The Marshmallow Test

marshmallowHere’s a yummy marshmallow. You know you want it. Of course you want it. But if you can resist its charms for 20 minutes, I will give you double marshmallow. Or something even more delicious that you actually like. Can you wait?

This was the Marshmallow Test, an experiment administered to 4 year old children by Walter Mischel. Many gave in almost immediately, the lure of the mallow was too strong. But some prevailed. They did things like not looking at the mallow, or giving themselves quiet peptalks, or distracting themselves from thoughts of the mallow by singing or making funny faces. And they got through. They followed the tested children’s progress for 40 years, and it seemed that children who were more successful at the Marshmallow Test were more sucessful in later life.

Whatever the validity of the research, the Marshmallow Test highlights the inner struggle we all have to face between the interests of our present selves and the happiness of our future self. Now-Me wants a triple gin and tonic, but Future-Me tomorrow is going to wish Now-Me hadn’t had it. How can the faint calls of Future-Me from tomorrow win against Now-Me’s intense desire for gin? The same goes with late night cheese eating, pensions, and procrastination. How can Future-Me reach into the past, grab Now-Me by the shoulders, and convince Now-Me that going to bed before 1.30am will make everyone happier all round? (And put down that Gruyère, Now-Me!)

Either Future-Me needs a top-notch time machine, or Now-Me needs a more conscientious imagination to make poor Future-Me more tangible.

But we’ll leave Now-Me and Future-Me locked in their eternal struggle and turn instead to The Global Marshmallow Test.

To Be Continued: coming next: The Global Marshmallow Test – watch out for it, Future-You!

Colossal Head

It’s rainy. It’s the school holidays. This week we’ve been sketching a bit in the good ol’ museums of Oxford, and then eating cake.

Giant salamander & aardvark in NHM:

SalamanderSAardvarkSThe great god Sobek in the Asmolean:

Sobek…and a colossal marble head of Apollo.   Colossal headSThe cake in all museums has been very fine.

March of the Giant Insects

Sketching Weakly has been back at the Oxford Natural History Museum, & being a sucker for a nicely turned antenna couldn’t resist this mantis or this earwig:

mantisHere’s a jaunty mosquito. Drawing the larva caused problems.

mosquitoAnd here’s a skeletal reindeer.

reindeerPS: Will the CHEETAH come back some day? I hope it does.

OX NHM 04 LOST16 alive once

 

The Wild Verges Award

You’re perambulating along, by foot or bike or car (or whatever your preference), and you see a particularly lovely patch of roadside wilderness that has been allowed to grow untrimmed, and now it’s waving gently in the breeze. You may want to say “Well done!” And now you can, with the Sketching Weakly Wild Verges Award. Simply cut out & nominate the stretch of road where your lovely verge was, and send to your local county council strimming department.

Cut out & keepPersonally I’d nominate the top of the A4144 where it meets the A423 in Oxford.

And this bit of Regent’s Park for nice Cow Parsley:

Regents park

Eggs of the World in Danger

Transport your egg to Paris by making this unfeasibly fiddly egg cup.

Egg in DangerStrangely enough, the egg on top seems to be actually sweating.

WARNING: the FIDDLINESS LEVEL involved in making this is rated EXTREME.

Egg in DangerHere’s a pdf to print out:

Egg in Danger

stunt eggHere’s a Stunt Egg ready for testing unfeasible egg cups.

Turd Alert

Our street tends to be often perilously bedeckled with dog poo. Usually right outside our own doorstep, where there is a lamp post. To help stop occasions of dismay at inadvertently stepping in an offering, Sketching Weakly brings you the Cut-Out & Keep Turd Alert Flags.Turd Aler Flags smallAll you need to make them is: scissors, Pritt stick, cocktail sticks, a small amount of cardboard box, and a print out of this pdf (see link below):

Turd alert

Now you can draw attention to a hazardous dropping, and also try & match the poo with its possible creator.

Make sure you don’t step in the same turd twice.

Sketching Weakly at the Zoo

Sketching Weakly has been at the zoo, often looking at invertibrates, amphibians and reptiles…. insectsS   The cockroaches were looking particularly delicious.

lungfishSSketching Weakly had never seen a snake-necked turtle before – nearest thing ever to a plesiosaur…

caeciliansSAnd another new animal was the mysterious Caecilian.

Tree on the way there:

treeSAnd people on the way back…

peoplesS

The Metaphorical Monster Generator

The Verbal Engineers at Sketching Weakly have been building a Metaphorical Monster Generator. (With added Existential Angst.)

metaphorical monster makerHere are some that Sketching Weakly made earlier:

some we made earlier…and then it was time to go for a bracing walk on Wittenham Clumps and leave the monsters to amuse themselves.

 

Paul and Lewis and the Afterlife

NOT DROWNING BUT WAVING – THE GOLDFISH DISASTER CONTINUES….

Their earthly fishy bodies are dead – but what is next for Lewis and Paul?

Paul & Lewis and the AfterlifeUPDATE: A week after the Toxic Pond Calamity – Stewart is still alive and well, along with the frogs. And the pond water has been declared safe for aquatic life forms.