Pink Death Scythe

Sometimes, social gatherings stress me out really bad to the point of having health issues afterwards. As such, I started thinking how interesting it would be if someone took a death scythe and killed the people off at a social gathering. And this sort of incident would be more comical if the death scythe was pink.

Having a story with someone swinging a pink death scythe reminds me of Alice swinging the flamingos in Alice in Wonderland for croquet. However, had I been going for a horror story, pink death scythes don't instill enough fear though.

In any case, let's say such an event occurred. An antisocial person attends a social gathering where they get really stressed out, pull their pink death scythe out of their big truck in the parking lot, and start swinging it in response to their social anxiety attack.

One of the witnesses in the aftermath is trembling and covered in blood. The police officer asks her, "What did you see, miss?" She looks up at him with wide eyes and moans, "Slashes, pink, lots of screaming". 

She enters her new shrink's office a week after the event. To her horror, the walls are pink. She huddles in a corner and rocks back and forth, mumbling, "pink".

Then she shields her eyes and balls her eyes out because she can no longer handle seeing pink without having flashbacks.

I would call this literary piece - The Trauma of Pink Scythe Warfare -

This story would be a way to make pink badass and make it so black is the new pink.

Options for Killing Eye Floaters

I've been surfing the Internet again, looking for answers.  My question has been: how to get rid of floaters?  I don't much care for them.  Yet, the answers to this question are interesting and I thought I might be able to spin something interesting out of it.  Plus, I thought of some other answers that weren't listed...satirical in nature, of course.  So I thought I might elaborate on the subject...

How to Kill Eye Floaters

1. Gaze at the moon for 5 minutes every night
Commentary: This option, while fascinating for the avid stargazer and hopeless romantic, might not be feasible in all locations.  The truth of the matter is that some places are cloudier than other.  While the moon rises every night, there are pesky obstructions brought on by nature that hinder the moon's visual glory.  Another problem is that the size and shape of the moon vary over the course of the month.  Thus, optimal gazing is hindered on nights that the moon is merely the Cheshire Cat smile-size or thumbnail-size versus Wheel of Cheese-size.  And in case you were wondering, I do have a screen saver of the full moon on my laptop...because it doesn't hurt to try something crazy (in case, I'll be deluded enough to believe it works one day).

2. Ignore them and they will go away
Commentary: This option, although fascinating based on idea of self-brainwashing, might not be possible for someone who uses their eyes a lot for reading.  Let's face it...most pages in books are white with black letters on them.  So if a bug flies in front of the reader's face, the reader will notice...at least, I would, and that's what floaters look like (bugs)...so how am I supposed to ignore them? It's not like I stop living because floaters invade my visual realm, but ignoring them likely isn't the answer.  It hasn't worked yet (as in I still notice them), but I'll keep trying.

3. Oedipus-style: Gouging out one's eyes
Commentary: This option, although completely effective at removing the possibilities of seeing floaters, is rather sacrificial because one loses one's ability to see things that are desirable to see (i.e. celebrity eye candy, men in uniform, priceless landscapes, words on the pages of books).  Hence, although gouging out eyes has an alluring gore factor to it, it really isn't worth it until you've done something so heinous that sight loss is warranted.  Sorry, Oedipus, you're going that route alone (as in, the route of gouging out one's eyes...in death, your daughter Antigone will join you later...and people all have to walk that line (death/judgment/energy transfer) someday).

4. Eye drops
Commentary: This option, although interestingly simple with respect to targeting the source of the floaters, is an option that might not work if one is squeamish about putting stuff in their eyes (like Rachel in Friends in that one episode).  I'm squeamish about putting stuff in my eyes.  Yet, this option might be worth attempting if floaters are being caused by dry eyes and not migraines.  Migraine-sufferers beware! It might be propaganda in aims for Ben Stein and Visine to collect money.

5. Age backwards
Commentary: This option, while interesting for the aspiring time traveler, might require superior knowledge in astrophysics.  Perhaps a gifted mind watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could have been inspired to look into making this possibility a reality.  The basic idea would be to age backwards to a time when floaters weren't a problem for the individual and suspend this age indefinitely.  Perhaps if that age could not be suspended, the person might consider the adventure of cryogenically-freezing themselves.  It is a revolutionary idea and might work for those seeing floaters because of the natural aging process and not so much for a person seeing them because of migraines.

There are likely more methods like seeing a neurologist and taking drugs in aims of killing floaters.  Yet, the first three methods I mention are completely free and free help is the best kind of help.  I might add more to this post, but I figure I'll let it stand for now.

Please note that I do not recommend gauging out one's eyes to avoid the blasphemy of floaters.  I just enjoyed the literary allusions to Oedipus and Antigone.  And I'm also sure that Ben Stein is so economically knowledgeable, he doesn't need to rely on Visine customers for his financial livelihood.  That man knows how to make money!!

People And Plants Have A Lot In Common

Sometimes I wonder if we as humans ever know what we are doing.  We are often praised for being the species that can think and communicate with each other.  Yet, so many other animal species are also highly intelligent like dolphins and monkeys.  How amazing are humans really? 

I believe plants are smarter than humans.  Yet, humans usually live longer.  Plants are dependent on the environment and sometimes people to survive.  Plants live with the aim of efficiency.  Yet, sometimes the elements or outside forces destroy them.

Humans are a lot like plants.  Plants seek out their needs like water and sunlight much like people seek out their needs in life.  Plant species exhibit intelligence in how they move to receive the optimum amount of sunlight.  People move with respect to the actions they take in life to receive the optimum amount of benefit.  How plants grow is a reflection of personality, the choices they made in aims of the optimum growing conditions, and their environment. This concept is the same with people where people become how they are based on their personality, their lifestyle choices made to satisfy their needs, and their environment.  

Plants respond to sound stimuli.  Plants will grow better given one music and worse given another kind of music.  Children will develop better in a kind quiet home than in a loud discordant one.  Plants grow better when they are talked to and interacted with.  Touch is important to the development of children.  They always have those shows where parents are encouraged to interact with babies while they are still in the womb by talking to them, letting the baby listen to music, et cetera.  Interaction is necessary to development regardless of the species.

I have always wanted to be a plant because I respect them.  Yet, given this analysis, I already am very much like a plant by being a human and vice versa.  Isn't that cool?!

Busy Day in the Life of an Engineering Student

Today was such a busy day for me.  I was on campus from 8:30 am all the way until 7:30 pm.  I had a morning class at 8:30 am.  After my first class, I hunted down my Astronomy professor to take notes on the previous 3 tests I took this semester.  This took me several hours, but I figure it was a wonderful start to Astronomy studying.

Afterwards, I ate lunch to replenish my brain.  After this, I walked to the parking garage to switch out my morning course materials with my afternoon course materials.  Then, I walked up to the computer lab and worked on one of my team reports.  I figured I could add Uniform Standards into the report, so I would have some idea of what to say during the presentation I had in my later class.  I also added another two slides to a group presentation and ran fire flow alternatives in WaterCAD.

After this, I went to class.  We did our presentation.  I presented well in the beginning with the story behind the development, but I was a little jumbled on the design standard material.  I have such high expectations for myself, so I'm a little disappointed in my presentation.  The important thing to remember is I have the potential to be a good presenter.  I will get there with a little practice.

Once class was over, my group and I met up to run (or in this case, attempt to run) some alternatives on pressure reducing valves in WaterCAD, fix some tables, and finish writing our report.  By the time we were done and I had made it home, it was 8 pm.  Overall, it was a very productive day for me.  I spent more time on creating study guides for Astronomy than I had intended, since I would not need to drive up to UNLV on Thursday morning at 8 am for my other class.  Hence, it was smarter to work on Astronomy today so as to free up more time on Thursday.  I'm hoping I will get to sleep a little bit more on Thursday morning than I normally do.

After using so much of my brain today, I'm so beat.  Sleep has been attempted, but it has been adversely affected by anxiety.  I am hoping that tonight will be a refreshing night of sleep.  I will keep my fingers crossed!!

Spring Break Plans: A Little Nerdy, A Little Fun

Well, it's finally Spring Break!! Some of my plans are related to my nerdy personality: like going to the library, studying, doing homework, reading math-related books for fun.  Other of my plans are related to plain old fun: like going shopping for new shoes, painting my toenails, and enjoying the warm sunny weather.

I'm sure the time will go by fast, as every week does.  And technically, I will not have a complete Spring Break (dum, dum, dum...Statics test in the middle of it at CSN).  Yet, I intend to try to balance it out with fun and me-time to homework and studying.  

On the bright side, I will not have to get up early this week.  It will be nice to sleep in, if my body will let me.  I've noticed that I typically wake up early because of having an early morning class two days out of the week on Tuesday and Thursday.  So even on days when I do not have to wake up until later, I find myself awake at 7:30 am.  I should probably feel grateful that my body is trained.  Yet, late nights studying and early mornings can be trying on the brain.  

I might even convince myself to clean my room.  It looks rather intense and I kept meaning to clean it all semester.  It was a mess last semester as well because it was half-painted and my dad was putting in shelves.  I'm probably going to need some bookends and storage containers.  

I've filled up one wall shelf, my desk, and two other ground bookshelves already.  I have one wall shelf left to work with because the top of my dresser is full and my window sill is also full.  Thus, I'm going to have my work cut out for me.  Hence clear storage containers might be very helpful to the process.  Perhaps, I might even convince myself to "throw stuff away", which might get a smile out of my dad.

Human Need To Control Everything, But It Might Not Be Possible

Like many other females, I find myself perplexed by the actions of men.  Generally when I want to understand how men behave, I look to Google.  I type in various questions to see what answers the Google search button will produce.  

There are so many lists of how to figure out if a guy likes a girl.  Having so many lists makes it seem like there is no single authority on the subject.  Then, there are all these discussion boards where random people try to answer questions given a scenario.  The answer creators vary in how credible the advice sounds.  Some people are just crude.  Others write as if they are foremost experts, which does not seem possible.

Sometimes I just want answers to everything.  I do not want to have to appear weak by asking such questions and just have a magical device tell me the answers to my questions.  Hence, I praise the inventor of the Magic 8 Ball.  Perhaps I should just stop looking up answers on the internet and just ask a Magic 8 Ball because the reliability of the answer is probably about the same between the two. (Disclaimer: I have not conducted experiments to compare the two, so this is just an opinion.)

Are there really any answers? Or are answers just another abstraction like numbers and letters? Perhaps answers are proposed simply so humans will not go crazy for thinking there are no answers.  

It's nice to think nature lives by specific laws and people behave the way they do based upon tried and true theories.  

Accepting that life is soaked in randomness and that logic does not exist appears scary because it implies that nothing can be controlled.  People want to believe they can control nature, natural resources, natural disaster damage, people, human brain chemistry, human purchasing choices, the stock market, and a whole lot of other things.  As a result, people make theories up and do experiments to prove theories because the unknown and uncontrollable truths are scarier than temporary lies.

Pesky Interview Question About Strengths and Weaknesses

I have been insanely busy lately trying to keep up with the schoolwork.  I find that once I start to think I might be finished with all of assignments I need to do, there is another one that pops up.

I was just thinking to myself for a little bit about the concept of weaknesses.  I am under the impression that people in general do not want to admit they have any weaknesses.  Everybody wants to give a good impression by nature.  It leads me to the question: how can focusing on the negatives benefit an individual's attitude?

I find it fascinating that potential employers always ask the question, "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" It seems like a question that can set the interviewee up for failure.  In hindsight or as an objective party listening to how somebody else answered that question, we might be able to say, "oh, you should have led with your strengths and only briefly mentioned your weaknesses."  Yet, in the moment, how would any individual respond to that question to their own satisfaction?

Even when I try to come up with weaknesses now, I first think of qualities that are only mild weaknesses if weaknesses at all.  As such, if put on the spot, I might say "honesty" or "analytical thinker".  Honesty might be a weakness depending on what job you are vying for in the interview.  If interviewing to be a car salesperson, honesty might be a bad quality to have because you have to start out selling at a high price and get negotiated down.  An honest person might hear the sob story of a single mother with five kids and want to start the price lower or tell her about a different car lot with better deals.  Yet, one has to consider their own livelihood.  As such, it would be a moral dilemma everyday with an honest salesperson.  As well, an analytical thinker might not be best for a mundane job.  Sure, it works for Toyota, where it is encouraged for all employees to come up with improvements for the car assembly plants.  In that setting, you can be an analytical thinker.  However, maybe in other factory settings, it is a more "put your head down and focus on just your work all day" kind of atmosphere.  Thus, analytical thinkers need not apply.

I wonder if it would be best to simply only give strengths in your answer.  When asked about weaknesses, claim to not have any at all.  I wonder if that is the sort of person employers want, a person with so much confidence that they do not see their weaknesses as weaknesses at all.  Weaknesses are simply areas in life for which we can grow.  God may not have put us on this earth as perfect, but we all have the potential to be our best possible selves. 

In any case, weaknesses are normal and we all have them.  Well, except fictional characters like Rambo.  That character did not have weaknesses.  He only spoke when he had something to say and showed his skills through action.  I wonder how Rambo would answer a question like "what are your strengths and weaknesses?" It would not surprise me if he just stared into the eyes of the employer for a long time and said, "Hire me and I'll show you."  It makes me wonder if that is a viable answer as well.  

People are not like cars.  Should we even have to admit to a stranger that we have weaknesses and report them (people faxes instead of car faxes)?  Shouldn't employers be able to look at a resume and talk to references to assess this question instead of putting a potential employee on the spot? "Tell me where you're vulnerable, so I can assess who of these candidates is least vulnerable.  Yet, any one of these candidates could have lied to me in the process and I would be none the wiser."  Is this reasonable?