Mensa Candidate--Not!

Regular readers of my blog will need to give me a self indulgence pass for the next couple of days. I'm currently in a Woody Allen navel gazing phase because of a benchmark birthday coming up this week. Unfortunately, I'm not having any trouble seeing same navel, if you get my drift. . .However, let's save that concern for later in the week.

Recently the Courier Journal ran a story about the International Mensa Society, including information on where and when to take the test in this area to see if you'd qualify to be a part of this group of intellectual smartypants. It seems that the main focus of this highly intelligent--notice that I didn't say highly functioning--group is to meet and share a lot of thin air ideas and discussions that we ordinary folk wouldn't get.

Now I'm not interested in getting into the Mensa Society, being a realist and great protector of my positive self image. I am, however, interested in what these advancing years are doing to my brain function. After all, keeping your "tack" sharp is key to enjoying mid-life and beyond. More importantly, most of my friends are also getting to the age where they too need a keeper--so, we need to look out for each other!

Needing to know where I currently stand in the intelligence department, I hopped on the Internet and found this site for free IQ tests (interested? http://www.funeducation.com/ ) and found a "premium" psychometric exam that measures cognitive performance in key areas such as word analysis and spatial reasoning. You know the kinds of questions: "If some Toogs are Bekes and some Bekes are Broons, then some Toogs are definitely Broons. True or False?" My initial response to all 46 of the similarly worded exam questions was: who gives a big rat's hiney? But, I persevered to the end of the test.

According to Dr. McConochie's test, I fell just a scooch above average IQ on the bell-curve for takers of his test. This was a blow. After all, I try to learn something new about the world every day. Apparently the bios of Amazing Race contenders are not exactly helping me keep my grey cells! Never fear, I'll just dig deeper into my latest daily self education text: The Intellectual Devotional--Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class by David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim. So far I've learned about the alphabet, cloning, and the Torah. These daily intellectual devotionals in areas of knowledge from science to religion should help blow back the fog of old age.

Tomorrow's navel gazing installment: Emotional Intelligence