Mildly Frustrating Things I Cannot Change

I actually had a better topic in mind for another installment of "random blog posts," but I also thought that this was an excellent opportunity that I couldn't miss--an opportunity for me to air out some frustrations. We all have minor annoyances: some things just don't happen the way we want them to, or we make a fatal error and make things worse. Well, there are some things I can't make better or worse simply because of the fact that they are unable to be changed.

1. I'm an average height for a teenage girl, I guess. I'm only two inches off from being considered "short statured"--apparently the maximum height you can be is 5'2". I just wish I wasn't done growing, because I could totally make use of being two inches taller! Just imagining being able to see what's on top of the fridge and reach everything in my house is a dream. (Don't tell any of my actual "short statured" friends I made this blog post though, otherwise I might get glares for the rest of my life!)

2. I'm allergic to most furry animals. I used to have two cats, but after about a year of owning them I began to develop an allergic reaction to their dander, and so did my mom. It was devastating having to give them up, considering they're my favorite animal. The allergies have only gotten worse--I went to one of my friend's houses, and their dog licked me, and I broke out in tiny hives! It doesn't make sense for someone who loves animals so much to be held back by sneezing and sensitive skin.

3. This was a tragic thing that happened long ago, before the Wii, but my GameCube stopped working. It would power on, the trusty ol' thing, but it refused to read any of the discs I was putting in. I don't actually know for sure, but I suspect that it was the slightly problematic design of the console itself. Everyone knows that anything with moving parts is going to be the first to go when machinery starts to break down, and on the GameCube, this was the laser that moves back and forth while the disc in spinning. I think it's possible that the optical laser itself could have gotten damaged easily over its short one year of use, or that the mechanism that actually causes it to move stopped. Either way, the design was kind of annoying! (Okay, if I was a tech whiz I could change this, but dismantling something I don't understand is a bad idea!)

4. My little brother is getting older and more intuitive too fast! If you know anything about me, I'm sure you've heard me complain about my brother's annoying "terrible two's AND three's" phase. However, him being so young has his advantages. I can convince him to go throw things away for me when I'm just too lazy to stand up, he'll accept basically anything I say without contest if I append "because I said so," and thinks I'm basically the smartest person ever (besides mom and dad). Now, our conversations are slightly different: "But Jazmiz, why, Jazmiz? Why won't you take me on the trampoline?" "I have work to do." "But... why?" "Because I said so." "Why did you say so?" There's very few ways to win!

5. Mushrooms don't need to go on pizza! #stopmushrooms2k14

I could write more. I could always write more. But anything else I'm going to say will go in a second part.

Lateral Thinking Puzzles

I enjoy being challenged. Now, I say this loosely--I do not necessarily like being challenged by a difficult fitness workout, or math homework. But I do enjoy all sorts of games and puzzles that aren’t easy to solve or complete. A category of these type of “games” are what we call Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Basically, you’re given a couple clues to a situation, and you need to answer a question or fill in the details to the situation. If you’re “mediating” the prompt, you know the answer, and you have a group of people try to solve it by asking questions. The questions can cover anything, and be as vague or detailed as possible, but they must seek and answer of “yes/no/irrelevant.”

I remember first being introduced to such a pastime at camp--a girl had brought up a particular puzzle that she had solved with a friend earlier, and asked if we (a group of about ten girls) wanted to help solve them. The prompt was this: The music stopped, and then she died. (If you’re interested in trying to solve this one yourself, I guess you should stop reading here?)

Questions were shouted, one after the other, some overlapping and some needing to be repeated. “Was the music stopping the cause her death?” 
“Yeah, duh.” 
“Was it pop music?” 
“Probably not, but that doesn’t really matter.” 
“Was her death intentional?” 
“No!” 
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
“What?”
“Did the music stopping make her die?”
“Marisa, someone literally just asked that.”
“Oh.”

It went on like this for a while, and eventually, the golden question comes along: “Did she walk on tightropes?”
“Yes!”

How someone got to this point, I don’t really know or remember--we were all pretty freaking lost and confused. But that was all we needed to get to the point of the story.“Did the music stop while she was walking on a tightrope?”
“Yeah!”
“Is she blind?”
“Oh my gosh, okay, I got it--the music is her cue to start and stop walking on the tightrope, because she's part of a circus act, but somehow the music malfunctioned while she was in the middle of the routine! And then, well...”

I think everyone pieced it together at that point. For the next two hours, we proceeded to do as many lateral thinking problems as possible before lights-off, and that was definitely a blast. If you’re one of my good friends, I’ve probably subjected you to a couple rounds of this type of guessing puzzle. It’s really easy to play (depending on how hard or complicated the prompt and/or ending/solution is), everyone can be involved (it's more fun in larger groups), it doesn't require any accessories (besides a sharp brain), and it’s immensely satisfying being able to solve one.

By the way, the music stopped and then she died actually has an alternate, more practical answer. Care to try?

Extracurriculars? College? What?

I go to Uni. All around me there are swarms of dedicated, involved, and extracurricular-focused students. There are so many activities that people have the opportunity to participate in: sports, theatre, various clubs -- you name it, someone is doing it. Many people have had one of these focuses for a good part of their life, and it doesn't surprise me when one of my peers says that they've been doing something for six, seven, or eight years. Everyone seems to have an activity (extracurricular-wise) that they've been doing for a substantial amount of time.

However, I'm not really one of those people. I don't say this to set myself apart from others in a haughty way (How would that even work? "Haha, I don't do anything!") -- far from it. This is something that has been consistently bothering me for the last year or so. Being worried about not "doing anything" has coincided with the time that my teachers and parents have been talking about college in a serious manner.

I can't count the amount of times that our local SSO advisor has drilled into us that "doing so many extracurricular activities isn't what's important," but it's impossible for me not to worry about not really participating in any extracurricular activities. Most of my friends have told me, "C'mon, there's something that you're totally passionate about!" This isn't the issue that I have! I love engineering, computer science is cool as heck, and astronomy is scary amazing; it's very easy to see that there's a trend with scientific fields and I.

I have a feeling most people don't know that about me, and that's what gives me the most anxiety when we start talking about writing college applications, and creating good resumes. If no one in my immediate surrounding can tell what some of my passions are, how am I going to be able to articulate them to an admissions officers who doesn't know me at all?

Until recently (around freshman year), I haven't been able to nail down any construtive activities any of these passions. I've participated in GEMS (Gains in Engineering, Math, and Science) camp, GAMES (Girls' Adventures in Math, Engineering, and Science) camp, and have had some awesome opportunities to visit local labs. This shows some of my interest and that I'm willing to try new things, but any other experience I've had with STEM subjects has come from personal research and messing around with computers. I honestly feel that I have very little to show for my involvement in STEM, and that's going to become a major problem once I narrow down a list of colleges and get to actually writing applications.

It also might help to narrow my interests down, and not just say "uh, like, engineering and computer science is cool" when someone asks me about potential majors. I know, know: "So many students go in undeclared all the time, you shouldn't be freaking out about it!" Well, I'm going to have to freak out about it at some point, and why not now, when college is only looming on the horizon and not when I'm actually in college? It's a difficult thing that I may have to come to terms with.

I'm not doomed, hopefully! Now that I have the wherewithal (time, "good grades", pretty good work ethic, and an A-okay from my parents) to actually participate in extracurriculars, I hope to discover an intense passion for which I can write about and account for. Until then, I will keep worrying.

Video Game Throwback

When I was younger (before I arrived at Uni and became a completely mature teenager, of course), there were probably only three things that I enjoyed doing: reading, watching television, and playing video games. At that precious, impressionable age of seven, it seemed like I was the odd one out when I had my video game kick -- the only girl that enjoyed playing video games and talking about them and (in the case of being in elementary school) acting out Pokemon battles and having a blast discussing worlds other than our own. That was perfectly fine with me, and I don't regret any of the hours I spent involved with them.

I would like to say that I've completely moved on from gaming of any sort now that I hardly have any time, but even today there is still one franchise that I can't imagine giving up... Pokemon.

I tried very hard not to make a post about it, and we can easily see that I've failed very early in the game, considering this is only my second blog post. However, I just couldn't not make a post about something that has inevitably been a part of my life for so long.

The basic premise of Pokemon is that you're a kid from a small town, you -- a trainer -- get your very own monster, and you explore a world using your monster to essentially beat up on other trainers in the hopes of becoming the champion. The champion is the best trainer in all the land! There's always also a very stupid group of antagonists that the story is centered around, and your time playing is spent advancing the story by trying to prevent those antagonists from ruining the planet.

If you've never played or cared about Pokemon before, you may be thinking, "Uh, okay, that doesn't sound all that fun." Or even, "That seems boring and stupid." In reflection, I would say that yes, as a sixteen-year-old that has found so many more fun things to do, it is sort of a boring thing. You often get stuck at points in the game because of the need to train ("level up") your monsters, if you're a novice you'll undoubtedly be spending 50+ hours just to make it through the storyline, and the tasks that you complete can end up being really mundane. But to a seven-year-old that prefers other worlds to her own? You bet she had a blast defeating hundreds of monsters, roaming new landscapes, and becoming the Pokemon Master!

When I say that Pokemon is still a part of my life, I don't mean that I'm still particularly interested in the games. It's really difficult to find enough time to listen to music, let alone devote hours to such a trivial time-waster. But it's impossible to ignore the person that I've become because of that intense interest back in the day. I still love hearing about new games that are coming out, fantasy books are my first preference, and I won't hesitate to pronounce my undying love for Ash Ketchum mention some of my favorite characters from the series and reminisce. The only reason I'm savvy for tech in general was figuring out how games even work (which required a tween to understand a lot more about her computer and numbers than was necessary for daily life)!

I think that we all have one thing that might be a little embarrassing to talk about, but has inevitably become some sort of part of us. Pokemon is mine.

The Organization of Organization

It's always a good idea to put organization at the forefront of your mind - or so everyone says. Teachers, parents, great-great grandparents will all preach to you what a novelty having organization is for a young pupil, and I agree... To a certain extent.

I was having a conversation with my grandmother the other day, who, might I mention, is always very enthusiastic to see how I'm doing at school. Without having talked to her for more than five minutes, she was already unzipping my backpack and criticizing the way that I had my things lined up. "Jazmin, why on Earth do you have your phone all the way in the back pocket of your backpack? What sense does that make? How can you reach it? You really need to put it in the front of your backpack. Now, you know I'd rather you have a purse, but if you want to do it this way..."

Now, I know my grandma, and I know where these types of conversations lead -- if I end up supplying my own point of view, I usually end up frustrated and nothing is gained. So, in keeping the peace and moving along with life, I responded, "Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

But that whole situation got me thinking about organization and how organization is proposed in schools. Up until high school, I had always been told just how something needed to be organized, whether it was related to school or home. "Homework should be in folders, which are color-coded per subject!" cries the first grade teacher from a metaphorical rooftop. "Papers cannot just be kept in your backpack!" insists the seventh-grade teacher, gesturing to a model student whose papers are not kept open in their backpack. And, the most stressed, particularly Subfreshman year at Uni High: "Write all of your assignments down!" Though this was all in the nature of trying to prepare the student, subbie Jazmin found it ridiculous that a teacher could possibly take off points for not having their assignments written down.

This isn't a rant against organization by any means. I just find that when someone else's ideals are forced upon someone, the results are counterproductive. Would I keep literally every subject in one binder, like I've known some of my classmates to do? No. Is that a good idea, for me? No. But does that mean that it can't be a good idea for them? No! (In fact, I'm amazed at the fact that one particular friend somehow manages to know where everything is without some subject-based organization. Go them!) There's a type of organization that works best for everyone, and maybe that is a lack of organization. The only thing that matters is the endgame -- being able to have the wherewithal to ace that exam or keep homework turned in or finish a group project. The plan, which is how that is accomplished, doesn't matter as long as it's the easiest method for a particular person.

Now, I choose to have my phone in the back pocket just because of my bad habit of haphazardly leaving the front pockets open, and the fact that I prefer not to bring my purse to school. But, in the words of some person I don't know, "you do you," and I'll do me.