Thursday, June 25, 2009

EEG Is Not Just For Ethan's Extraordinary Genius

Hey all! This is my first official post as a new blogger. This new blog has been a long-time coming. I would like to thank Stephen Jenkins for finally committing me to create this blog. I would like to start this blog with a near death experience. Well, okay, maybe it only felt like one. After reading about various brain studies in my Malcolm Gladwell books, I felt a moral responsibility to donate my unusually large head to help the scientific community. So when my roommate Greg showed me a number for a study here at BYU I quickly signed up. Ya know, just me doing my part for mankind. After a series of interviews, tests, and questioniers, the scientists finally hooked me up to the EEG machine. Imagine a lunch lady hair net embedded with little sensors to capture brain wave activity. The scientists had to continually put baby shampoo on the sensors because of my thick hair and very subtle waves. I thought that I would just read Tolstoy or something while they measured and interpreted my flowing ideas. However, instead of stimulating activities, the scientists concocted the most mundane computer test ever invented. The two tests were 25 minutes each. All I was supposed to do was press "A" for red and "B" for green. I did not know how long the tests were, so the 25 minutes seemed unbearable. It was about this time that I thought the whole "eeg thing" was just a cover-up, and the scientists were really studying the effects of testing a tired college student in a soft chaired, dark room. I kept nodding off and had to do everything in my power to stay awake. When the test kept going, I literally screamed in agony, not caring that I was being tapped. For those of you who have seen IQ there is a scene of a man screaming in a padded room because he was being withheld the time. I was practically to that breaking point. After it was all finished, I couldn't wait to get into sunlight. I should have known better to try and take on the same people that brought us Oregan Trail and Chip's Challenge. Science 1, Ethan 0.