Right Brain/Left Brain

It has been a long day, and, as usual, there have been some interesting coincidences.

Today apparently has a theme.

It started when I received a comment on one of my other blogs, asking if I was familiar with Jill Bolte Taylor, and her TED talk video about her experience of having a stroke.  I had heard of her before, but hadn't seen the video, so I watched it.

I found her to be very interesting.
I had heard some people talk about having had strokes, and I've seen quite a few patients in the midst of having a stroke, but hadn't really thought much about what the experience would feel like from the inside.

The video is about a stroke that affected the left side of her brain, causing her to lose that brain function, and live, temporarily, entirely functioning through her right brain. How fascinating!

This got me thinking about trying to find more balance between my own right and left brain. I tend to be very left-brained.  Not in everything I do, but definitely much of the time.  Maybe I'll learn to play guitar. Or start painting. Or both.

Having found the video interesting, I showed it to one kid, and sent a link to it to several other people. As I was getting ready to run out the door this afternoon, one of my kids stopped me to say he had something to show me, that he thought I'd find interesting. What was it?  He handed me a copy of Ms Taylor's book: My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, that he just happened to have.

I had a very busy day today, in and out several times. New students to meet and a new class to start, taxes to pay, a trip to DMV, then off to a lesson I was taking rather than teaching, and then a training on Trauma Resuscitation and a conversation there with the person who may be teaching a class I'm hoping to start tomorrow. In and around all this were several conversations with different people about the whole idea of having a right and left brain, how they work, and how that is important.

I finally got home, to find this posted on facebook:

So it has been that sort of a day. Definitely a theme.

I'm not sure what that means.

I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to spend a lot of time thinking about it.