Remembering

If you've read my other blog, you know that I like to do posts in which I remember things.

Whether or not it's true, I have a perception that most people don't really like to read those, and therefore that those posts might jeopardize my readership. But I like to write them, and I know that some family members (and maybe some others) like to read them. My friend David Christensen sent me a link to an article about memory. He said he thought of my memory posts when he read it. The article says that once you start remembering things, it can help you remember more. So that's part of why I'm starting this blog.

My hope is to write on this blog at least once in a week. If I don't make a commitment, I'll never do it. So that's my commitment. Once in a week--a week consisting of Sunday through Saturday. So if I did Sunday of one week but Saturday of the next, it would be almost two weeks, but it would still be once in a week.

Some of them might resemble my memory posts on my main blog, but some may not. Some may just be short, random memories. Some of them may follow a particular theme. And I may use supplementary materials--journals, newspapers, calendars, etc.--to supplement my memories and to remind me of things.

To start off this blog, I'm going to remember times when people told me I had a good memory. This isn't all such incidents, but some noteworthy ones.

Above I mentioned David Christensen sending me a message about that article. He told me he thought I might be the thirteenth person with that kind of memory. I messaged him back saying I didn't think so, but I thanked him for the article. This week I saw him at church (we were both up for Mother's Day) and he brought it up again. He said he was amazed at all the details I remember, especially how far back they go. Then he started telling me about learning about an ancient Greek technique about memory. When I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog on my other blog, a mission companion, "Elder" Bramall, gave me a URL to a video about that very technique. I started watching it, but I don't have the attention span to watch the whole thing. I probably will eventually.

Later that day, my cousins were over for Mother's Day. Jesse asked me what my blog topic was going to be, and I said I didn't know. I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog, and Peter and Jesse both seemed to like the idea. Peter said he wanted to know how far back I remember and wondered if I remember my birth, saying I might say, "There was a cord attached to me..." Jesse referred to my post about the holidays of the past year. He said he was impressed that not only did I remember the Facebook status I posted on the Fourth of July, I remembered the ads that came up and the name of my Facebook friend who liked them. I tend not to think my memory is really that great, so I said, "It was less than a year ago." So Peter and Jesse tried to remember what they did on the Fourth of July. They said they remembered they were in Wisconsin--but then they realized that wasn't true. After some discussion, they determined they were in Utah on the Fourth of July, and they said they were glad they finally figured out what state they were in. My aunt Sue went outside where my parents and grandparents were sitting and relayed the funny conversation that had just occurred among us.

Another comment about my memory came in response to the same post mentioned above. It was April 29. I was at church and had just finished setting up chairs for sacrament meeting. I was standing by the hymn cart when someone in my ward, Krista Roy, told me she had read my blog and it blew her mind. I was kind of surprised she read my blog, since I'm not Facebook friends with her. I thought maybe she was referring to my writing style (because I'm conceited like that), but then she said she was surprised at all the details I remembered. She thanked me for remembering so much.

Some girls have told me I had a good memory when I remembered when one of them was entering the MTC and when I remembered that the other one had a British convert who was in love with her.

My roommate Bryton has told me on a few occasions that I have a good memory. He came home one day and I was wearing my blue plaid shorts. He told me he liked my shorts and said he needed to get some fashionable shorts. I told him that my shorts were the first shorts I got after being home from my mission. I did a quick calculation and told him I got them on April 2, 2010. That's when he told me I have a good memory. I told him I just remembered that it was the Friday before general conference.

Another instance occurred on February 6. That was the night that I went to Shopko and bought some heart LED lights and some red, pink, and white Jujyfruits (on my way to and from the store, the radio played Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain," Colbie Caillat's "Brighter than the Sun," and Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years"). It was also the same day we got a new used oven. At around 9:30 p.m., Bryton asked me if I wanted to go running with him. I hadn't gone that day (and wasn't planning on it), so I said yes. I checked the temperature. It was in the low 30s, so I decided to wear pants (instead of shorts) but not a jacket over my green shirt. Just before we were leaving, my roommate Ammon had to ask Bryton something. We left and Bryton told me I could set the pace, but shortly he told me I was too fast. We were running south on 900 East when I told him that I hadn't gone running with someone else since November 27, 2010. He said, "2010? Wow, you have a good memory." We ran past some guy who seemed scared by us, we talked about Josh Powell and another murder, and we dropped off something at Bryton's cousin's mailbox. On our run back Bryton saw suspicious activity in a car and he talked about how he had to exercise for cheaper insurance. We went by an apartment complex and I told Bryton that I had to park there once the previous year, and that on April 1 (2011) I had to carry a bottle of Gatorade from my apartment all the way to my car, and that I passed an apartment where they were playing Rebecca Black's "Friday." I was shocked when he said he didn't know what that was, but I did determine he did actually know what it was.

I think it was fall of 2010 when my parents decided to get a new mirror for my bathroom. We had two mirrors in there, and they were getting rid of the second one because it was in bad shape. I said that I remembered when they put up the second mirror. My mom said that we had both mirrors up in the bathroom when we moved in when I was two. I said that was not the case because I was in third grade when we put it up; it was the same night that there was a school event where they had a telescope to look at the comet. My mom seemed unconvinced but said she had learned not to doubt my memory. (I actually think that we didn't look at the comet in the telescope--we were supposed to but we looked at the moon instead.)

On my mission, after my nephew Franklin was born, I sent an email to my brother saying that I remembered that Allie first spun in circles on December 3, 2004, and that Preston first spun in circles on November 27, 2005, so I wanted to keep track of when Franklin would spin. David responded and said, "Ya-ping wants one third of your memory."

One summer day when I was six, my family went river rafting with my uncle Paul and left me with my aunt Sue. I think this was the time that my cousin Joey and I put water in the sandbox and convinced ourselves we were in quicksand. After we got cleaned up, we were in my aunt's van with a young girl, Whitney, from across the street. Whitney looked at the sky and said excitedly, "An airplane!" and my cousin Chancey said sarcastically, "Wow." There was also a box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers in the van, but at that time I thought they were called Chicken in a Basket. After all these adventures, it was quite late--it was after 9:00 and it was getting dark, and my family still wasn't there. I started saying things like they had forgotten me or that they had died. I knew that wasn't true, but Sue kind of acted like I thought they were. After my family finally arrived, they started talking all about their trip and their funny river guide named Hilary. Months (or years) later, my brother was recalling that trip and that river guide. He said, "I think her name was Tiffany." I said, "It was Hilary." My mom said, "He's right," and ever after that, David used that as evidence of my memory. Once he was telling his friend Heather that I had a good memory, that I remembered the name of the river guide and I wasn't even there. On another occasion he asked me the river guide's name as an illustration of my memory.

So, yeah. This is the kind of thing I'm going to be writing on this blog.