Bog Spiders, Banjos, and Blight

Briar learns a lot about Ireland!

Welcome to Briar’s daily journal. This is where Briar writes about everything she learns daily, mostly for her own personal record. Never stop learning ♥

11/19/2024

I did a lot of learning today, let’s start with Psychology class and work our way through the day in chronological order.

Psychology

Today’s lesson was all about memory. We took several memory tests to see how good our memory is. One of these was a free quiz online, where they collect the data and use it in research. I scored very well! It turns out I am great at remembering things.

https://mindcrowd.org/

The class material was very intriguing today. We discussed different memory techniques, such as mnemonics, chunking, imagery, and others. I was fascinated because I use all of these techniques, but I didn’t realize that this is how short-term memory gets transferred into long-term memory.

Another fun fact we learned was that only 2.5% of people are good at multitasking. I consider myself a good multitasker, but I also thrive on pure concentration.

For our exam review today, we played Jeopardy… and I learned I am terrible at Jeopardy. I always have been, and I think I always will be. Something about the game must not click well with my brain. I dominate in our Kahoot reviews, but today, I did miserably.

Irish Music

We’ve been hearing about this group coming to play Irish music in the cafeteria for several weeks. I’m in the Ireland Virtual Study Abroad class, so I figured I would check it out and grab some free food. One of these foods was bread pudding. I had never had it before, but let me tell you… it was delicious!

I love everything about Irish music and dancing. If I were ever to take up any dancing, it would be Irish. The music is so joyful, and it makes you want to dance around a raging bonfire at midnight surrounded by mountains.

I sat there and listened to the music for over an hour. Towards the end, someone in my math class five weeks ago sat at my table and struck up a conversation about banjos; he plays the banjo, and the lead singer was effortlessly plucking at his banjo while blowing into a harmonica.

I learned a couple of things about banjos. “Frailing” is a style of playing that involves downstrokes with the right hand. I used to have a mild obsession with banjos, and I wanted to learn how to play one. Free fact for you: I used to want to be a ventriloquist, and I named my ventriloquist monkey puppet Banjo. I had gotten decently good at ventriloquy, but now I am average at best. It’s a fun hobby.

Banjos only have 4-5 strings, unlike guitars, which have 6. For some reason, I thought the banjo had more than 6 strings.

As you can see from the picture above, the singer was also wearing a kilt. This was also new information for me because I thought kilts were just a Scottish thing, but they are also an Irish thing.

I learned about a new instrument called the Bones. They are like little wood sticks that clack together and make a cool rhythmic beat. Traditionally, this instrument was made from cattle ribs.

Lilting was a new term. I had heard the word before, but I never associated any meaning with it. Now I know that it means using your voice like an instrument.

Once I left the cafeteria, I was walking through the hallway when a slideshow caught my eye. It said: “Animal of the day, Anhinga.”

I had never heard of an Anhinga before, but the slideshow was too fast to read. That is what the internet is for!

Turns out they are birds and are sometimes referred to as water turkeys.

Personally, that doesn’t look much like a turkey. These birds are known to reside in the southern part of the country in states like Florida.

I drove home and worked on homework for a little bit. I did an Ireland module. It seemed like Ireland was the theme of the day, so I went with it. Today’s lesson was all about poverty and famine. I’m sure you have all heard of The Great Famine. It is sometimes referred to as The Potato Famine, but the person giving the lecture told us she didn’t like that name because it had a lot more to it than just potatoes.

The famine started before the potato crops failed. Before this ever happened, almost half of Irish citizens had a diet of only potatoes. You can imagine how devastating it would be to have your one food source entirely wiped out by blight. The blight problem lasted 7 years. Ireland lost 25% of their population.

Before the famine, the Irish were known as the tallest people in the world. During the famine, many children didn’t get enough nutrients to reach their full height potential. The Dutch currently hold the title of the world’s tallest.

We will finish off this post with a random fact I came across today: Cranberry farmers use spiders instead of pesticides for pest control. Here is a video that explains more. Cranberry farms are awesome.

-Briar Albaugh