So much more than I can write

I post this first because I am actually pretty content right now and I'm just waiting for life to screw it up again. It always does that. But, you take what you get, right? Like today, Freeman Center for dinner with apparently really good mac and cheese. Awesome.

If you have the time, take out about ten minutes of your time to watch this video. It was posted by a classmate of mine to our FOCUS group on Facebook after a heated conversation about time perception in different cultures in class. And then you can read my commentary on the topic. Or whichever one you want.

Are you past or future oriented? Or maybe present hedonistic? I would consider myself the last option because I try never to think too far into the future and not to dwell in the past, though I do that all the time. It's a habit that's difficult to get out of, but I'm getting there. I try to live within three or four days of the time that I'm in and focus on the task at hand. Sometimes I wish that I was more future oriented, but my family already does that for me and my cortisol levels are high enough as it is.

Zimbardo says you can judge the paces of life of different cultures by how fast they walk through a coffeeshop or how long it takes for them to weight your postage. Cities in America with the highest pace of life have the most coronary problems. We discussed this in class and it's so true. My roommate brought up that collectivist societies like India and Ethiopia tend to perceive time not as importantly as America's individualist society. Indians run on "Indian standard time" which means that if you're an hour late to a party, you're actually on time. In America, we're always rushing to get everything done because we're set on such tight schedules and so future oriented. I can attest to this because although I am Indian, I have grown up in America and tend to want to be very punctual all the time. My parents leave for an event at 6 when the invite says to be there at 6 and I stand there facepalming.

He says that school takes "present oriented little beasts and make them more future oriented." So true. That's what I was talking about yesterday; we go to school for success, so that we can get ahead. For knowledge because knowledge will help us in the future. When we are told anything at school, it is the future implications of our actions or what we are learning. No, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but think about what life would be like if we still lived in the present. Maybe easier? Probably slower. More relaxed. If you didn't have a sense of time, if you just lived to live. We live now in a world where "waiting is a waste of time." Any kind of waiting, unless it's tenting for the Duke/UNC game. Waiting in lines, waiting for the computer to turn on. Life is so fast-paced because everyone is trying to get ahead. We work hard instead of spending time with family and friends and sleeping. I have indeed considered before how much more I could get done if we didn't need to sleep, and it's a lot, but honestly, there's never enough. The work and the responsibilities and the amount of things that you can do can keep coming. There will really never be an end.


So on a completely and utterly unrelated note, let me tell you about my work study job. It's actually really awesome. Like I said before, I'm doing a lot of things that I've done in high school, but then also a lot of things that I've never done before. Plus, the amount of trust that my boss has in us in just one month is incredible. He lets us do everything without any supervision. Also, I used something called a laser dissection microscope which looks like this:

to look at stuff that looks kinda like this:

And it's mega cool. I was supposed to go through and find any weird stuff that might be mutations and I kind of found some and he said to me, "Good catch!" and I felt accomplished. 

I always feel like I have so much more to say than I can write. If anyone's even gotten to this point, I applaud you. Lol.  I have so much more that I could say but I guess that's just going to have to wait for now.

Anyways, lastly, just wanted to share this photo that I took on the bridge near East Campus yesterday. It really fits the theme of my blog and I might even use it to replace the header picture thing sometime. 

Do something everyday that scares you. Go. Now.