle – so it becomes important to exercise – because as the saying goes  ‘a  healthy mind in a healthy body’

–        play games not on your smartphone but just do some crosswords or play Sudoku at times & finally

–        have some smartphone free time every day.

 

 

 

 

 

The memory game

When did the first world war occur?
What was Constantinople formerly known as?
When was the battle of Plassey fought?

We have such an obsession with facts that it puts our memory to the test.  Our examinations in subjects like history and geography like to encourage rote learning and reproduction.  Students who are good at cramming find it easy to vomit it all on the answer paper.  Memory is important but it should not form the basis of our education .

Is this real education?  Or should our children be tested on their understanding of the subject, thinking skills, teamwork, speech and drama,  elocution and other skills that may come more useful in life.

In some schools,  teachers are given an answer sheet to mark and sometimes answers that are different but correct are marked as wrong for the only reason that they do not match the answer sheet.   Students are taught from a tender age to follow standard procedures, and even told to reproduce exactly from the book.

All this talk of developing creativity is just an eyewash.  In true fact, few schools are taking the lead in inculcating and developing students who can think on their feet and out of the box.

Sometimes in life it helps to unlearn all the things that we have learnt, so that we do not hold preconceived notions in our mind when we are faced with problems.  We can then think in our own unique way and find our own solution to problems.

Even in our everyday lives we have to remember so many things:

1. Your wifes birthday (better not forget that unless you want to be ostracised)
2. Your anniversary
3. Your grocery list (don’t forget this either unless you like to do a second round of shopping)
4. Your passwords (nowadays there are so many email accounts, online banking that there are so many passwords to remember)
5. Appointments, schedules, meetings

Today there are so many gadgets that there is no need to exercise our memory.  Our smartphones can manage all this information and we can retrieve all these at the tap of a finger.

Here is an interesting TED talk on how “Rote learning fragments the world”” by Sanjoy Mahajan: