Brain Age

Yes, I'll admit it. I'm 38 years old and own a Gameboy. I am pretty addicted to the Mario series of games and have completed Super Mario Advance, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario Advance (I think number 4?) Yes, I'm a nerd. I was on my second run through of Yoshi's Island and attempting to get perfect scores on each level when suddenly the light burned out on my Gameboy. Oh, it's still playable, but it's so dark now that I can only play it when I'm in the bathroom where we have very bright lights. Once in a while, I'll be in the bathroom for a VERY long time and Dan will come into the room asking me "Are you alright??? Did you fall into the toilet or something???" I then have to confess what I'm doing. "I'm fine honey...I'm playing Yoshi's Island".

I finally couldn't stand it anymore when my feet went numb from sitting on the toilet trying to get a perfect score on Level 4 Secret Level 5. Besides, I'm going to be on Jury Duty Thursday and if they will let me bring it in the waiting area, it will make the day go by MUCH faster if I have something to occupy my time. I broke down and bought a new Nintendo DS Lite. It was a special package where it was the Crimson color (gee...apparently it's trendy to have certain colors?) and it came with a game called "Brain Age II". It is a really fun game that you can test yourself everyday to improve your "brain age". Plus there is a funny little Japanese man that talks to you. What more can you ask for, huh? Apparently, if you don't keep your brain active, your brain ages- not a good thing. Before you get to that though, you have to do a math test to figure out the age of your brain. I have to confess, I'm not very good with math unless I have an opportunity to scribble things out on a piece of paper and write everything out. I know...excuses, excuses :). Anyway, the test is where you have to subtract a certain number from a larger number. Once you figure that out, it scratches the number out and you have to remember what the last number was and you subtract the number again from that number you had to memorize. This goes on and on until you can't subtract the number anymore. After that, it calculates your brain age.

Dan and I each did this test. The ideal brain age is 20 years old. What were the results? Dan's brain is 29 years old and I apparently have the brain of a 59 year old. Yikes... Looks like I'm going to be doing the little brain exercises everyday to at least get close to my chronological age! lol