Lost

What's up world? Happy Friday to all. I'm a bit tired today. I don't know why. But I just have a quick calc session and then I can take a nap.

So back in middle school I remember I used to watch the show Lost. It was quite a mysterious and entertaining series. A group of people are stuck on an island and can't try to survive and eventually try to get off. But the most entertaining aspect of the show was the random shit that happened to the poor people on the island. For example, they'd be trying to find some food, and a giant polar bear would attack. Or they'd be walking through the jungle and an invisible smoke monster would start tearing down trees and making weird mechanical sounds. The frequent and extreme plot twists was what made it so entertaining. Just when you think you have everything figured out in the show, you find out something new and captivating about the island that keeps you content.

I was thinking last night how I kind of wish real life was like this. Where one couldn't enjoy a simple walk across campus without being confused by something completely out-of-the-ordinary like a giant polar bear or invisible smoke monster. Life would be so much less repetitive, and a lot more interesting if we had all these big mysteries to solve and piece together.

Then I suddenly realized that life is almost exactly like life on the island in Lost. Obviously we don't encounter huge heavy mysteries that determine life or death, but plot twists are absolutely everywhere even to a college kid. Everyday we learn new things, many of which are some really interesting stories. There are secrets like giant reservoirs of radioactive sludge all over Wyoming left over from recycled nuclear warheads that were dismantled after the Cold War. There are idiosyncrasies of the human brain like the Tetris Effect or time dilation that are as mysterious and entertaining as the strange occurrences on the Lost island.

Traveling makes the idea of secrets and mysteries being everywhere even more apparent. There are places in the world that you didn't know existed; and when you go explore the planet and find these peculiar destinations, it's as rewarding as finding a new clue about Lost. The more you travel and explore the planet and read about the oddities of the universe, the more you realize how captivating the real world is even when compared to the fiction on T.V.

When I think about everything in that respect, I start to feel more pity to those who don't indulge in every aspect of life and the world. There's so much to see, experience, and learn; it blows my mind that a huge majority of the American population just wastes their life away in one place without a single desire to explore. I realize that everyone's different, but I can't fathom being satisfied with life without moving around and seeing a fraction of the cool stuff in the world.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a quote I love that says "How can I die without seeing every inch every inch of this world?" And that pretty much sums it all up in one line. I guess if you die without ever leaving your hometown, you die blissfully unaware of everything you missed in life. That's sure as hell not going to happen to me.

Anyway, that concludes my rant. But I have about 20 more minutes to write so I was going to tell you about Circuits Friday.

Every Friday afternoon, I have a circuits lab/recitation/lecture all in one in the afternoon. Like it's a lab, lecture, and recitation crammed into one long as shit two-hour session. It's so painfully long, there's an intermission. And to make it worse, like exponentially worse, it's at the worse possible time in the week at 2:00pm-4:00pm on a fucking FRIDAY. Like who the hell put a 2-hour circuits recilabralecture on a Friday afternoon?

But instead of bitching about it, I took did the 'Decker' thing to do and embraced it. Instead of a painfully boring class right before the weekend, it's "Circuits Friday!" What better way to finish off a rough week than with a calming cool-down class? I squeeze in a good work out right before the class, make a hearty bottle of tea, and skip to the Engineering Tower with a smile on my face. I sip on my tea, watch the stock market go up and down in the final hours of the business week, and learn some cool tricks about electrical analysis. While taking notes in the lecture, taking a quiz in the recitation, and setting up resistors in parallel in the lab; I'm making plans for the weekend and beginning to unwind.

Two hours is a long time to melt and hate your life. That's why I choose not to. It's the same situation as a long flight. A two hour flight to Atlanta is a long time to stress about whether you'll make your connection and make it to the cruise ship on time. Two hours is a long time to dwell over the possibility of leaving your passport at home. Which is why in the cases I'm able, I embrace situation and do my best to enjoy it. If I treat my two hour circuits class like I do a two hour flight; complete with something to sip on, some vacation music, and daydreaming about the days ahead (while of course not sacrificing participation in the class); I find two hours to pass a lot more gracefully.

And finally I know that spending two hours every week this semester miserable will only result in negative emotions when I look back on my life years into the future. If I bitched and moaned about it, I'll only feel like it was wasted time. If I embraced it and gave it a catchy name like "Circuits Friday", then I'll have nothing but fond memories to hold onto.

The difference between bitching about something and embracing the positive aspects, is your happiness along the way. You can spend an 11 hour flight to Dallas painfully counting the hours. Or you can take my lead, toast your plastic cup containing a cheap beer, and enjoy your flight as if you don't do it all the time.

Anyway it's time for calculus. Until next time...