Thank you, brain

     I was putzing around the house this week, getting chores done, cleaning up, and generally minding my own business, when this happened:

For some reason, even though I do my best to keep a general schedule in mind to ensure I don't miss preparations for major events, my brain has a tendency to suddenly realize the immanency of random things. It doesn't even have to be something big- I'll occasionally have a moment where my brain forgets what day it is, and I'll be dead convinced that I'm late for work or class or something... only to realize that no, that's tomorrow, calm down and keep doing whatever it was I was doing.

FTP 39 - Road rage

     On my way to my internship this week (clear on the other side of Denver), I suddenly noticed that the car that had been following me a comfortable distance back had mysteriously been replaced my the grill of an SUV that was probably centimeters from my back bumper. Traffic was pretty decent, and we were all doing about 5 mph over the speed limit (because who puts a 55 mph limit on an open, 3-lane highway?), so I wasn't really sure why I was being gestured and shouted at as if I were a snail on the Autobahn.

     Since there was a car about 5 feet ahead of me in the middle lane, I didn't really want to slide over to get out of crazy lady's way, just to have to slam on the breaks when I got there. Instead, I figured I'd keep going til there was a clearing, and then get out of her way. Mind you, I have a bit of a wide following distance, but I was keeping pace with the car in front of me, so it's not like I was holding things up.

Drawing again, maybe

     Every so often, I get bored with myself and start something new. Recently, as I've mentioned before, I've had a desire to start drawing again. After a couple days of self-critique and debasement, I went back and looked at how I was drawing when I stopped doing so regularly (back in Dec of 2011, if you can believe it's been that long), and you know what? I'm kinda proud of what I was doing. I pulled out all my old drawing stuff, and found a sketch of this:

I have less than no idea what I was thinking or feeling when I drew it, but I figured I'd finish it up so as to make room for new drawings.

     My randomness of output isn't just in drawing, however. When I first started my current job- which entails scanning old documents for hours on end- the thought crossed my mind: I wonder what would happen if you put one end of a massive roll of paper into a scanner? Would it just feed forever and make the longest scan in history, or would it eventually realize that something is amiss and stop? Naturally, I wouldn't do so to an active, well-working and necessary scanner at a jobsite, but I'm curious.

     So standing at the scanner again today, another thought wandered across my mind: If you were to put a taser up against an electrical machine and fire it off, would it a) fry the circuit boards (most likely), b) ground itself out on the frame (not as likely, but possible, depending on the machine), or c) set the plastic on fire? Obviously this is another idea that I wouldn't put to the test unless I had lots of safety precautions and an old, beat-up, not-in-use machine to try it on, but I'm curious. Perhaps it's best to just not let myself get bored...

Cheers!

FTP 38 - Chasing dreams

Since I was young, I knew I wanted to work with languages.

When I was let go from my job five years ago and decided to go back to school, I knew it was the first step to making those dreams come true.

When I sat in my first language class and realized how much I had to learn, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but hoped it would be worth it.

When it hit me that I only had one semester left before I would have to go out and prove myself, I won't lie, I panicked a little.

Tipping points

     When I was in elementary school, I remember there being this huge push to get people to realize that littering wasn't cool. We had special speakers come to our classrooms and talk about how throwing your trash out the window of your car wasn't good for the environment (a word you rarely heard used back then), and that the government was making effort to increase the number of trash cans around. After a little bit, though, it wasn't enough to have trash bins around, and we were educated on how to use recycling bins. Everyone felt big and important because we were doing our part to help save the planet (also a new concept back then).

     I didn't really connect what was going on in school with the real world though, until one day I realized that something was wrong. I'd become accustomed to watching the trash on the side of the road while my parents drove, and seeing what interesting items I could identify out as we drive past. This was a pretty common sight back then:

It wasn't that people didn't see it, it had just been such an integral part of the scenery for so long that they forgot (or didn't care) that it was important. It was a fact of life: people threw trash out the window of their cars because that was more sanitary than keeping it within the vehicle, right?