THE BRAIN CAN CHANGE ITSELF. It is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain’s basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging. The brain is not, as was thought, like a machine, or “hardwired” like a computer. Neuroplasticity not only gives hope to those with mental limitations, or what was thought to be incurable brain damage, but expands our understanding of the healthy brain and the resilience of human nature……

Doidge takes us into terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy. Scientists have developed machines that can follow these physical changes in order to read people’s thoughts, allowing the paralyzed to control computers and electronics just by thinking. We learn how people of average intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and perception in order to become savant calculators, develop muscle strength, or learn to play a musical instrument, simply by imagining doing so.

ON MY MUST READ LIST! 

Isn’t life a hundred times to short for boredom?

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Black Forrest

Visit Melbourne

On holiday until Saturday in my favourite city in the world, next to Paris. I think Melbourne is Australia’s Paris. 

I adore Alexandre Dumas, and I adore his ‘The Black Tulip.’

It is a work of beautiful imagery and imagination hidden in a deceptively simple storyline - the race to create the Black Tulip in Holland in 1672, set amongst political turmoil and true historical events. 

I discovered Dumas of course, as a child reading ‘The Three Musketeers’ but fell in love with him with ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ and began realising his true greatness with ‘The Black Tulip’ when I was 17.

I have this books in iBooks and read it on my iPhone when I am bored, of course I have an original, but I just love to have it with me at all times.

My sister and I used to play hookey from School by pretending to our gullible but lovable and protective Mother that we were feeling ill. A few hours later we had made a recovery and were playing ice skating on the living room floor by laying out a large sheet on the ground and sliding on it in a pair of socks. 

She was in Kindergarten and I was in Reception, or prep.

We still have the same relationship.

I have always been impossibly intrigued by the psychology behind tears, and why we cry. 

It is always a huge relief to cry, I always feel lighter and brighter when I have finished howling. It turns out that there is a hormone that is produced in our tears, our emotional tears, that reduces stress. Crying really does relieve some of your pain, it is true that whilst you may feel drained after crying, you also feel a tiny bit better.

• Global Warming to not exist
• The world to work in the right way for the right people

• Feeling like myself
• My childhood imagination
• Learning and Studying

(I did not write people or cities here, because I feel as if I post about that all the time, and think about it all the time, and it is pretty obvious that I miss my Boyfriend.)

Lead a Double Life

Isobel Lucas + Victoria + Nature + Paris Wells = an amazing add campaign, and one Aussie who wants to go to Daylesford.

“I was a very smart kid, I was a great salesman and I was driven to make money,” he says now. “Those were God-given assets. But I had some God-given detriments, mainly that I was emotionally immature, insecure and I had a predisposition to instant gratification.”

- Jorden Belfort

To be purchased in the morning. So excited about this book!