I'm not really keen on writing blogs to showcase what I've been doing lately or write about any achievements - i.e. see Jon Partridge's cringey blog... I generally write when I have something interesting to write about. I did have something interesting to write about, but I have literally just forgotten it. I thought about it in my head, haha yeah Will, that's pretty funny, you should write about that in your blog, your blog is becoming a great way to show off your brutally good wit and stuff and bla bla bla I'm really thirsty now so I think I'm going to get some water. The bit at the end actually happened, I'm sitting at my desk with a cup of water. I sometimes find it hard to focus and my mind wanders a lot. So anyway, I forgot what to write about. I think in future, as soon as I think of something to write I just need to quickly write it down and then I have something to jog my memory.
I think this whole short term memory/attention span problem is a recurring theme.
I have re-read a few of my previous entries and I'm shocked by the number of spelling and grammatical mistakes I make. I think it's due to my stream of consciousness style of writing. And maybe also my dyslexia. Nick doesn't believe I have dyslexia - 'You're not a retard Will, you can read, write and spell'. He just thinks my mother was a hypochondriac and put this condition upon me. Hmm, that doesn't really explain all the tests I had when I was a child that showed that I did have mild dyslexia. And also, while I am a very good reader and writer, you get me dictating and I'm fucked. Hmm, actually I guess I'm not that bad.
I got a bit side tracked and started reading about dyslexia on Wikipedia, and then onto intelligence and IQ. It seems I that I could have applied to join Mensa when I was 9. I don't think I really knew anything about Mensa at that age, and maybe my parent's just weren't bothered (they probably didn't let me join the club order to prevent my siblings from getting jealous). When I was 9 I had an IQ test (I had a lot of tests when I was young, along with my brother (who also has dyslexia)) and I scored 136 using the Stanford-Binet test, which works out at 154 on the Cattell test (Ones IQ number varies depending on the test) - Mensa has a minimum entry of 148 for the Cattell test (130 for Stanford-Binet, I have just read). Hmm actually I did think about joining Mensa when I was at uni, but couldn't really be bothered because of the hassle of taking another test and all the paperwork. And at that point in my life, I used to have panic attacks during exams.
And also, I'm not overly sure what happens when you join Mensa. Maybe you get preferential treatment during an apocalypse (like being allowed into a governmental retreat or something), or you have monthly get togethers where you chat about clever things. I think I would be rubbish at those kind of events. If someone said to me 'Greetings Will, my name is Marcus, what's the square root of 20124?', I'd really struggle. Actually, I wouldn't just struggle, I'd reply 'Fuck knows, I'm shit at maths'. And then it get all awkward and people there would start muttering about who let me in. Hmm, I don't think I'd openly swear that at the chap, my innate politeness and anti-confrontational attitude wouldn't allow that to happen. However, if they asked me some general knowledge questions like where did Napoleon die?* Or what was the primary armament of the P-51 Mustang?*, then I'd probably do reasonably well. I would probably get bored quite quickly and also get tired, unless there was a chair. A good spread would be a plus too. I used to be a factual bookworm when I was younger, I had loads of books like factfinders and encyclopedias. Never in a weird, geeky way, like sitting in the library reading, I just used to enjoy reading about facts when I was home from school. This is probably why I FUCKING LOVE WIKIPEDIA.
If anyone reading this ever sees me in real life, please ask me a general knowledge question - I really enjoy talking about facts and stuff.
* Napoleon died on the island of Saint Helena, in exile after losing the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
* The main armament of the Mustang were 6 M2 heavy machine guns, which fired the 12.7x99mm bullet. It was a good plane until the jet age rendered it obsolete.
