Questions

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with a good friend of mine, the one and only Colin Groneman.  After a hard day's work in Chemistry, we sat down and decided to talk about anything that confused or intrigued us.  Here are some of our topics:

  - Try to think of a new color.  Not a mix of colors you already know.  Not a new shade of an old color.  A brand new, never-before-seen color.  What would it look like?  Of course, we quickly came to the conclusion that new colors cannot be conceived because humans can only see waves that exist in the visible spectrum of light.  There are a finite number of different wavelengths of light, so we can only see or even imagine certain colors - the spectrum of visible light cannot be expanded. 

  - What if colors are not definite?  What if they are subjective?  What if what I call orange is your purple?  This was soon dropped, as it didn't really lead to anything else interesting.

  - Where and what are thoughts?  I could tell you as easily as the next guy that thoughts are caused by the firing of synapses in neurons in the brain.  I also know that the firing of a single synapse cannot form a thought.  So at what point does the firing of synapses lead to the formation of thought?  At what point does the whole (a thought) become greater than the sum of the parts (a single synapse firing)? And where does the thought reside?  In the brain, surely, but that's rather vague.  Perhaps a thought just exists as an overall state of the brain, sort of like an emotion. 

  - Then I told Colin about one of my favorite things to try to do: think about what you are currently thinking about, really evaluate your thoughts.  When you start to think about your previous thoughts, though, you stop thinking what you were just thinking.  It's confusing.  For a split second, though, I find myself able to step outside of my thoughts and observe them, even commenting on how intelligent they are.

  - Why can't we bring people back to life?  The medical technology exists that allows us to pump a heart artificially, make people breathe artificially, even stimulate certain areas of the brain to make them move or act in certain ways.  So why can't we combine these to re-create life?  What is missing from that equation?  A soul, perhaps, or merely a combination of complex biological factors that cannot all be remedied?

  - Double negatives do not exactly cancel each other out.  This is sort of a theory of mine.  People often use double negatives in a way that suggests that their presence cancels out.  If you really think about it, though, I'm not sure if they do.  If, for example, I say that you are not not smart, I am not really saying that you are smart.  I'm saying that you are not "not smart," or that you are not stupid.  But if you are not stupid, you certainly are not necessarily smart.  Oh yeah, loophole.

  - Where is Waldo?

  - "Sometimes I just lie in bed at night and just think about infinity" - Mr. Maas.  This famous Mr. Maas quote also intrigues me.  The concept of infinity, when you really think about it, is quite unfathomable.  Try to imagine the biggest number possible.  I can add one to that.  Try to imagine an infinite number of anything.  You can't.

This is just a small sampling of our musings.  Now, with complete creative freedom in my blog, I have decided to just write about whatever pops into my head.  As you can see, it gets pretty abstract.
  
 

Blogged to Death?

A few weeks ago, I read a New York Times article about blogging.  It discussed the impact of blogs, not on society and the world, but on the individual that does the blogging.  As an individual that is currently blogging, this topic interested me.  The article said that in the non-stop, fast-paced world in which we live, professional bloggers are pushed to their physical limits trying to keep up with all the news and events occurring worldwide.  A few people have even been killed by blogging - they suffered massive heart attacks while blogging for long periods of time.  Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion, or other maladies born of the nonstop strain of blogging in a world that never sleeps.  Of course, we as students probably do not need to worry about any of this - we blog in a much less stressful environment.  Still, it is something to think about - has blogging affected us negatively in any way?  Do we get less sleep or feel more stress?  Has blogging become more of an annoyance and less of a creative outlet? 

Personally, I think these blogs are an excellent tool that will help us both as writers and as thinkers.  The most redeeming aspect of blogs is that they are done outside of school.  This may seem trivial, but it changes everything.  In school, someone may be meek and introspective, never really sharing their thoughts with their peers.  But when they leave the classroom, this student may become someone else entirely, especially when they write.  We may get a glimpse into someone's life that would not have been possible without our blogs.  Never before have we been able to see the writing of other students, and it is an invaluable resource.  With so many different styles, topics, and people, we are bound to learn something each and every time we read a blog.  I do not think the blogs can be classified as "fun" or "entertaining" for everyone - that is more of a personal preference.  No one can deny, however, that these blogs have changed their perceptions of people, events, and the world around them.

The Five Types of Studiers

As this semester comes to a close, everyone begins to study frantically with the hope of making the move from a high B to an A or a high C to a B.  This flurry of studying has shown me that people study in five distinct ways:

1) "The Showman" - This person has been awake for so long studying that they have effectively lost touch with reality. But they do know what they are doing (as does everyone else), because they have been documenting it ad nauseum via Facebook status since they started studying.

How they think they did on the exam: “I totally rocked it, there's no way I get anything less than an A."

How they did on the exam: Failed.

2) "The Peace of Minder" - No one has seen this person outside of school in weeks. They started studying just after Halloween and have not looked back since. Not studying would mean doing frightening things like having fun, enjoying life, or seeing the light of day. Wary of taking these risks, this person studies pretty much constantly leading up to finals, but to be honest no one really notices or cares.

How they think they did on the exam: "Really well."

How they did on the exam: Really well.

3) "The Real Deal" - As far as preparing for a test is concerned, this person has done everything right. They have talked to the teacher, reviewed their notes, converted those notes to flashcards, reviewed those flashcards, scanned the flashcards onto their computer, looked over the professor's study guide, made their own study guide, looked over that study guide, and fulfilled their daily sleeping requirement - every day for the past three weeks.

How they think they did on the exam: “Oh, I most definitely failed.”

How they did on the exam: Aced it.

4) "The 'Got It in the Bag'" - This person feels absolutely no need to study. I mean, they went to all the classes, took the notes, and did the homework. What else is there to do? The only thing this guy has planned is to sit back, relax, and criticize all the “uptight bookworms" by liking their pre-finals panic Facebook statuses. While his classmates try to do some last minute cramming, he is watching the second season of Arrested Development on Netflix. As test time approaches, he will start thinking about maybe “skimming through his notes a bit," but it is too late, the panic attack has already begun.

How they think they did on the exam: (Curls up into a ball and weeps) 

How they did on the exam: Did Not Complete (Curled up into a ball and wept)

5) "The Big Man on Campus" - The school's star athlete. Why should he bother studying when he will make millions of dollars as a professional athlete in the near future?

How they think they did on the exam: "What exam?"

How they did on the exam: Passed, with help from an anonymous tutor.

I know what everyone is thinking: What type of studier are you, Alex? I think that answer is better left to the imagination (hint: a rare blend of numbers three, four, and five - I plan to get A's, often curl up into the fetal position and weep, but also will make my millions as a professional athlete), but the more important question is: which type are you?

Homework Hangover

Teachers have puzzled over the question of how to make homework fun for centuries.  Well, I have found the secret - do it sometime between two and three o'clock in the morning.  Everything's fun then.  Thomas Donley and I have discussed the phenomenon on several occasions and have come to the conclusion that we legitimately enjoy homework we do that late at night.  Thomas even went as far as to lament the fact that he hadn't left enough of his data sheet for tonight to keep him up that late - on previous data sheets, he had worked well into the early morning.  The result, which I too have experienced, is a curious sensation, a sort of homework high, during which homework becomes incredibly fun and rewarding.  I'm not kidding.  For weeks I kept saying I would get to my college applications eventually, but I could never bring myself to actually work on them.  Then one Friday night after a football game, I sat down at my desk and wrote college essays until five in the morning - I finished five supplemental applications in one night.  And it was honestly a lot of fun.  At some point while doing homework (for me it's around one o'clock), you begin to get very tired.  If you can push through that first wave of fatigue, you're in the clear - instead of feeling drowsy, everything becomes incredibly pleasant and enjoyable.  Of course, the next day in school you have to deal with the inevitable flood of fatigue - a condition I have dubbed "homework hangover."  The symptoms are noticeable - dull, inattentive demeanor, a lack of motivation, constant snacking, bloodshot eyes, twitching, irritability, and a loss of bladder control.  But I would say that it's worth it, especially if you haven't tried it before.  Come on - all the cool kids are doing it.

Electroshock Therapy

Shortly after beginning our latest book, we often discussed the cruel, inhumane treatment that the patients received in the hospital.  I argued that the treatments given to the the patients were, at that time, thought to be cutting edge and effective.  A few days ago, I stumbled across an intriguing video concerning the modern use of electroshock therapy (ECT), which is also used in the book to treat patients (www.ted.com/talks/sherwin_nuland_on_electroshock_therapy.html - Caution: this video does contain some offensive language, including the F-word, but I included the address because I found it highly educational).  For those of you that do not wish to watch the video, it is a talk delivered by Sherwin Nuland, a man that underwent a series of ECT treatments in the 1970s.  Nuland received the therapy to treat his crippling depression, and he goes as far as to say that ECT saved his life.  Thus, in modern times, ECT is now being used to treat depression - and recent studies have shown it to be quite effective.  Admittedly, ECT does not work quite as well on schizophrenic patients (most of the members of the ward would have likely been schizophrenic in some capacity).  However, a fair number of inmates in the hospital were likely depressed, so the "cruel, inhumane" (as we saw it) ECT treatment probably helped them.  This shocking revelation may not change your view of the hospital's medical staff - most people would likely still see them as primitive and sadistic.  It did, however, illustrate the power of literature to me - propaganda like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that criticized ECT prevented it from being recognized as a viable treatment option for people suffering from depression.  Ironically, Ken Kesey was trying to reform the treatment of mental patients with this book, but ended up criticizing a therapy that is quite beneficial.  Before this, I had never really considered the possibility that an engaging, well-intentioned book could cause such harm.