Hi humans.

Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/daily-prompt-this-year/

I conveniently found a dime sitting on the upper ledge of my desk, so I grabbed it and looked at the date.

It was 1978.

I was not even alive in 1978, so that makes this response quite easy – I wasn’t doing anything in 1978, because I wasn’t even born.

But that would be a pretty boring end to this blog post, so I also took a picture of the shiny dime.

… And that’s it.

Hi humans.

What role does music play in your life?

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/daily-prompt-music/

Music has a pretty significant role in my life.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been a pretty musical person. As a kid, I got lessons for the piano and cello. When I was around middle school age, I joined the school band and played the clarinet and saxophone. Also starting at around this time, I taught myself how to play the guitar using my dad’s classical guitar.

Although I’m not one of those people who say that music helps them get through life because they can relate to the songs, I still enjoy listening to music (just not on such an emotional level). When I was younger, I tended to be more picky about the type of music I liked, but now I’m pretty much accepting to all kinds of music except rap and hip-hop.

Whenever I’m at a computer with decently good speakers, I tend to always turn on some sort of music. Even if I’m not actively listening to it, I like having the sound of the melody and the bass in the back­ground, as long as I’m not trying to fully focus on something.

Since I’ve started attending classes at university, I’ve had significantly less time to produce music of my own. I considered doing some covers of popular songs and uploading them to YouTube, but I finished a grand total of one video before running out of time and realizing how much work it is to release a single cover.

However, whenever I go back to my hometown house over my university breaks, I still play the guitar to refresh my memory on the chords and notes, and sometimes pursue learning more songs on my electric guitar.

Hi humans.

If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick?

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/daily-prompt-skills/

If I could choose to be a master at any skill in the world (assuming “in the world” indicates that it has to be something that actually exists in the world, so I can’t pick “time control” or something like that) I would definitely choose to be a master at memorization.

Right now, I’m a student studying to earn an undergraduate degree at university, and after finishing my degree, am strongly considering continuing into further education to earn more degrees. One of the biggest problems students have is that they are not able to remember all the information they are given.

If I was able to be a master at memorization, I would be able to memorize all the information I need to know to prepare myself for my future much more quickly than anyone else. Being a master, I would also be able to manipulate what I forget.

Manipulating forgetting is very important – there are people who can already remember everything they experience (called savants), but some of them are driven crazy by their condition because their minds remember everything without question and they’re not able to forget anything.

Being a true master at memory, I would be able to put myself in a good balance, and end up becoming a Google search index providing instant results.

Hi humans.

If you were asked to spend a year living in a different location, where would you choose and why?

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/daily-prompt-study-abroad/

If I were asked to study abroad for a year, I would actually decline the offer because I’m not very interested in going abroad (at least for right now). I’m comfortable where I am now, and I feel as if taking a random year off to go abroad and study would disrupt my plans quite a bit, especially seeing as this is a pretty important transition period in my life.

If I were asked to study abroad and had no choice but to accept (meaning, I couldn’t decline the offer), I would probably go to South Korea. Not only am I South Korean and know the Korean language fluently, so I would be able to live fine, but I also want to experience the South Korean education style.

Most people probably already know how hardcore Asian education is compared to American education, and I’m interested in experiencing it myself. I feel as if surviving it would enhance my overall work ethic and focus, and will help me with other aspects of my life as well.

Hi humans.

Some people eat to live, while others live to eat. What about you? How far would you trav­el for the best meal of your life?

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/daily-post-live-eat/

I’m definitely the type of person who eats to live, rather than living to eat. Although I like snacking and attend almost every event I can where I get free food, the reasons behind my actions tend to be more utilitarian rather than liking food (such as saving time or money).

I tend to take a careless approach to eating – I eat what’s available, and tend not to particularly seek out special foods. If I don’t have easy access to food, I might sometimes opt out of a meal, or just drink some water instead.

My parents like to go out and eat at restaurants, and a lot of restaurants to which we go together are about an hour or so away. Even in those situations, I think the traveling distance is too far, so, addressing the second part of the question, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t travel much for food, even if I were to be offered the best meal of my life.

I think the main reason behind this is that once I finish the meal, the experience is over, and I don’t have a particular preference for short-term enjoyment; I tend to be more attracted to things that have a more long-term or permanent effect on my future pleasure or comfort.

Hi humans.

You’re having a nightmare, and have to choose between three doors. Pick one, and tell us about what you find on the other side.

Source: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/daily-prompt-nightmare/

Considering this is a nightmare, I would assume that whatever is behind one of the three doors has to be something terrifying to me.

Unfortunately (and fortunately for me), I’m not really afraid of many concrete things, but one of the few things that I am afraid of is the unknown, or not knowing what is going to happen. On a related note, I’m also pretty afraid of getting lost and not knowing where I am or how to return to a familiar location.

So, the nightmare could play out in one of two ways. If it were to play with my fear of the unknown, the fact of me simply being forced to open one of the three doors without having any additional background information about what’s behind them would be a pretty scary nightmare, especially if the setting of the room containing the three doors was eerie.

If it were to play with my fear of getting lost, the three doors would lead to three additional doors. Right at this point, my first instinct would be to go back through the previous door and not go any further, but then, the door would close and lock behind me and I would be forced to continue.

Hi humans.

I have a zoology exam coming up in about two weeks, and some of the questions on the exam relate to the mental functions of sleep. So, I decided to pick out this Daily Post prompt and twist it into a way that I can write about what I’m learning so it can act as extra practice for me.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #323: If you needed more time, where would you take from? Lets say you had an emergency this week that required you to spend an hour, every day, taking care of something you don’t currently do. Where would that time come from? What would you drop first?

I’m not sure what I definitely would reduce first, but it seems like the most logical thing to drop is some sort of entertainment that is not needed in my life right now.

One thing that I assume a lot of people would say that they would drop first is sleep. I would drop sleep for up to 7.5 hours a night, but past that, I would not reduce it any more because if I did, I would be putting my own health at risk.

Sleep is largely responsible for restoring bodily functions and bringing you back to a well-functioning state. If you do not get 7-8 hours of sleep every night, your sleep debt piles up and you get progressively and increasingly tired and unresponsive. After a while, you will start having periods of microsleep where you doze off for very short periods of time, which can be extremely dangerous if you’re engaged in tasks that require your full attention like driving.

Sleep is also required for enhancing your memory. While you are sleeping, your brain is constantly creating scenarios in your mind about real life. Sometimes, we are able to recall these as dreams, and sometimes, we are not. The more our brains visualize ourselves doing a particular task over and over again, the better we get at it because we are essentially practicing without actually doing the task. Studies have shown that staying up all night to study for exams is actually not a good idea, and that getting a full night of sleep is better because your brain will take the information that you learned before you sleep and repeat it in your mind to get better at it.

Hi humans.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #319: Would you rather be able to read other people’s minds, or live forever?

If I had to pick between having the ability to read minds or to live forever, I would probably go with reading minds, for a pretty obvious reason.

If I were to live forever, there’s no mention what will happen to my actual aging. I don’t want to be an old man who only gets older for all of eternity, because as I get older, my body will start to get weaker and less functional, and my older years will be terrorizing more than they would be enjoyable. People with an uncurable disease causing them extreme pain have death as an escape; if this were to happen to me, I would not have that option.

On the other hand, if the prompt specified that my aging process would be frozen and I would never get any older, I would still not want that to happen because I want to age and progress through my life like a normal human, rather than being stuck at a particular point in my life for the rest of my life. It would be great if I could maintain my current health forever, but I’m pretty sure that most people would agree that it doesn’t sound that appealing to be a 19-year-old forever.

Reading minds comes with its benefits as well. It seems like it would be a way to save significant time in my life, because it would eliminate the need for extensive communication. Frequently, it takes a long time for someone to pass on his/her ideas to me, either because it is a complex idea, or simply because the person is bad at explaining concepts in his/her mind. If I was able to read minds, I could get a solid grasp on what the idea is without having to go through the trouble of physically illustrating or describing it.

Hi humans.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #310: If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to? Do you feel like your name matches your personality? If not, what first name would better match who you are?

If I had to change my first name, I would change it to something random, then change it back to Adam. I’m content with my first name of Adam, and it seems completely unnecessary to change it.

I’ve noticed in the past that some first names tend to match particular personalities quite well, but I’ve seen and met so many people so far that I can come up with at least one exception for almost every name and personality pairing that deviates from common speculations.

I don’t really think that your first name, or your name in general, really determines what type of person you will be or how you will end up in the future.

Some of you might have already heard of the story of Winner and Loser. There was a father who named his first son Winner because he wanted him to be a winner; the same father named his last son Loser because he didn’t like him (or something along those lines) and wanted him to be a loser. Much to the father’s discontent, Winner ended up becoming a criminal, did drugs, and landed himself in jail, like a loser. Loser ended up becoming successful and getting a good job, like a winner.

Of course, one could argue that the reason Winner lost was because he was too confident in his name, and the reason Loser won was because he wanted to spite his father. But either way, I think this slightly proves that names don’t have that significant of a role in ones life, unless they’re something strange like LemonJello or OrangeJello (yes, those names really exist – you can search for them on Google), or having a name of distinct African descent, then applying for a job at a racist company.

Hi humans.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #309: Have you ever protested for anything? What was the cause? If you haven’t, what would it take for you to go stand up and protest for (or against) something?

If you’ve ever taken a look at my profile page or have read up on any of my background or personal information, you might know that I am an undergraduate college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. If you’ve been keeping up with the news for the past year, you might have heard about the protests that have been going on in Madison, Wisconsin against the governor. Even though massive protests are going on in my area, I still have never participated in a protest before, and I don’t ever plan on doing so in the future.

Even though I lived literally less than a few miles away from the capitol building, I chose not to participate in the protests because I thought it would be a waste of my time. You might also know that I work for the Badger Herald, which is a campus newspaper, and I still did not participate in the protests, even though I am so closely tied with current events. The only time I even went into the capitol building during the protests was when I went with the editor-in-chief to find one of our reporters inside the building.

Going back to my reasoning behind why I don’t protest, I don’t feel as if I would make a significant difference (or even a marginal difference) if I were to go and protest with everyone else. There are already so many people protesting that I probably would not even fit in the area at which they are protesting, and nobody would ever notice that I showed up. If you know me, you know that I like optimizing everything I do, and I feel as if going to protest would not be an efficient use of my time.

Addressing the second part of the prompt, the only reason I would ever go and protest for or against something is if I knew for a fact that my participation would make a significant difference in the outcome of the protest, and I had nothing better to do. For example, I would attend the protest if there were thousands of people who will only go to the protest if I go, or if I was publicly speaking at the protests and I was able to influence people of power with my opinions. As we probably all know, something like that will probably never happen, or if it does happen, it will not happen for a very long time, so I don’t think we have to be very concerned about expecting me at any protests any time soon.