If you've always felt different... you're no longer alone.

If you think quickly, feel intensely, and wonder deeply, it's more than likely you are gifted. Giftedness is not just about being smart; it is a different way of experiencing the world. Sadly, this difference puts gifted individuals at risk of isolation.

[giftedkids]

Summer Programs for the Gifted

Summer Programs for the Gifted

AADGT Musician’s Program

Advance Program

Advent Summer Programs

Alaska Summer Research Program

Amario’s Art Academy for the Gifted and Talented

Ardent Academy for Gifted Youth

Art of Problem Solving

Brown University Summer Program

Camp Innovation at Northern Kentucky University

Camp Summit for the Gifted, Talented, and Creative

Carolina Master Scholars Adventure Series

Center for Talent…

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[pringlesaremydivision]

so you’ve seen gifs of simone giertz’s shitty robots, right? of course you have.

she’s amazing. she’s hilarious. she’s a woman in STEM, kicking ass.

she just found out she has a brain tumor.

the doctors are pretty sure it’s benign, but it’s big, and she’s gonna have to have pretty major surgery which is gonna keep her from making videos for a while.

while she’s recovering, her patreon is pretty much gonna be her only source of income, so if you enjoy the gifs of her videos, or just want to support a pretty awesome chick who needs some help, you might want to kick a few dollars over that way.

(i’m not associated with simone in any way, i don’t know her - other than the fact that she favorited one of my tweets once! - but i absolutely adore her personality and her work and i haven’t seen any posts about this, so i figured i’d put something up.)

simone’s youtube - instagram - twitter - patreon

[classical-crap]

while we’re on the topic of practicing I want to make sure that everyone knows not to practice much more than four hours a day. you won’t practice as efficiently, you could end up unnecessarily hurting yourself, and it’s important to still have a life outside of your instrument

[sans-sorrow]

Agreed. Besides your brain can only learn so much before saturating.

[dantecain]

When I complain about being a ‘gifted’ kid who grew into a talentless adult I don’t mean that I’m not trying to work on my talents or anything

I mean that the ‘gifts’ I had are useless

Reading books above my age isn’t a talent when I’m not eleven

Knowing big words isn’t a talent when I’m not a kid, it’s just growing up

It’s just a weird thing that happens and it feels shitty when you’re brought up being told you’re an exceptional child only to realise as an adult you’re just average

[coolfayebunny]

This

[riotbrrrd]

I did a lot of reading about gifted kids and especially gifted adults when I got my “diagnosis” because I was told I was gifted at 23 and well, it serves no purpose to have a confirmation that you’re gifted at 23

Thing is, gifted children are not amazingly better than everyone else. Gifted brains just don’t work the same so they build their skills in a different order

Basically when you’re very young, most people brain learn social skills and how to interact with their peers, but gifted brains are already at the next step which is how to understand and interact with the world

That makes the stereotypical young children that are very good at math, always asking questions about how things work, very upset when they don’t know a thing

But the thing is, when everyone gets older, they’ve mastered most social skills and now turn towards understanding the world

But the gifted children have already mastered that part and are turning towards how to build social skills. Except there’s no one left to teach us about that! Because we’re late to that party

Long story short, at the end everyone, gifted or not, goes through all the necessary steps to make functioning adults, so the difference that was obvious as a child has disappeared

But us gifted people often end up with social anxiety and impostor syndrome because we are actually less equipped than others to face a world that taught everyone to be confident and talk to people while we were busy reading books above our age

[poppetawoppet]

……………that last paragraph.

damn.

[deeplifequotes]

“My therapist taught me to interrupt my anxious thinking with thoughts like: “What if things work out” and “What if all my hard work pays off?” So, I’m passing that onto you wherever you are, whatever you’re leaving, or whomever you’re becoming.”

— Sinclair P. Ceasar III

[yourborderlinepersonality]

[neurosciencestuff]

Spacing out after staying up late? Here’s why

Ever sleep poorly and then walk out of the house without your keys? Or space out while driving to work and nearly hit a stalled car?

A new study led by UCLA’s Dr. Itzhak Fried is the first to reveal how sleep deprivation disrupts brain cells’ ability to communicate with each other. Fried and his colleagues believe that disruption leads to temporary mental lapses that affect memory and visual perception. Their findings are published online by Nature Medicine.

“We discovered that starving the body of sleep also robs neurons of the ability to function properly,” said Fried, the study’s senior author, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Tel Aviv University. “This leads to cognitive lapses in how we perceive and react to the world around us.”

The international team of scientists studied 12 people who were preparing to undergo surgery at UCLA for epilepsy. The patients had electrodes implanted in their brains in order to pinpoint the origin of their seizures prior to surgery. Because lack of sleep can provoke seizures, patients stay awake all night to speed the onset of an epileptic episode and shorten their hospital stay.

Researchers asked each study participant to categorize a variety of images as quickly as possible. The electrodes recorded the firing of a total of nearly 1,500 brain cells (from all of the participants combined) as the patients responded, and the scientists paid particular attention to neurons in the temporal lobe, which regulates visual perception and memory.

Performing the task grew more challenging as the patients grew sleepier. As the patients slowed down, their brain cells did, too.

“We were fascinated to observe how sleep deprivation dampened brain cell activity,” said lead author Yuval Nir of Tel Aviv University. “Unlike the usual rapid reaction, the neurons responded slowly and fired more weakly, and their transmissions dragged on longer than usual.”

Lack of sleep interfered with the neurons’ ability to encode information and translate visual input into conscious thought.

The same phenomenon can occur when a sleep-deprived driver notices a pedestrian stepping in front of his car.

“The very act of seeing the pedestrian slows down in the driver’s overtired brain,” Fried said. “It takes longer for his brain to register what he’s perceiving.”

The researchers also discovered that slower brain waves accompanied sluggish cellular activity in the temporal lobe and other parts of the brain.

“Slow, sleep-like waves disrupted the patients’ brain activity and performance of tasks,” Fried said. “This phenomenon suggests that select regions of the patients’ brains were dozing, causing mental lapses, while the rest of the brain was awake and running as usual.”

The study’s findings raise questions about how society views sleep deprivation.

“Severe fatigue exerts a similar influence on the brain to drinking too much,” Fried said. “Yet no legal or medical standards exist for identifying overtired drivers on the road the same way we target drunk drivers.”

In future research, Fried and his colleagues plan to more deeply explore the benefits of sleep, and to unravel the mechanism responsible for the cellular glitches that precede mental lapses.

Previous studies have tied sleep deprivation to a heightened risk of depression, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and stroke. Research has also shown that medical school residents who work long shifts without sleep are more prone to make errors in patient care.

[eearth-deactivated20180601]

Be kind and soft and powerful. Be the version of yourself you dreamed of being as a kid. Be the kind of person this world needs. Be confidently lost. Be astonishingly yourself. Walk the tightrope and know that you may fall, but the sky will not. Speak nectar when you can, and fire when you must. Be sad when you need to be. Feel. Flourish again, each and every spring. Be the rose amongst the thorns. Be the thorns protecting the rose. Be true. Be exactly who you are in this moment. Trust yourself. Bring magic into this world. 

[archatlas]

The Spectacular Wonders of Europe’s Libraries 

Veteran photographer Robert Dawson earned his bona fides in the 1980s and ’90s shooting spectacular images of the American West, often intended to highlight environmental threats such as drought and overdevelopment. Around the turn of the millennium, though, Dawson refocused on a seemingly unrelated subject: libraries. After exhaustively documenting American libraries, Dawson decided to expand the project worldwide, starting with Europe. He’s spent the past few years criss-crossing the continent from Paris to Moscow, shooting a staggering array of libraries from the ancient to the contemporary, the mundane to the spectacular. 

[unbfacts]

We have three types of tears—basal, reflex and psychic. Psychic tears, the ones we produce when we are sad, have a different chemical make-up than the other two and contain a natural painkiller, leucine enkephalin, which is perhaps why we feel better after we cry.

[unbfacts]

Conrad Heyer is the earliest born person to be photographed. He was born in 1749 and sat for a photo in 1852 at age 103. He is the only known photographed revolutionary war soldier to have crossed the Delaware with George Washington.

[unbfacts]

Personality has a larger effect on success than IQ.

[pridefulsuggestion]

count the days until victory.

[legendary-suggestions]

make your victory instant; seek your goal and achieve it with pride.

[selfcarevibes]

I have problems but problems don’t have me.

Carrie Fisher, in her book “Wishful Drinking”

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

“We can’t hate ourselves into a version of ourselves we can love.”

— Lori Deschene

[unbfacts]

In complete darkness, we see a specific color called “Eigengrau” that’s a form of dark gray.

[bimboficationblues]

The real IQ test is one question, yes-or-no, and it’s “do you think IQ is a good measure of intelligence?” and if you answer affirmative you get categorized as a dipshit