Tip of the Day

If you’re writing something and you feel something prickly in your ear, put down your pen immediately and find out what’s wrong.

If you don’t and you instead choose to finish your sentence, you will soon notice that the prick was actually a mosquito, and that you now have a mosquito bite in your ear.

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Topic #171: Do you believe in free-will? Can you prove what you believe?

I believe in free will because I believe that everything that I choose to do is based off of my choice. But I think it’s impossible to prove that what I believe is true.

Someone who believes in fate more than free will could just as easily argue that we made our choices not because we chose to, but because fate made it happen.

I think this is a pointless topic to argue about because there’s no strong evidence supporting either side of the argument.

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Topic #169: If given the choice, are you the kind of person who takes the red pill, or the blue pill? Why? When do you willfully do the opposite?

I looked up the red pill and blue pill conflict on Wikipedia and found two very different definitions for what each pill does.

In the introduction and core summary section of the article, it states that the blue pill represents the “blissful ignorance of illusion” and the red pill represents the “sometimes painful truth of reality.” If that was the case, I would always take the red pill; regardless of how hard or painful something might be, I always like to get a real­istic overview of what I’m facing so I have an opportunity to better adjust myself to the potential threats.

However, in the image caption, it shows Morpheus’ quotation: “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” This implies that if I take the red pill, I will not be facing reality, but instead be taking deeper into an illusion or hallucination. In that case, I would probably take the blue pill so I can return back to normal.

My misunderstanding of this concept might be because I watched the Matrix movies a very long time ago and barely have any recollection of what they were about. But based on the information I am provided, my choice depends on the situational effect of each pill.

I think the only reason I would ever voluntarily choose the blue pill over the red pill is if I was already in extreme duress, and my body and soul became too weak to be able to properly face reality. In that case, when I’m at the point where all or almost all hope is lost and I have nothing to gain by knowing the truth, I would go with the blue pill to find relaxation and comfort.

Tip of the Day

If you feel the urge to nibble on your seat belt while stopped at a red light, you might want to make sure that you’re not happened to be stopped right behind me.

Or else I will stare at you in confusion through the rear view mirror, and if you’re unlucky enough, I’ll have enough time to pull out a camera and snap a picture.

Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough today. But there’s always next time.

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Topic #168: How long do you stay angry at someone or something? What’s the longest grudge you’ve ever held? Why do you think we hold grudges?

The length of time I stay angry at someone is highly dependent on what made me angry. If it was just a simple act, then I would most likely not get angry at all or get angry for a very short period. However, if the act shows that the actual person is a foul-moraled person, I would most likely stay angry until I feel the person has changed to become more moral and ethical.

I generally don’t show my anger explicitly by yelling or fighting with the person with whom I’m angry, but I will act in a way that is clearly abnormal. My anger is generally shown through a complete lack of support for and extreme putting down of the victim. I feel like this is more effective because, for most people, having the feeling of incompetence is much more traumatizing than just quarreling with someone.

I’m pretty sure the longest grudge I’ve held against someone is starting from whenever it started to right now. I don’t recall ever resolving any grudges. I think the point of a grudge is to stay away from people you don’t like based off their character. I don’t remember ever seeing someone who I originally saw as annoying and undesirable change into someone of great respectability, so I’m assuming that none of my grudges have ended.

If you didn’t already know, car dealerships open extremely early.

I had to go to the service center of the manufacturer of my dad’s car to get a repair and some maintenance done this morning, and when I called to make an appointment, they said that they’re open from 6:30 AM.

When I asked if I could schedule the appointment for around 10:00 AM, they said “I’m not sure if we’ll have enough time to finish everything by that time. What about 8:00 AM?”

Which more or less implies that they open super early when not many people are awake, and close super early during the time people are actually awake and active.

#SettingYourBusinessHoursProperlyFail

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Topic #167: One health story making the rounds is how sitting too much all day will kill you. Since you are likely seated as you read this, don’t panic. We want to help.

(I actually cut off the topic right there, because the remainder of the topic tells you to do some push-ups, and my arms are too sore from martial arts training earlier today and I probably couldn’t do more than 3.)

That infographic seems to be more directed at the stereotypic fat American than it is at me. It claims that the problem is that people keep sitting more than 8 hours a day outside of their job and it’s causing people to become obese and more vulnerable to health problems.

Fortunately, I’m not at all obese – I’m actually on the lower end of having a normal body weight. This is even after I don’t really watch what I eat; as long as something doesn’t have a blatant amount of fat on it, I eat it without thinking twice. I never watch television, so that completely rules me out from deteriorating my health while sitting on the couch in front of the TV. While I’m at university, I walk a few miles a day just from walking from my apartment to lecture halls, from lecture hall to lecture hall, and from lecture halls back to my apartment.

Overall this information is most likely not going to change how I act (and even if I were to change, it would be difficult to find something that I could change because I’m a student and I spend a lot of time sitting as a part of what students do), but it’ll be useful to keep in the back of my head to make sure that my sitting doesn’t become too extreme.

Tip of the Day

If you’re in your Shakespeare class and you’re not prepared to take an exam on Macbeth, confidently ask, “Wait, this is a take-home exam, right?”

The instructor will get so confused that he’ll say “Umm… uhh… why yes, it is. … I think.”

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Topic #166: Do you think you’d make a good president? Or Prime-minister? Or King? If so, what would be the first thing you’d do in office?

I don’t think that I would make a very good president, seeing as I’m only 19 years old. In order to be a good president, I would have to spend a lot more time living and gathering knowledge from my experiences. Even then, my interests don’t lie in politics, so I will most likely not get as much political knowledge out of my experiences as someone who is interested in politics would.

If I somehow magically became president right now, the first thing I would do is resign and let a more capable person take over, beacuse I don’t want to make random decisions as a president and steer the United States in the wrong direction.