recall 75 memories and lessons I learned from them

26. REMEMBER TO INCLUDE UNITS
27. If the solution is of unknown pH, the conclusion MAY be invalid
28. R = P(2)
29. If x =a is a double root of P (x)=0 then P’(a)= 0 4 years ago

When f(x) = 0, square root f(x) has a vertical tangent
21. The input for inverse sine must lie between -1 and 1
22. Implicit Differentiation is used when a curve is defined as a relation
23. The moment that we heard the original lyrics of Scots Wha Hae was hilarious because its the tune of our school song. Classics rock
24. www.freerice.com helped me realize how unproductive my other procrastination “reasons” were
25. The day I discovered SciAm in the school library gives two lessons: a) the library does not suck b) America does not suck 4 years ago

After reading A Rebours (Huysmanns) I realized how powerful the imagination could be. That could save me a lot of money in terms of travel expenses

16. P.S. I Love You was a really disappointing movie. Don’t go and see a movie just because you like the lead actor

17. Quotes we use in everyday conversation often comes from a source we know nothing about e.g. Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Then it’s a pleasant surprise to find them in their original context

18. It’s even funnier if the quote has been warped so much and people think it’s still accurate

19. There’s a whole playlist of songs that people in each generation should know i.e. assumed knowledge. Otherwise you will be extremely ostracized during long bus trips 4 years ago

prove for n=1, then n = k +1. However this result only holds assuming that the statement is true for n = k

12. The Russian Method is useful for graphs involving product or division of linear/ basic functions

13. You always need to test whether a curve crosses a horizontal asymptote

14. Polynomial division is used to find both oblique and horizontal asymptotes 4 years ago

It’s dy/dx, not the other way around 4 years ago

Stop at stop lines to avoid disaster 4 years ago

well I’m studying for my modern history assessment now. I should’ve started hours ago. this isn’t really a memory, but it will probably be one soon.

what will it teach me?
don’t start studying one hour before you plan to go to bed the night before an assessment task. 4 years ago

The first time I saw Morris Dancing was Easter this year at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. It was wonderful and now that Morris is part of my life, I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on.

Lesson learnt? Simple: good things happen! be alert for opportunities that could change your life. 4 years ago

I used to think House was hyped up.

then I started watching regularly and fell in love.
so don’t judge! some things ARE an acquired taste. 4 years ago

Virgin Blue Domestic flights.

Bring your own headphones and pillow. They make you pay. 4 years ago

wow its going to take me ages to get to 75….

hmm… On Open Day, while touring my soon-to-be high school, I peered into the Science staff room and waved at one of the teachers. years later, in year 10 she was my science teacher. I wonder if she remembers me from that day?

Well, its a good feeling when you do something nice :D 4 years ago

For my 13th birthday I had a party at my house and we watched “The Ring”. It haunted me for weeks after that. Even though it was Christmas on the ‘day’ I still couldn’t relax and reason with myself that it was a story.

Lesson: I can’t handle horror/ thriller movies.

Unfortunately I did not learn from that lesson. Although I was motivated to watch another thriller just to see Marton Csokas 4 years ago

On my first day of Kindegarten, I didn’t know a word of english. At recess, a girl came up to me and asked me why I wasn’t wearing school uniform (I had been in the country for such a short time that I hadn’t bought my uniform yet). Now, 10 years on, she’s still one of my good friends.

Lesson: you can meet people in the strangest circumstances so keep an open mind (I failed to recall this lesson, and found out on the last performance of a music gig that the guy who sat next to me the entire time was a lecturer to a course I want to do when I get into uni…) 4 years ago

When I was < 4, I was in a crowd and though the lady in front of me was my mother so I put my hand in her pocket. She wasn’t: awkward moment.

Lesson: Identify people people you touch them 4 years ago

I’ve decided to simply write this entry about singing as it is such a big part of my life. I think my love of singing comes from my granda, my mum’s dad. I remember so many times just sitting listening to him sing. I loved his Welsh accent. I could have listened to him for hours on end.

He used to make up songs about me- calling me Paulina and saying I was from Ballymena. I would argue against this, which I’ve heard was quite cute cause I couldn’t pronounce my street name and I would always tell him that was from there and not Ballymena!

I remember so many songs that my granda used to sing and when he died I used to shout at anyone who sang them. I hated hearing them because it brought all the bad memories back with the good. Now I just smile when I hear them and my siblings and I use them when we are “bonding”. It’s fun to relive old times and remember how happy we were with him- and to think about all the crazy things we’ll get to pass onto our kids. 5 years ago

Let’s see…what could this memory be about?

I think that seeing as my birthday is coming up (and I doubt I’ll write before then) I shall write about a birthday memory.

I have no idea what birthday it is that I first remember. I know I was kinda young, maybe about 6. I don’t remember anything about the day- I suppose it’s likely I got up, quickly tried to open presents before being ushered out the door to school. My first memory of the day isn’t til later that night.

As my birthday is in October it always gets dark a little while after dinner. I remember it being quite dark at this time and my dad being in the kitchen while I was told to stay away. My mum was work at this time. She’s a nurse so she does shift work. I remember thinking that it wasn’t very nice that mum wasn’t at home on my birthday, but at least my dad was there.

A little while later I heard a chorus of “Happy Birthday” from my dad and siblings before a little tiny bun (or cupcake if you’re from USA) was placed in front on me, one lonely candle burning brightly in the centre. It didn’t take much to blow it out- but the wish was still behind it.

I remember laughing at this memory years later. My mum had been working too much to find time to buy or make me a cake and my dad had improvised. It was really quite cute.

I don’t really remember any other birthdays until I was older. I think the lesson I learn from this is that little things really do make a difference- even little cakes. 5 years ago

This entry is from about fifteen years ago when I was at the supermarket shopping with my daddy. I can call him my daddy because at the time that was all I knew him as. At the tender age of 5 my daddy was everything- he was strong enough to pick me up high and show me the world- to throw me up and make me giggle with excitement. He fixed all my toys when they broke; he kissed my cuts and bruises and made sure there were no monsters (or spiders) lurking in my room. When I was 5 my dad was the only guy I thought I would ever need.

That fateful day I was following my daddy around, most likely being his shadow or running ahead excitedly when something bright and colourful caught my eye. That is until someone approached us. I have always been a little shy and I would run to my daddy’s side for comfort, clutching his hand whilst burying my face into his sleeve. I expect this time I acted no differently even though I knew the child who approached us.

This child was none other than the boy who had held my attention since the first day of school. He came up to us boldly, though I’m sure he was nervous. After clearing his throat he asked my daddy in his five-year-old voice if he could hold my hand.

My older siblings took a lot of pleasure in teasing me about my ‘boyfriend’ and from that day on I’ve never been able to avoid drama with boys.

I expect that my dad plans to tell this memory at my wedding. 5 years ago

Not every memory has a happy ending…

There are times when I lose my patience and more importantly my perspective. It gets to be a vicious cycle – a day isn’t going quite right, someone says something I don’t necessarily take the way they intended it or families call me and need guidance or a little help, and I can’t always step outside the box to give them the kind of help they need.

Along the same lines, I have to realize that most folks aren’t gonna randomly call me as an ombudsman if things are going well. Folks tend to call their ombudsman when they need help with difficult situations, which can really skew your view of things if you aren’t careful.

It’s all just a matter of perspective. I’m a firm believer that I own my actions and my reactions. I’m continually trying to learn from the things that I look back on and cringe at. Of course, everyone has moments they’d rather not relive.. and they hopefully have more moments they look back on and smile.

The more I can learn now, the more moments I’ll have to look back on and smile later in life. It’s all about perspective… My perspective is my reality, right? So keeping a positive perspective is so important!

So many times I look back and realize that just a little bit of perspective and patience could totally change the outcome of a situation. Live and learn, right?

Perspective is key. 5 years ago

My mom had this silly game that she would play with my sister when she was little. Mom would recite the aforementioned line in a menacing voice and my sister Lindsay would run away squealing, pretending to be scared of the Giant (Mom). This particular session, I think Lindsay was around 6 maybe, and Mom decided to get a laugh out of Lindsay at bedtime. Lindsay was tucked in, ready for bed, as Mom approached, reciting the dreaded words “Fee Fi Fo FUM” and on the word Fum, rocketed herself onto Lindsay in bed. I don’t know if it was the force of Mom landing on her, or the shock of it, but Lindsay was shouting “Mom! You made me pee my pants!” Literally. HAHA Lindsay, you peed the bed!!

Lesson learned: Don’t let Mom jump on you when you bladder is full. 5 years ago

Growing up, I had the best of both worlds. Seriously. My parents divorced when I was 5, and I lived with my mom during the week and visited dad on the weekends. I had a really close friend that I was permanently glued to on the weekends named Brianne. When I wasn’t over her house, I was on the phone to her. Constantly. I loved going over her house because a) they lived in a kick-ass house and her parents were hella-cool b) they had a siamese cat named Alex that was hella-cool and c) her younger brother always had the latest video game systems/games, and because he had a huge crush on me, he would let me play to my heart’s content, which was hella-cool.
This particular night, I had just finished a nutritious meal of Chef Boyardee spaghetti in a can, washed down with fruit punch from Cumberland Farms (you Massholes and RI’ers will know what I’m talkin’ bout, the stuff that came in the gallon jugs). Brianne calls me up and asks if I want to sleep over. I stuff some clothes into a bag and race around the block to her house, I swear, I get there even before she had hung up the phone. We hang out in her room all night, lip-synching to Madonna (she loved Madonna, and because she was my best friend I let on that I did as well, even though I couldn’t stand her then, or now). We danced our way through all her NKOTB tapes, and laughed crazily at Alex, the weirdest cat ever. By the time I was nestled in my sleeping bag on her bedroom floor, my stomach was not feeling too great. ALl the running, spinning, and giggling and churned my additive-laden supper into a bubbling pit of sickness. Before I could stop it, I was emptying my tummy onto her white (who uses white carpeting in a kid’s bedroom?) carpet. Now, anyone who knows the aforementioned fruit punch knows that it is redder than the devil’s ass, and mixed with the chef’s pasta,well it wasn’t pretty. I tiptoed into the bathroom, grabbed a box of Kleenex, and in the dark, did my best to, um, scoop the mess. That being done, the carpet still looked like a crime scene. So I did what any 13 year old would do. I covered the stain with a backpack I found in Brianne’s closet and went back to sleep. Strangely enough, nothing was ever mentioned about the stain…
And I just realised that out of 10 memories, 2 of them involve vomiting well-known food products (see number 7). Perhaps I will go for a trifecta….
Lesson learned: Just because Dad calls it dinner doens’t mean its edible. 5 years ago

It sounds like some sort of bizarre title from the mystery genre, doesn’t it? Well for me as a small child, the spiral staircase we had in one of our homes was ominous indeed.

Today, I have no idea why I was so nervous about that staircase as a kid. As a matter of fact, I remember getting extremely excited about going to an open house and insisting we get THAT house because … it had a spiral staircase. Maybe I decided subconciously to “delete” the file the reason for being so scared of The Spiral Staircase?

Regardless, I used to stare at it, over in the corner of the livingroom from time to time… finally I remember getting up the nerve to climb it. The hike to the second story seemed to take ages, but I know it couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes. Lo and behold!!! The Spiral Staircase led to my parents bedroom.

Such a let down, really. If you had asked me, I would’ve sworn the staircase would’ve taken you up to see goblins behind the door at the top or maybe the door opened into space or maybe there was a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater in there!!!!!

Lesson learned? Sometimes you build things up in your head to proportions that just aren’t worth it. Sometimes I have to remind myself to relax and just take things as they are. Sometimes the door is just a door into another room in the house. Hey, if it’s actually a door to another dimension, I could make money selling tickets to go visit Dimension X, right?

;o) 6 years ago

Upon rereading this entry, I have decided to edit it some, simply because I realise how insanely private it is. I must have been feeling very open the day I posted it! Its enough to know that this memory will be with me forever, as much as I despise the thought. And my lessons learned are too numerable to fathom. 6 years ago

I used to hang out at my grandma’s house fairly often as a kid. We moved around a lot, but we wound up back in Indiana more often than not… usually when we were “in country,” so to speak, I’d be able to spend a lot of time with Grandma.

Whenever I’d spend a weekend over with her, we’d head out to a discount store to pick up suncatcher kits – uber cheesy, but TONS of fun. We’d paint all afternoon – everything from crosses to flowers to unicorns to rainbows.

I had a love/hate relationship with the rainbows, my friends. I could never get the paint to go where I wanted, but Grandma would help me out every time. No matter how many times she had to reach over and guide my hand, she’d get it to look how I thought it should look. Looking back, I realize she managed to persuade me that just about anything actually looked good, as long as I did it myself. Grandma’s suncatchers always looked 3,000 times better than mine. I loved the way her paintings came out, but Mom always said mine were awesome too. ;o)

The moral of said story? Grandma understood the value of a routine. She knew, be it a learned lesson or something more intrinsic, that memories were built from moments. I knew basically what to expect at her house and looked forward to it with TONS of anticipation! Creating a loving home can be based as much on routine as it is on spontaneous affection and activities.

Every night after we’d set our masterpieces to dry, we’d head back to the “tv room” with an orange and some napkins. The only time I ever had oranges at night was at Grandma’s house. She’d peel ‘em and give me “special” segments that were “just right” for me… I always think of her when I peel an orange and I smile.

Something so small and mundane can have a massive impact. It might be good advice to avoid sweating the small stuff, but lemme tell ya, that sweat is more than worth it sometimes. 6 years ago

I’m really taking this slow it seems. I quite want to just skip to times closer to the present, but I think it’s important to look further back, so here goes…

I remember when I was a kid playing in my garden. I was very fortunate to have quite a big garden with grass and a swing (that the neighbour broke) and a slide and later a “club house” that my sister use to charge me to use- apparently the money was going on food but I never got any of that.

Anyway, I have this great memory of being a chef. I was pretty much a disaster with anything that was actually edible, but I could make flowers, leaves, mud and grass look like a feast. Thankfully I was smart enough not to eat it, but it was a really relaxing time for me- pottering through the garden picking out my “ingredients” and avoiding my darling siblings.

I love the memories from when I was a kid- innocence is bliss. To think I could spend an entire hour just walking around making something that no one was ever going to see never mind eat and yet I thought it was the best thing ever.

This entry is a praise to imagination. May I never be too grown up to see the wonder in a mud pie. 6 years ago

seemed so risque when I was 13.

My best friends and I had dozens of sleepovers it never failed that we’d end up staying up late and writing the worst stories together. We’d each take turns typing and giggle our way through everything from an action scene to romance and back again. In true teenage melodramatic fashion we always wound up getting guys out of trouble, saving the day, fixing our hair, AND growing up rich and stylish.

The lessons learned? Writing at ANY time can be massive amounts of fun – it doesn’t always have to be serious, it isn’t always meant to be read again, and it doesn’t have to be anything a publisher would even get a glimpse of, let alone actually read. Write for yourself, write for fun, write yourself out of a rut. Create a character you believe in and let your imaginary friend live inside your stories…

Also, realize that a lot of the stuff you write, no matter HOW terrible, is actually better than some of the stuff that’s on the shelves today. 6 years ago

How about with “Simplicity!”

I can admit to being pretty gosh darn spoiled as a kid. I had a Nintendo, more books than you could build a fort out of and a library card to boot, a week and a half worth of jeans, toys, animals, music lessons, you name it!

I also had parents that booted me out of the house on a sunny afternoon. Now that I think about it, they even booted me out on a rainy afternoon. Y’know what? I love ‘em for it!!!

There’s nothing that sets your imagination loose like an afternoon outside with nothing to do… We had this massive tangle of bushes and trees that hung over a canal we used to live near.

Ok, “near” is a relative term. It was within biking distance and distinctly OUT of earshot from my house. On a completely unrelated note: How do parents not get slightly spastic??? I was gone for HOURS, and a-ok, but thinking of my daughter out in random places for an entire afternoon gives me a rather embarassing case of the “overprotectives.”

Anyway – we’d spend hoards of time in this massive, Mother Nature built tree fort. Some days, it was a quirky mansion – we even built sinks out of rocks near the water’s edge. Fancyschmancy, eh? Other days it was a military base. From what I’ve seen, ye olde Tree Fort was more sturdy than some bases we have now. ;o) (Hey, I’m a military wife, I can occasionally poke fun!) Sometimes we’d head outside only to discover that it wasn’t a mansion OR a military base, but a strange new planet to explore. There were also times when it was just a really cool tree fort that always had something new – new growth, a new nest, or a new seat that someone else built into the branches.

The lesson? Life doesn’t have to be insanely complicated. You don’t need any gizmos or wizbangs to entertain your kids OR yourself. You can appreciate beauty in so many ways… and I really hope there are still kids playing in the intertwining branches. 6 years ago

8. We had to put my dog to sleep in March 2003.

There has always been a dog in our family since before I was born. My parents got a dog when my mom was pregnant with me. They named her dork because she would always jump up on the picnic tables when she went logging with my dad. She was part miniature collie and part everything else. Mom rescued her from a cardboard box outside a supermarket one hot summer day. Dork was in a box with several other puppies. Some of them had already died due to the heat and no shade or water. Dork was lucky. She had a great life. As Dork entered her senior years, I was nearing my adolescents. Around that time, mom had heard about a dog that had been abused and was not being taken care of by its owner. They were ready to get rid of it, so mom and dad decided we might be able to handle another dog. Sadie was a purebred registered boxer. She was the runt of her litter and had a cast on her front paw from being kicked. She had been sleeping in an unheated garage in the cold of the winter and had not been potty trained. We felt pretty lucky to have her, but I can only imagine how happy she was to have found us. She was young and rambunctious and quite the excitement for me and my sisters. We were too young to remember the prime of Dork’s life, but now we had Sadie to enjoy during those early years. She went everywhere with us and did everything we did. She was great. We loved her and wanted to do everything we could for her. Early in her life, Sadie was diagnosed with a thyroid problem. She required medication every day for the rest of her life. We all took turns giving her those 2 little pink pills in the morning. Not long after that, she completely lost her sight. She got around pretty well, as long as we didn’t move the furniture. Nonetheless, she continued to do everything with the family. There are very few vacation, Christmas, and graduation pictures that Sadie isn’t in. She aged with the rest of us and was there for all of us through middle school, high school, and most of college. I’ll never forget the day mom called me to tell me Sadie was nearing the end. She had lost control of her back legs and her bladder and bowels were beyond her control as well. She cried at night because she was in pain and most of the days were spent being moved around and spoon-fed by mom. She didn’t like to be left in a room by herself, had she been human, would have been a top candidate for a nursing home or in-home nurse. I broke down and cried. I hadn’t cried since I was in elementary school, but at age 22, I bawled for quite some time. I assured mom I would drive home the next day to be there. I left work not knowing when I would return. All I knew was I needed to be with my dog. I got home to find Sadie in worse condition than I had imagined. It was hard to see a member of the family in that state. I did my part of moving her around, feeding, and medicating her. I stayed up all night with her trying to make her as comfortable as possible. After 2 days and 2 nights with her and only winks of sleep as she slept, we realized that the time had come. Mom decided she wouldn’t be able to make the phone call, so I wiped my tears and tried to find a voice to set up an appointment at the veterinary clinic. It was a tough decision. I felt like we were playing GOD, but hoped this was what she wanted as well. One more night with her exhausted the remainder of my tears. The next day, I took my sister to take her driver’s test. I had every intention of making it back to go with Sadie, but the driver’s appointment took longer than we had anticipated. I arrived home to an empty house and memories of Sadie in every room. Her dishes still filled with water, her bedding in numerous corners of the house and a pile of Kleenexes from a night/morning filled with tears. Her extra leashes hung in the front entry way and her nail clippers sat just inside the basement door. The towel we had used under her belly to help her as she moved around with only her front legs lay in the dining room and her medication sat above the sink. Her bathtub stood upright in the laundry room and family pictures with the 6 of us and Sadie were found in every room. I wanted to get back in my car and drive out to the clinic myself. I wanted to be there, not only for Sadie, but for my mom. I know how hard it must have been. I struggled with the thought of the end. I ran through the house gathering all Sadie’s things. I didn’t want anyone else to come home and look around to see the things I had seen. I put everything away and lay on the couch trying to think of anything but what was happening. Mom came home and told us how nice the staff at the clinic had been. She was there until the very end.

I’ve shed quite a few tears since I’ve sat writing this. It’s probably one of the toughest memories for me to recall. Sadie was there for every critical moment of my life from age 10 to 22. Mom has her ashes upstairs in the cabinet with the family photos. It’s kinda strange, but I guess this way Sadie has, in a way, been laid to rest where she most enjoyed her life. I think the lesson I learned from this event was the power of love. I’ve been fortunate to grow up and mature with everyone from my family still around. Sadie’s death was the first death of anyone close to me. I can only hope I will have as great of an impact on the life of another as Sadie had on my life and that someone will have as much love for me as I had for that beautiful boxer. 6 years ago

7. I threatened to transfer colleges during my sophomore year because I believed I was part of a corrupt system.
My freshman year at Dakota Wesleyan University was great. I was part of the volleyball and track teams and got involved in several organizations and projects throughout the year. I loved DWU. I loved the people that worked there. I loved the people that attended and I loved the atmosphere created by everything on campus. I set out to do even more during my sophomore year. I applied for the job of Resident Assistant (RA) and was lucky enough to assist the freshmen on my floor with my duties. The year started off great. We had a fresh new season to work on some more wins in volleyball and my class schedule was looking good. RA training prepared me for a year with new faces and the issues that can sometimes arise and gave me a new understanding of how college can be quite a different journey for some students. My first semester as an RA took me through several trips to the emergency room, numerous late night calls to pick up intoxicated residents and a fire in room 225. Each of these events seemed to create a committee to analyze the issues. As the volleyball season came to a close and we neared the end of the first semester, I received news that our campus pastor was going to be leaving us. Joel, as all the students called him, was a great guy and involved in just about every aspect of DWU campus life. It was hard to imagine the place without him. Joel’s departure left the need for yet another committee to get together to find a replacement. I found my way to this group as I had the previously mentioned ones. Each committee was comprised of individuals from all aspects of the university. I met with the vice president, board of trustees, campus life, fellow students, staff, and community members on numerous occasions. Each of these meetings led me to question policies, personnel, and the overall structure of the university. I found myself getting angry about the chaos of the system I was a part of. I engaged in heated discussions with students in the cafeteria surrounding issues of the college and refused to be a Student Ambassador for the university because I couldn’t justify selling a place I was no longer passionate about. I struggled most of the next semester with my thoughts on whether or not to transfer to a different school. That summer, I stuck around and got to interact with a few people who understood the business of the university, but continued to pour love into it. I came to realize that every organization has issues, but not every business has a great group of people to get them through. I am fortunate to have been part of something that had people like that. I am one of those people. I received a great education from my professors at DWU, but I learned a lot about the world and how it works from the experiences I had and the committees that analyzed them. 6 years ago

7. OK, so this memory starts off as an incomplete, simply because I can’t remember what movie I had just seen, Gremlins or E.T. Both scared me silly when I was younger. Anyways, we had just come back to my grandparents house after a night at the movies, seeing whichever of those movies that scared the bejesus out of me. My mother had asked me to go down to the laundry room in the basement to get the clothes out of the dryer. Now I have to preface this story by saying that my grandparents’ basement was the alltime spookiest place on earth to me. As you walk down the stairs, there is a little window with a wooden door over it that opens up into my Papa’s workshop. I loved being in the workshop with him, but when it was empty, I wanted no part of it. Creepy stuff. There was also a little room under the stairs that housed goblins, I’m sure of it, and a boiler room that was haunted. SO needless to say, going down into that basement on the best of days was a traumatic experience for 8 year old little me.
I was trying to put the laundry into the wicker basket as fast as I could that night, trying not to think about where I was or to hear all the creepy noises around me, when suddenly it went completely dark. Someone upstairs, not knowing that I was down there, had noticed the light on, and being the energy conserving people that they are, switched it off and left me enshrouded in darkness. I was so scared I managed to throw up all over the basket of clean laundry I had just taken out of the dryer. (Raisin, Date, and Walnut Quaker Oats, if I remember correctly. Then I had to sprint past the boiler room. past the door under the stairs, and worst of all, past the workshop window. Ugh, just thinking about it now gives me the heebie-jeebies. 6 years ago

decided if I want to do this on here, or if I want it written down in a journal… I could always print it later, but I love to see how my writing looked and what weird doodles I made while I was pondering things when I read the stuff years later.

In all honesty, I’d probably be more likely to keep up with the goal and accomplish it if I did it on the pc, since I spend so much time in front of the gently glowing monitor.

Hmm, do I trust y’all with 75 memories of mine? ;o) 6 years ago