CANCEL
I started playing Lumosity regularly again a few months ago.
I had played it for a few months in late 2016/early 2017, because I felt a strong need to keep my brain engaged. Living with a person who has dementia, as was the case for us at the time, rapidly makes you worried about how healthy your own brain is.
Once I started freelancing for SmartBrief, though, my brain was getting plenty of workout time every day. I had to rapidly read articles and summarize them into two-sentence summaries. The topics ranged from legal content to crop insurance casinos to pet apparel. It was the perfect mental gymnastics.
Fast forward to now. I’m now a full-time editor for SmartBrief. I still love it, but those concerns about growing mentally stale have been hounding at my brain.
One day, I wrote a summary about a story that covered Ketchikan, Alaska. I referred to Juneau the whole time. When the copy editor asked me why I talked about Juneau instead of Ketchikan, I truly had no clue. WAS I LOSING IT?! (To be honest, I don’t recall which two cities in Alaska I confused. This was a really long time ago, shortly after I became an editor, but if anyone can prolong a concern and turn that molehill into a mountain, it’s me.)
Enter Lumosity again. I’ve been plugging away for months.
Recently, Lumosity players were invited to participate in the US Memory Championship.
I signed up, laughing at the irony of the fact that the whole reason I do Lumosity is because I worry about my fleeting memory.
I could have canceled, but I didn’t.
There were 258 competitors. I definitely didn’t make the top 8 (these people were AMAZING). Yet, it reassured me to hear the other competitors talking about how hard the games were.
They’re probably as difficult in Ketchican as they are in Juneau!
In all seriousness, thank you to the USA Memory Championships for a challenging and fun afternoon. You can watch the entire event here. The final two events are at the 2:50 and 3:22 marks.
Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via creator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell checking, as you can imagine.)
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
Yes Paula, I really CAN relate!
Thanks for helping me not feel so alone!! 🙂
Thank you for referring me to Lumosity. I definitely can relate to the concerns.
~Your FMF neighbor
You’re welcome! It’s a fun challenge, and it was cool “meeting” some of the people behind the site during the competition. Two other sites recommended by competitors were memoryleague.com and artofmemory.com.
I play a game called “Word Count” for an hour every night before I go to bed. I worry all of the time!
OOH that sounds interesting. I’ll have to look it up – thanks for the recommendation!
Ohmyword! I didn’t know these things existed. Going to do some research. And congratulations for registering and then showing up!
Well done!
They definitely do! Wow — there’s a whole world out there of people who compete in these things and do memory challenges. I left the day motivated to keep trying.
So interesting. I want to believe that lots of writing keeps the brain in check. I also love Luminosity but haven’t played in ages. Will have to revisit.
Ha ha I hope so re: the writing. I’ve struggled with my attention span with reading too — some of that may just be pandemic blahhhhh — but it’s alarming!
Is it Juneau, maybe Ketchikan
where all the penguins roam,
following their master plan
whence all roads lead to Nome?
Ot maybe it is Anchorage,
or those Aleutian isles
where the singing orcas forage
with their seal-bright smiles.
But don’t forget Utqiagvik
(’twas Barrow ’till ’16),
which may really be you pick
if you are dead-keen
to let the winter season pass
by freezing off your bonny…uh, donkey.
The poem sure warms me up considering all the cold places it’s talking about!
I used to play Lumosity eons ago. Had forgotten all about it, but after reading your post, I think I’m going to look it up again.
Visiting from #36
Great idea. I hope you enjoy it!