On the topic of useless meetings, I should note that one of my coping strategies is to always have a pencil and paper at the ready, and have some trick to keep my mind active. Sorta like knitting, except without yarn or knitting needles. ;-)
When I was taking Japanese classes a few months back, I'd write out the kana a couple of times. Yesterday, I tried to do that and realized how out of practice I was.
Time for Plan B. What's the layout of a QWERTY keyboard?
Funny thing is, I've been touch-typing with QWERTY for over 20 years to the point where it's fused into my hindbrain. I remember all of the charts in typing class, and the home keys (a s d f j k l ;) are one a universal constant in my world, like water freezing at 32F, or George Washington being the first President of the US.
Eventually, I did fill out the entire QWERTY layout, but I couldn't do it all from memory, nor could I figure it out from muscle memory. Instead, I had to puzzle it out -- starting with the home rows, and the obvious QWERTY keys. I had to fill out the rest by going through the alphabet and filling in the missing pieces.
Weird.
