on cortisol

i keep forgetting to mention an odd phenomenon:
for the third leg of the course i was in a platoon of 64 cadets. that's a fair number of people, and i couldn't for the life of me remember anyone's names. it was so bad, in fact, that during the second week i sat next to a guy on the bus and introduced myself: it turned out to be the person that was in the bunk next to me.

for the snowboarding trip, we had slightly upwards of 65 all told, and from my previous experience i was confident that i wouldn't manage even a fraction of the names. instead, i remembered pretty much everyone that i was introduced to, even a week later when we hadn't spoken the entire time. i still remember all their names.

so what was going on during the course?

and when i'm happy, my memory is absurdly acute. i just don't trust it because i'm usually stressed :/

i finished watching the squid and the whale, it's a pretty cool movie but not as sweet as igby goes down or tadpole.

kiva: micro loans for developing countries seems like a really good idea. either you'll get you money back, or you've made a donation.

the raccoons is canadian?