This morning I turned up on time, somewhere.
The car park was empty and there were no people to be seen.
I had come out on a study day – (a non-uniform, proper breaks day, a learn and develop, restful day) – with my home work carefully done and a folder to put it in BUT without my work phone, my work bag or the print out of the email telling me where I should be.
Very luckily Cyclomaniac was at home and given adequate directions and with the help of me ringing my work phone from my own mobile he found the said work phone and gave me the numbers I needed and thus allowed me to discover where I should be.
In the end I was less than half an hour late. A work colleague who had been concerned about my whereabouts greeted me.
“Didn’t you hear me discussing with Jo yesterday where I had to be for today?”
“No….”
“I’m sure you were in the office.”
“Maybe I was concentrating on something else – then I wouldn’t have heard you.” She looked surprised. “That’s my reticular formation working effectively,” I said.
My reticular formation has got me into trouble before now. I have been accused of ignoring people: but if I am engrossed in a task and concentrating I simply don’t know they are there.
Today’s study day on leg ulcer care was interesting and informative, but the room was cold and the seats were hard. I couldn’t filter that out with my reticular formation.
Time to fill out that feedback form.
Reticular – resembling or forming a network; “the reticulate veins of a leaf”; “a reticulated highway system”- or in this case the reticulated pattern of a giraffe hide.
The reticular formation is a part of the brain that is involved in actions such as awaking/sleeping cycle, and filtering incoming stimuli to discriminate irrelevant background stimuli.
Boadicea's Chariot 
It’s very pretty on a giraffe!
I’d love to a bit reticular but at my work, people expect me to be aware of the conversation if I’m in the same room, no matter what I’m working on at the time – and preferably to be aware of what’s going on in the adjacent room too. Lots and lots of interruptions but it means I hear all the goss! 🙂
Or in Strine – “our reticulation system” = ‘our buried arrangement of plastic pipes used for water sprinkling the yard’ , now sadly illegal in most States and territories. 🙂
Thank you Pseu!
I’m always being told that I’m deaf – No! I’m Not! At last I know there’s a ‘posh’ name for ‘ignoring’ distractions 🙂
That’s a hard task, Jan!
Pleased to be of service, Boa.
Those automatic sprinklers were always a liability in Mildura when they would come on at some unpredictable times… more than once catching Cyclo as he took a short cut back after a call out!
As a matter of interest, why are they illegal? Is it something to do with buried plastic damaging the environment or is it to do with water rationing; or something else? They are quite common here.
Water rationing.
Fascinating, Pseu. Now I know that the ability, as a young soldier, to monitor two radio nets in one ear, one in the other, load the main and secondary armaments and make coffee and spam banjos all at the same time was all down to giraffes. 🙂
What an earth’s a spam banjo, Bravo? For meaty pluckers? 🙂
‘banjo’ = sandwich 🙂
(D’errr, Jan, fancy you not knowing that….! – hahaha!)
I’m your regular multi-tasking woman, bravo, but if I’m totally engrossed in something, that’s another matter.
D’errr indeed Janh1.
I first learned of the existence of the egg banjo on ARRSE where there are lots of threads on the subject. I will not, however, provide a link lest it bring the crimson flush of embarassment to the cheeks of a lady such as yourself. Some of those threads can be a bit saucy and I’m not talking Heinz Tomato Sauce or HP.
Here’s a nice sanitised explanation of why they’re called banjoes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A776054
Nice blog Pseu.
I’m accused of being easily distracted and of my eyes frequently glazing over when engaged in a conversation.
I used this new word, ‘reticulating’ last night when MrsOMG banged on the bog door and asked me how long I would be, ‘I’m reticulating’ I replied, ‘Oh, is that whatt they call it these days,’ she said sniffily.
Intriguing omg, it’s not a term I’ve used for that particular bodily function….