anywhereisbetter

As I rapidly approach 30, it’s funny to think about what information my mind has chosen to retain, and what it has not. Why do some things remain at the forefront of my consciousness, while others fade away? “Use it or lose it” explains some things—like why the only thing I remember how to say in Japanese is “I’m drunk, and tomorrow I will have a hangover,” for instance. But when I find myself singing along to the verses of a Paula Abdul song at the grocery store, “use it or lose it” falls a little short. If only I could consciously pick what information stays and goes, this brain of mine would be a whole lot more useful.

There is no better way to be reminded of all that you’ve forgotten than by studying for the GRE. I don’t mind studying the verbal section, since there’s a good chance that words like “opprobrium” and “impecunious” were never a big part of my life to begin with. But the quantitative section is another matter. This section is comprised of math that most of us learned by the 9th grade: fractions, exponents, basic algebra and geometry, and the occasional square root. Simple enough, if you’re in 9th grade. But for a guy who hasn’t had occasion to determine the area of a circle in well over a decade, this is a problem. And it’s a serious blow to the ego.

Adding salt to the wound is the trove of vacuous tidbits that insist on taking up valuable brain space in lieu of actual useful information. For instance:

- The secret code for 30 extra lives on Contra, a Nintendo game from the late 80′s (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, Start)
- Who played Merlin in the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun (Tim Robbins)
- Who sang backup vocals on the Huey Lewis song Hip to Be Square (the San Francisco 49ers)
- Most of the lyrics to a shameful number of bad songs

You get the idea. It would make sense to replace those Samantha Fox lyrics with one or two useful theorems, but that’s just not how it works. Instead, I have to plow through some lousy test prep book, constantly lamenting the hours I spent unconsciously scarring my brain with Club MTV (Downtown Julie Brown 4-eva!), all the while humming some crappy Richard Marx song. This is not how I imagined life to be.

On the plus side, if my test goes poorly, there’s always a career in Karaoke waiting for me. Remember, I can say “I’m drunk” in Japanese.