efficient etiquette

Before I talk about the news links I bookmarked from this morning, let me first mention what happened to me earlier, so I can come back to it later in another post. nothing serious, just a little curious, enough to warrant a follow-up:

Running a little bit late for a meeting with a faculty member on campus, I checked my email before I went out the door to reschedule for a half an hour after our agreed upon appointment time. I like to be polite when I'm late, and contacting the person you're meeting with lets them know you respect their time, your time, and your word. Nobody likes feeling forgotten about, it's offputting! Besides, being polite goes a long way! According to Business Day Online, recent graduates seem to lack the "soft skills" -- conversation and etiquette, to name a couple -- employers are looking for, which adds more anxious days onto an already long job hunt for former students. And they said nice guys finish last. Probably because he can afford dessert?

Rereading the faculty member's message before composing my excuse, it occurred to me that I had overlooked the "before" in her meeting time of "noon on Wednesday". It was well after eleven already, so I nixed the face to face and suggested an email Q-and-A instead. I live a half hour away from campus, and don't have a meeting up there until after 2pm, so my informal email etiquette saved me nearly three extra hours of waiting alone on campus. Here's my question, though: was that just luck that I thought to double-check her email, or did I read it right the first time, and forget it?

Can these "I know I'm forgetting something" convictions we experience be explained as a tiny detail we once observed and then uncontrollably stored in long term memory bank forever for later? Is that the subconscious, or just deep memory waiting for a cue? That would make environmental cues work like access codes: say I forget my keys, and head out to leave, but am wandering around my kitchen, wondering why i haven't left yet, what have i forgotten, becoming frustrated and mindless, taking action and getting into the car, only to remember at once THE KEYS THAT'S WHAT I FORGOT.

It's always the small simple details, the subtle bits that gets skipped by the conscious mind, but it's essential info, regardless of size and scale. Thoughts like "get your keys" and "it said noon? check again" may be the subconscious mind's attempt to push those tiny pixel-sized bits forward, like a leak in a roof. Or is the conscious mind like a deep sea fisherman, angling listlessly in idle anticipation for a bite worth reeling in? Certainly the back mind is more oceanic abyss-like than it is personified any other way. Anarchy, I guess, but attributing concepts to ideologies doesn't help make the topic less abstract, does it? What the hell am I even talking about right now? Fishing? Freaking leaking roofs and deep sea MY KEYS!

Does the front brain remember that it read something, and needs to double check? There seems to be a great deal of inaccessibility to our deeper understanding, our massive hard drives we can't get clearance for. Freaking vending machine, that's what it's like! Like that bag of chips that hangs there, and you can't knock the machine or anything, it's right there, and you can't get it, or even reach for it. That's the other side of it, isn't it, though? Not just inaccessibility, as if your memories are a secret, even to you, but deliberate misdirection. Intellectual interference, almost, like cerebral static or something, it's audible, and annoying, and completely off-topic and content-free. The catching of other thoughts, like tire, boot, plastic, so on, are like bits of pop song or used car slogan that we think of INSTEAD of where I set my damn keys down at.

Is this "what am I forgetting" my mind's deliberate attempt to recall what I can't remember reading in the first place? I read it, my eyes caught it, my brain HAD to catch it. But it feels like "luck". What is the neuroscience or biopsychology behind this phenomenon I'm talking about? It's happened to you many a time, right? Like in Turner and Hooch, that Tom Hanks movie where he tells the chick "I gotta crack this CASE!" and she's all "don't think about it, it'll come to you smooch smooch have some eggs", and he stops thinking about it then WHAM! "No eggs, sorry! Gotta go! MAN!" What is it about thinking about something for too long that pushes the thought back, our attempts at access working against us as targeted repression? I intentionally empty my mind when I forget something, and I'm convinced it comes back on its own BECAUSE I ignored it on purpose. Had I tried thinking about it, I'd have pushed it farther back in there, and never would have gotten it out. Unless I get a more direct environmental cue, like finding my keys out of nowhere.

Mind control interests me. No, wait. Let me rephrase that. Brain organization is worth reading about. Better. I really would like to know more about this. Didn't mean to go on forever about it or anything, I'll come back to it with the science one of these days. Okay, link post. After the meeting.