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In a message dated 7/30/04 9:20:01 PM, ikonstitcher@... writes:

<< > Trying to think but can't lift a synapse. <g>


<<Some time ago, there was a short "filler" film on Discovery Channel (I
think) which showed a mouse swimming around in a tank of water, searching
for a platform in the tank where it could rest. The experiment had to do
with learning; the mouse would be taken out and put right back in, over and
over. The result was, with each repetition, it took more time, not less,
for the mouse to find the platform. >>

OOh yeah!

And sometimes, though Encore is my favorite game, it comes the point where I
just don't care.

I love museums, but I learned when I went to England, and confirmed later
when I had ten days (one day doled out at a time, van in the shop, "we're leaving
tomorrow," for Ten whole days) in Washington DC, and I saw all the
Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress, and then started going to the Library of
Congress to read every day that...

I learned that I can get museum sick. Really feeling an urge to get the heck
out. I could be standing looking at the world's biggest intact silver vein
(or whatever very cool thing) and think nothing but "french fries" or "I wonder
if it's raining? I'd rather be standing in the rain than looking at one more
priceless, unique-on-earth, incredible thing."

So now that you tell the story of the poor swimming mice, I think if they put
the mouse in there too many more times, he might just rather sink and drown
than find the platform. Had I been forced to look at more museum stuff
against my will, I could have come to the point that I learned not to see it at all,
and then I would be looking at those Revolutionary War guns and thinking,
"Well, if the rifles wouldn't fire, I could throw myself on the bayonette,"

. . .and that makes me think of school.


Sandra