In one ear... I'm sorry what?

Why is it somethings are so easy to remember, whilst others dance infront of our brains tantalisingly close yet oh so far away?  I am desperately trying in my week of enforced idleness to revise for my looming exams and yet I fear the information is literally going in one ear and out the other.  And yet I could tell you the intimate details of each episode of Strictly - It takes two that aired this week. 

I am of course very interested in the degree that I am trying to achieve otherwise it seems like a ridiculous waste of time, money and brain cells.  It's just that now, in these final stages, it is actual really rather hard and I am not sure that I have the requisite brain power to a) get through it and 2) pass with some success.  Still I shall persevere, no point in giving up when you have got this far eh.

But it has got me thinking - why do some things stick in your mind and you have absolutely no recollection of others.  Why do some people remember you vividly yet you cannot place them?  What makes a memory stick in your mind?  I expect there is probably a very in depth psychological answer that took experts years to make up but I reckon it has to do with 'markers'.  A smell, a touch, a sound, the lyrics of a song - these things all mark a point in time to make it stand out in your mind.  And the best marker of all?  Surely that has to be a strong emotion, why else would certain things make us feel happy or sad or angry.

So to all those events, people and places I have forgotten, I apologise.  You simply did not imprint on me strongly enough - try harder next time!!