My brain is so fried right now. I wish I could have seen an fMRI while I was working on this; my initial impression is that it would show increased blood flow relative to while I work out plot details, which would in turn show increased blood flow relative to calculus class, probably by a factor of about 2/3.

I'm just frustrated right now. I feel like just because I leave out a word here and there in e-mails or leave out two or three trains of thought, people think I'm nuts. Seriously, there's not enough time in the day to explain every single thing. Besides, at that point, you start approaching Ontongard level of communication, and I don't think that's healthy in our society. We need to leave things out, distribute information unevenly, keeping most close to the vest to preserve the identifying differences among us. Communicate the largest thoughts only, not the intermediate processes; if we understand everything, we lose the diversity that, like disassociated gases, expands our horizons within whatever container we find ourselves. (I like these disassociated gases analogies.)

I'm tired. Four hour exertion for three paragraphs! Ridiculous until you account for the sink-or-swim nature of the material. My head hurts; my eyes are dry. I need a break before I consider something else. Are my own assignments restful? Is programming in a less-than-completely foreign language restful? Is dinner restful? I'd better leave before it closes. Just five more minutes.

Five more minutes.

Questions of the day. Please, please, please respond if you have any thoughts on any of these. I would really like to know, and I'm not allowed to research most of them in the class that generated the questions.

• Do ADD/ADHD, binlingual patients experience increased pathological language switching, and if so, is this caused by a condition of the cingulate gyrus?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of poorly/quickly-functioning cingulate gyri, and is there an instance in which this would be vastly preferred? Furthermore, does a poorly/quickly-functioning cingulate gyrus affect actual and perceived intelligence?
• How does caffeine affect the cingulate gyrus?
• What would happen if a person had a strongly-developed caudate and a poorly-developed/quickly-functioning cingulate gyrus?
• Should one of the distinct differences between Kemtewet and Gertewet be that the former causes abulia (an apparent loss of will or motivation) by effecting lesions in the frontal lobe?

Let me know.

(While writing essay) Stupid cingulate keeps switching on me, throwing in computer programming terms with neurolinguistic studies and Christian identity issues. They're interesting combinations, but I don't think my prof will be too thrilled when she reads about the experiment with the three Boolean variables (properly referred to as a 2 x 2 x 2 analysis, but that doesn't make as much sense).

Please no one ever call me on Sundays; I so lost the good vibe I had for this assignment. The one time I was actually on task for two hours straight, I would have finished in only one more had my cingulate gyrus not been severely activated. It's not used to switching quickly but among languages and plot lines.

^{For support, he references Crinion et al., whose experiment with bilingual brains shows increased blood flow in the temporal lobe and caudate corresponding to three variables: meaning, input language, and output language.}

I'm apparently building a reputation for myself, whether I realize it or not, and I find myself at a "crossroads," of sorts.

It's an ethics thing. I want to be responsible. I want to help people. That's all it is, and it hurts to think that the people I thought I was helping resent it.

I'm naive in many ways. I freely admit it, because I don't see myself as jaded, and there are many things in which I am far from experienced.

Someone on the floor got sick last night and lost his dinner in the lounge. The others sitting around him said he hadn't been drinking, so I believed them and figured he would be fine with time. That meant there was one thing to do: clean up the mess. No one else was going to; they all left the room immediately, and even though I probably couldn't name half of them, and I had just walked in, I figured I should do it. Unfortunately, there isn't a storage closet of cleaning supplies that I know of. That's in the RA domain. Unfortunately, the RA on my floor wasn't feeling well and had gone to sleep early. The number for the RA on call was posted on her door, so I called it. No one answered. Reluctantly, I sought out another RA, the one on third floor. I showed him the situation, and he took over from there.

This morning, my roommate informed me that that particular RA is a lot more strict concerning alcohol (or something; she was being vague). He sent the guy to the hospital, and the implication I picked up on was that there are consequences to be explored in the future. I was going to just brush it off and figure that he'd brought it on himself and, if he wanted to drink, should have done so in moderation, rather than "reupholstering" himself. Then another guy from the floor sat down beside me at "breakfast" (aka 1:30 PM meal) and basically asked me what I'd been thinking. Well, the rest of the night was totally awesome for me, and I'd not put that much emphasis on the event. I told him I'd had a great night, to which he replied, essentially, "A great night sending people to the hospital?"

I never got along that well with the people on the floor, mostly because I never stuck around long enough to get to know them. Before, people just knew me as my roommate's mysterious roommate. Now, I guess I have a reputation for being a party pooper or something. I don't really care what reputation I gain if it accurately reflects on my character, but I don't like when people resent me. What was I supposed to do, anyway? There's a properly set chain of command here, and I'm not inclined to work around it. Besides which, like I said, the stuff needed to be cleaned up. It was sinking into the carpet and the couch, and I like sitting in the lounge; I didn't want it to stay.

So... I think I'll avoid people from the other quads from around, especially the guys. I have a lot of friends elsewhere, who I usually hang out with anyway. And if I gain a reputation for being an ueber-good Samaritan, well, it has two benefits. Anyone who needs help will know where to find me. As for my floormates and their activities, they'll know to exclude me and to be more careful while they're here. Good for them. It's not like I go out and look for people to throw into trouble. It's like they said: you don't get caught if you just sleep it off, like the guy who joined ZBT did the night I saw him walk in drunk. Maybe I'm actually part of the problem, but I don't want to be a part of the solution. Maybe I actually condone underage drinking, because I don't feel like condemning the people who do it. But let me say this: enough experiences of the third-floor RA sending ya to the hospital, and ya'll teach ya'rself how to avoid it, either by being more responsible or more careful. I feel fully justified in my actions.

Character Assessment, part I: Vulcans.

Prompt (feel free to respond for yourself):

What qualities do I admire in literary characters, and to what extent, considering my core beliefs, should I aspire to emulate them?

To some extent, I admire the Vulcan devotion to logic. Everything must be evaluated, and that leads to more informed decisions. Once you are duly informed, you can anticipate future events. Emotions can cloud proper judgment and eclipse even the values you hold most dear, as in the case of revenge and killing. Logic can be a voice of restraint, keeping you from rash actions and well-deserved consequences; and it can be a voice of action, propelling you to do what must be done. I admire Vulcans because I adhere to intuition with only a cursory glance at logic, and I recognize that intuition is not a reliable adviser when compared to logic and fairly complete intelligence on the situation. But should I emulate them?

Vulcan adherence to logic in the absence of emotion lends them an inhumanity that undermines the compassionate, loving nature of Christianity. How can you show love to others without feeling love yourself? How can you love your neighbor at inconvenient times without abandoning logic's assessment of the cost? At base, the love of Christianity--agape--defies traditional, human logic, as does, at times, any conversation of the Holy Spirit. To adopt any adherence to logic, even Spirit-based logic, one would have to allow it to yield to agape.