Multitasking, H1N1, and Curry

A friend in real declares that SHE was told that English youth multitask on TEN different tasks at any one time at the coinciding peak of their on-line and normal day. As I look at this screen, I am up to 8 separate tasks. SL world is on, Forums, Email Address 1, BBC radio 4 is on - listening to yesterday's Woman's Hour, television CNN news and on other TV is a Food program - both are on mute with the words scrolling, I am making my curry supper, I am scanning a Roots catalogue and a fountain pen catalogue, and opening my mail. It doesnt seem very much.

Is sl part of YOUR multlitasking day? Or your only focus?

I have tried desperately not to catch this H1N1 (catchy name) but it seems like its caught me. This is my second day of doing the kinda work I do and having a desire to lie down and just rest. It sounds like the "Dreaded Lurgy" as old comedians would put it.

I'll make myself a nice Madras curry tonight, and see if it will take my sinuses and wring them out and put them back in. Two advils also. I have 14 cds to listen to.

Are you suffering from H1N1 or have you had the flu shot? What do you cook to make yourself well?

Tons of garlic... Raw garlic... sprouted raw garlic... roasted garlic... Garlic chicken soup. Tons of vitamins... take vitamin C, goldenseal and colloidal silver... I almost never get sick (knock on wood)... Think to yourself, "I feel fabulous" (repeat as necessary).



And I hate multi-tasking, although I do it sometimes, especially when I am trying to avoid focusing on something unpleasant... like math

Why focus on Maths? Unless you are in University or school. Buy a calculator. Use your computer. Hire an accountant. Hire Pep. Hire a PA

I think Pep better watch out, Smith has been putting the moves on his girl, Jig.

I do that as a matter of course. True. Also "I am fabulous", "I am beautiful", "I am good", "I am teh best I can be - and that's brill!"

Never have any doubts 'bout that kinda thing. If I had a kid, I would stand that kid in front of a mirror everyday and say - "Look! Look at that brilliant fabulous person - that's YOU!!!!"

I have either heard a science podcast or read it somewhere (so must be true!) that we don't really multitask. We switch our focus rapidly between several things at once. Our brains can't really multitask the way computers can. I cannot even read and listen to music at the same time -- unless it's really dull music.

As for H1N1, I don't know. I hope you don't have it. I have had a flu for real maybe only twice. The first time (I think it was in the mid 60's when a strain about as bad as H1N1 was going around) I missed so much school due to relapses the principal nearly held me back a year as a matter of protocol. I was able to do well on the tests so they let me continue. The second time was in the 90's and my fever was so high I was hallucinating, but that was a less severe strain. The real flu is a bad, bad thing.

The way I tell the difference between a cold and a flu: with a bad cold you sometimes feel like you're going to die. With the flu, you feel like you ARE dying and you wish you'd get on with it.

Chicken soup really does work if there is no nausea, and also lots of fluids. I'm a firm believer in a product we have in the states called Airborne. It won't prevent catching a cold or flu, but may strengthen the immune system to lessen the severity. You surely have a similar product.

My question is, why do we say we catch a virus, like we're hunting it? Doesn't it really catch us?

Maybe YOU are putting some moves on me too?

I look dead sexy tonight. I have spongebob pj's and pink muppet-fur slippers. My hair is pigtailed. I may watch Dr. Zhivago and the daffodil scene again. Then one in the series of Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

Pics or it didn't happen.

My spongebobs are so tatty you really dont want to know. This summer a fiend gave me goldfish to wear. Very cool. It's also cold and sometimes going to sl doesnt appeal. Staying in forum does.

Actually, that's exactly how computers do it as well - just switch rapidly from one process to another so that it seems as if it's doing several things at once.

Personally, I like focusing on just one task at hand, though sometimes I do switch between SL and the forums. Anything more than that, and it's just ADD waiting to happen.

The biggest problem with "multitasking" seems to be that people can't decide when it's appropriate to do it and when it isn't.

- Reading your e-mail with music playing while cooking supper: good multitasking.
- "Studying" history while playing Guitar Hero while talking on the phone to a friend: dumb multitasking (as in that's how you'll look when you get the grade on your test).
- Texting while eating a cheeseburger while driving: deadly stupid multitasking for which you should be pulled over, smacked around, and your keys and phone tossed down a storm drain full of alligators.

Face it - when you do two or more things at once, you do each of them less well than if you were actually giving that thing your undivided attention. This can be o.k. if you're doing something brainless, or don't mind looking like you yourself are.

I prefer not to multitask, I'm lousy at it. I don't even like multiple IM conversations. I prefer to focus on one objective at a time.

As far as that flu goes, big deal. It's flu. People get flu all the time, and yes, sometimes they die. It's just another media/government manufactured panic to take people's minds off real problems. Next they'll be telling us Martians have landed in Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

The only multitasking I did, was make the wild rice at the same time as the chicken korma... and maybe listen to some of the new remastered Beatles at the same time.

My big skill is insane focus on one thing for a good while... if I don't, all the things I'm doing get messed up. It's always been that way...

That's hot.

Aha. So the rumours were TRUE!

As a Gemini, I can NOT help but Multi-task.

I'm just waiting to catch H1N1. Can't wait to see if I live or die from it, considering it causes lung issues & I smoke.

And really, what is curry? Not much of it that I know of in Pittsburgh.

But hey, I'll eat ANYTHING as long as there's NO tomatoes!!!

Trust me I would never focus on math without being practically held at gunpoint. Or wanting to not bork my GPA

Math am bad.

I can count in binary & hexidecimal, but give me algebra & I panic.

If a fiend tried to give me a goldfish, I'd politely decline the offer and slowly back out of the room.

Oh. And I almost forgot...

Jig, there's a fine line between muti-tasking and mania, and I think you may have crossed it.

I am afraid to ask which rumours you refer to

From Desmond's Devil's Dictionary:

Curry is an ancient dish composed of many, many spices, in combination with either meats, noodles, vegetables or any other good staple of the earth. It has been honed for thousands of years into a highly nutritious, yet inexpensive food that is tasty, yet good for you at the same time. If you happen to be eating it at this moment, there is a 99% chance you are in a cheap dive in London.*

*Like chicken tikka, it is rumoured to not originally be a UK dish, but this is unsubstantiated.

I already had H1N1 a few months back in the middle of summer..bleh..hate getting sick in the summer..but there was no way i could multi anything when that hit me..
sept multi sleep..i was so tired that after 3 days i had to sleep sitting down it hurt so much to lay down lol..I had the worse migrains in the world..so bad that if i took a step it felt like explosions inside my head..and weak.i was so weak they renamed it month..

then the shortness of breathing..like your lungs shrunk to baby lungs..at one point i remember doing the goldfish my dad calls it..where you are so short on breath your mouth looks like a goldfish puffing lol

bleh..7 days of that was enough for me..i had enough sleep for 5 flu's..still i'm glad there was no tummy aches with it..i hate those flu's..
sleep flu's are more like a vacation ..this one was just a bit too long of a vacation though lol

Nonsense. How do you think you keep breathing and your heart keeps beating while you drive your car?

Pep (In fact, your brain is like a multi-processor computer, but much more efficient.)

PS Chris; you have the unrequited love thing the wrong way around.

I really should wear my reading specs. The curry was wicked. I also did rice and a quick lentil marsala. Chonked down with two mini-cans of diet coke an followed by some chocs someone gave me from Greenland prolly via Denmark (not bad actually). I am up and multi-tasking again. Now here's where I think sl fits in...

SL is designed is multitasking in mind. You can have it on and do several different things even with the computer - forum, emails (as is now), radio, news sites (I am reading Daily Telegraph), my cell phones (I just put one down), text messaging (I have a pile to read), and TV. I made coffee with computer on the counter and some toast was toasting. I dont have time for kids or dogs.
I think my generation are prolly very different from even slightly older people since my friends all multi-task like crazy. Maybe the watershed has been in the last ten years as I grew to maturity with the sweep of media and the push for communications which simply dont work on a one-step-at-a-time basis. Not being ageist here but I do think younger people have SHORTER attention spans attuned to MORE tasks, whereas old people have LONGER spans attached to LESS tasks.

So Pep can handle only one thing at a time, like making a cup of tea and THEN reading the paper whereas I can pick the tea leaves, cure them, pack them, open the packet, make teh tea AND print the paper all at the same time. That is just an analogy.