High Altitude Brain Damage

So, the three of us going to Denali are participating in a study regarding the effects of high altitude on the brain. They don't really consider Denali to be "high altitude", and I try not to take offense at that, while they sit in their posh offices, quizzing us.

Anyway, so it starts out with a bunch of personal questions: name, location, age, details of the up-coming trip, etc. To what end? For their records? Or just to get us to relax? I don't know. Then it gets bad: "what's today's date?" I DON'T KNOW. I never know. It's just not one of those things I check on regularly. But I managed to figure it out because I'm expecting a shipment to arrive on the 16th, and I knew that was the day after tomorrow. Pfeww. Saved. And the day of the week? I took a guess and got it right. Saved again. And the time? Well, she was supposed to call at 7pm, so that wasn't too difficult. I missed it by four minutes. Not terrible.

Okay, so, then the memorization stuff starts. Short numbers. Then long numbers. Then backwards numbers. Uggh. Then detail-ridden stories that need to be re-told. Then stating relationships between things. Then finishing sentences with the first, most suitable ending. Then listing words that start with a specific letter (I figured out the trick to that, but not till the end). Then finishing sentences with an entirely unrelated word (that was easy). And then the surprise: re-tell those stories from half an hour ago.

Seriously fun. And hard. Nearly forty-five minutes. We get to take the same test a week after we return and then a month or two later.

I guess I can't really study for it. I should work on memorization. I should have recorded the phone call.