Monday, July 18, 2011

Can you keep your head?

posted by Melissa
If you can keep your head.

That's it.  That's all I can remember right now of the Kipling poem, and I don't even know if that is right.
Yes, I should be committed alright.  I must have been
searching for divine intervention.

If you can keep you head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

There it is.   I had to look it up.  I can't seem to get past these two lines because they don't flow easily for me when spoken out loud.  I always seem to stress the second to last word "on," and I don't like how that sounds.  So, I have been spending all my memorizing time re-reading these two lines and trying to find "my control of tone of voice - of pitch and stress" as John Hollander refers to it in his book, Committed to Memory.  

I am also busy committing the entire skeletal system to memory, with an exam on Wednesday.  Did you know that every single little hole in the bones of your skull has a name?  That every little bump and protrusion on all of your bones has a specific name?   Supraorbital foramen, external auditory meatus, greater trochanter, nasolacrimal canal, linea aspera, medial malleous, styloid process...just to name a few.  I wonder if there is a poem out there to help memorize the skeleton.  I just searched, and found nothing; only a lame Hannah Montana song.

Well, I just remembered that I have my Psychology exam in about three hours.  It is on none other than, the brain.  So, I better get my hippocampus in gear and form some memories of my notes.

Here is one more try, not looking at the poem, strictly from memory:
"If you can keep your head about you when all around you /are losing theirs and blaming it on you;"

Close, pretty close.  But I have a long road ahead of me.  I hope I can keep my head, and not lose it, because I am afraid I'd only have myself to blame.

peace,
Melissa

PS...the race is close on our poll!  And the bus is winning, Yikes!  That makes my stomach feel queasy.

No comments: