Philosophy of Monotony and Social Terrorism

I haven't blogged in what seems like a long time; today, my first day back on campus, I received inspiration. To my muses, thank you. Today, I will write!

I spent my Spring Break in Florida, and I'm glad I was able to be with friends and family. It was so good to go back home and appreciate experiences and personalities that I once took for granted. That whole epiphany caused me to think about monotony.

Humans tend to become idle/bored/dissatisfied with the commonalities of life, and this phenomenon is called monotony. During my 4 year stay in Florida, I seldom visited the beach, and I dreaded going because of the tourists and immense traffic. During Spring Break, however, I forewent the traffic and enjoyed the different people, their differing attires and accents. I actually missed the beach. I guess you really don't know what you have until it's gone.

I think there are different variations of monotony though. My dissatisfaction with the beach would be due to experience and therefore is more susceptible to be taken for granted as the experience promises to be there always. The other form of monotony is quite the paradox, and it is the focus of my blog today. This variation includes functions which are done repeatedly (hence monotony) without choice due to their necessity ie breathing, smelling, beating of the heart, sleeping, excreting waste, or farting. I think this type is most interesting and deserves a special term. I'll call it FNmonotony.

FNmonotony ought to be boring. It involves processes and actions which are done for an innumerable amount of times. Let me deviate for a moment. Viewers, I'm sure you all have a favorite restaurant/food/activity. When I was younger, I loved eggs. However, after eating them too much, their taste, texture, and even the sight of them became monotonous; I lost interest. I'm sure I ate eggs less than 50 times in my life, yet I lost interest. My point? The human heart beats between 2.5-3million times in a lifetime. The average human breathes 700,000 cubic inches of air daily. Therein lies my point! Ever get tired of breathing? Ever get tired of that beating in your chest every day? FNmonotony is a phenomenon. These things happen, yet few individuals become dissatisfied with them.

With that in mind, viewers, I submit to you that the process of monotony/dissatisfaction lies solely upon choice. We, humans, become dissatisfies with what we can choose, alter, manipulate, and ultimately control.

That's a heavy philosophical argument right there, if I do say so myself. Viewers, think about it, challenge it, and comment about it. I'm going to leave it as it is, since I think it's so powerful. By that I mean, I won't defend it as much, but I will go a little deeper into FNmonotony. This will involve a little intimacy. Viewers, I'm trusting you. We're going to get closer in this blog than we've ever been. We'll laugh, cry, and hopefully think-together. Here we go.

FNmonotony, unlike regular monotony, is even more perplexing because it becomes more interesting/desirable with time! I've been sleeping since birth, and with every passing day, I find that I can't wait to sleep MORE AND MORE. Okay. I'm going to attempt to narrow my thoughts down here and talk about my favorite FNmonotony which may seem a tad crude. Did I mention that we'd get intimate, viewers?

Farting-(n) To expel intestinal gas through the anus; break wind.
My favorite FNmonotony is farting. It's not my favorite in the sense that it's more important than the others in this category. It's my favorite because it's very versatile. Farts are like snowflakes- every one is unique. Some are big. Some are small. Some are smelly. Some are not. Some sound normal, and some are just plain strange. But the whole dynamic of farting changes upon your environment, I've discovered.

Farting is necessary. I don't know what happens if you just refuse to fart, and I don't want to find out. Nevertheless, it's socially unacceptible. Seriously, it's society frowns upon this bodily function. While breathing, eating, digestion, and heart beating are accepted, fart audibly during a meeting and see what kinds of looks you receive. This social displeasure is likely because humans are self interested. The often unpleasant olfactory sensation that hits the nose with this intestinal air often ruins people's moods. Anyway, it's unaccepted. The fact that it is rejected makes it so interesting though. Watch.

We've already established that farting audibly is unacceptible, but if a tree falls in the middle of a forest when no one is around, does it make a sound? Ladies and gentlemen who find worth in reading my blog, I will now give you the key that will unlock the door to infinite farting pleasure. I call it: T.A.F- Terrorist Anonymous Farting. Just bear with me.

These days, terrorists are pretty plentiful. They're everywhere. They're always on T.V., and they're notorious for taking lives. They seek densely populated areas to wreak havoc on humanity. "How does this relate to your FNmonotony and T.A.F" you ask? T.A.F involves densely populated areas whose functions are imposed on its inhabitants- ideally museums, airplanes, and art galleries. In these locations, people are usually focussed, serious, diligent, and in close quarters. To engage in T.A.F., once you've found such a situation, fit right in. Observe that piece of art, or flip open the Flight Satey Manual. Now, we all know that audible farts are frowned upon, so implement the anonomous fart- the expulsion of intestinal gas that is subtle and infrasonic yet accompanied by a wonderball like olfactory sensation. This "wonderball like olfactory sensation" means that, like a wonderball, you have NO CLUE what's in side. It may be smelly, tolerable, or silent but deadly. The silent but deadly ones are the best for T.A.F.s.

Make sure this desired densely populated area is filled with people you'll likely never see again. This removes any form of guilt. It's fool proof, and the reactions are PRICELESS. When I was at an art show, I mingled with the local art show. I slipped right in with the crowd, successfully completing the T.A.F. Before I knew it, I heard overt sniffing noises. Heads turned. Eyes widened. I, too, began to mimic these motions, and even made the *wide eyed, shoulder shrugged "I have no clue who could have done this" face*. Did I mention how priceless this FNmonotony was?

Well, there it is. That's my favorite FNmonotony- terrorist anonomyous farting. Vain? Yes. Immature? Likely. Necessary? Definitely. It's better to burp and bear the shamethan to hold it in and bear the pain. I'm just going to say that farting is the same as burping, just from the human basement, if you catch my drift.

Thanks for reading!

Do you agree on my concept of monotony and FNmonotony?
What's your favorite FNmonotony? Why?
Post the comments below!

My Date With Mei Lan

Last Monday (03/09/09), I was one of three individuals fortunate enough to win a raffle to attend Zoo Atlanta with the seniors in the Conservation Biology class. Below are the images from the trip. I added captions on some of them. Enjoy!

Random Thought

In a world like ours, everything is done quickly. Customers demand products at such a fast rate today that even places like fast food can deliver their items slowly. I was at taco bell last night, and it took the workers 5 WHOLE minutes to prepare my order of 2 burritos and nachos. I began to become frustrated and I nearly became angry. I had to check myself, and this made me wonder, "What are we coming to?"

The push to deliver items quickly has birthed what I call a modern marvel- vending machines. You can practically get anything from these rectangular shaped supermarkets these days, and if you live in Japan, your world just might revolve around these machines. In the US, as far as I know, you can get anything from snacks (chips, cookies, etc.) to chewing gum and ice cream. In Japan, however, the selection ranges from and includes snacks, neck ties, cigarettes, condoms, and even cars. How nifty, but there's a catch.

I've never been to Japan, but I know that here in the States, God bless it, companies have taken advantage of the convenience and quick service that vending machines provide by jacking up the prices of their items. This is especially true at Oglethorpe University. I don't know why a bag of chips should ever cost a whole dollar or why peanuts should cost 85 cents. When I visited Emory University, located 12-18minutes away from OU, the prices of chips were 50 cents! What a gip!
This definitely stifles any consumer incentive to use vending machines at all!

Anyway, my little rant is over.
I'd like to end on a good note and say there is one good thing about vending machines- especially REALLY old ones. The good thing is that they're really old. That means that you're more likely to get more "bang for your buck". Last summer as I drove back from History Fair, our group stopped at a rest stop. I paid 50 cents for a bag of bugles, and I got 3 bags! Talk about a gift from above.

Viewers, have you ever received such amazing luck?
What's the most interesting thing you're received from a vending machine, and where did you buy it?

Thanks for reading!

I Wish I were Cold

It's spring, and spring break is just around the corner. My last week of hell is over, and the sounds of chirping birds, lazy seniors whizzing Frisbees around, and the fact that I am shirtless at present reminds me of how warm I am. Boy do I prefer being cold than warm, and consequently, I've come to conclude that despite enjoying the leisure and endless opportunity during the 5+ day period that is spring break, I'll dread the heat that Florida promises to welcome me with. Be that as it may, I haven't blogged in a weeks time, and I've received numerous requests for another blog. In an effort to bridge the week long gap in my blogging life, I'm going to do something new which may turn out disasterous- a mass blog. Here goes!

On Saturday, March 28 I had the honor of attending the Dunwoody Rotary Club's Governor's Ball. This was an excellent opportunity for my friends and I to dress up, and engage in conversation with the influential movers and shakers in Atlanta. My evening was fantastic, and I learned a few important things about the prerequisites of being old and well to do in one's respective community. From my observations, there are 3 characteristics you MUST have:
You must:
1) Be able to effectively give and receive compliments which hold no meaning.
2) Be able to whistle out of your ass through dininig conversations
3) Be able to laugh in a most obnoxious manner while delivering most unhumourous jokes.

I'm sure everyone has encountered all of these characteristics during their respective lives in interactions with family members that you see once a year, likely during Thanksgiving or "Family Renunions", but I feel that I need to define the term Ass Whistling.
Ass whistling is a phenomenon which occurs when one speaks on a given topic (or if that person is a professional- EVERY topic) as though he/she is an expert in that field and even imparts erronous opinions on that respective topc.

Apart from that, the food was delicious, and I conversed with an Engineer who designed many of the buildings and structures in Atlanta since the 80's. We spoke about the need for more American Engineers. Oddly enough, foreign engineers who study in the U.S. tend to go back to their countries thus leaving America with a deficit of Americans. For you American engineers out there, keep it up. We need you.

I must be somewhat of a good ass whistler too. I know very little about engineering, but I was able to put in my 2 cents on the topic. He was very interested with my input, and we're scheduled to have a meeting this week. How cool is that? Needless to say, I need to brush up on my engineernig before this event.

Now for a little blood and mild gore.Last Friday in Bio lab was a most trying event. My group and I had the luxury of dissecting a brain dead frog. To begin the experiment, our Professor pithed the frogs brain and spinal cord- which means he, essentially, took a pin-like object, and scrambled the poor froggies brains and spinal cord. Ideally, after this event, the frog should be unable to feel. Our frog, seen in the image furthert to the left above, was quite the trooper, however.

Everytime my lab partner and I lifted the skin on the ventral side of him and began slicing away at him, he began to skwirm and wiggle! This, obviously, was not supposed to happen, so the frog was double and triple pithed, and his involuntary movements persisted every time I attempted to expose his heart. Eventually, I gave up. I couldn't cut him open. My lab partner had to, and we completed the lab where, once the heart was exposed, we punctured it's apex, and placed different drugs (acetyl choline, epinepherine and atrophine) on the frog's heart.
*The last chemical is italicized 'cuz I'm still not sure how to pronounce or spell it lol.

Well, my 1hr blogging time slot is about to come to a close as it's 3:55PM now. On Thursday of last week, however, I attended church with a friend. The topic was identity. We were each given a black stone to symbolize our imperfect identities and formed selves; everyone was asked to throw their imperfect identity away as a symbol of accepting a new and more perfect one that God would impart on them in time. It's a beautiful concept- whether you're religious or not.

I, however, decided to keep my stone. I'm not sure what my identity is as yet, so I'd like to know it before I let it go in order to more readily accept and appreciate a higher purpose in my life. So with the close of this blog, I'd like the viewers to ponder the following question(s):

What is your identity, and are you living the life you think you were designed for? How/Why?

As always, thanks for reading!

Van Flip Times a Thousand

WARNING- Today's blog may contain explicit content. Viewer discretion is advised.

It is 4AM, and I'm beat. Spring break is just around the corner, and while this may sound like a good thing, this is not the case directly. For students, spring break is a magical place filled with sunshine, rainbows, scantily clad females, and dudes with washboard abs, like myself, but for college professors, spring break is a far more than a 1 week break. It is a highly functional phrase that serves as a mental alarm which triggers unforeseen amounts of papers, exams, and quizzes coupled with minimal leniency. Watch closely.

My spring break alarm will sound on March 13, 2008. My professor's spring break alarm sounded last week. DID YOU CATCH THAT? You probably didn't. One might ask, "Well Erik, how do you know this?" Here's how- I've got 2 papers due Thursday, a Biology exam next Monday, and an Art and Culture exam next Thursday. Boom. Spring break transforms every college professor into a giant beast who seeks to squeeze every ounce of academic life force out of you so that the days before your break is as awful as humanly possible. If you care to know what my week before spring break will look like, scroll up and focus on the largest of the 3 images above. Get a good look. See it? Chances are- your week will look something like that also.

The the increased work load before breaks, whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring or Summer, causes increased anxiety in the student body. Viewers, brace yourselves. I'm about to make a conjecture so powerful and voluminous that it deserves to be a law. I call it The Law of Undergraduate Students which states the following "Undergraduate students seldom keep their problems to themselves and seek to publicize their issues/struggles/complaints in a manner that adds to other people's issues." Phew. That's a mouthful. What I'm getting at is this- around this busy time where everyone has a series of seemingly infeasible tasks to complete, colleges are filled with complainers. Since no one likes to keep their problems to themselves, expect your peers to pour out unimaginable complaints even if you don't ask to hear about it. Even the most strong willed and adamant individual will fall prey to this onslaught. Know how?

FACEBOOK

Facebook is the floodgate that EVERY student will use to complain. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new here. But it's not the means that people use to complain that I find amusing- It's the generalized way that people choose to express their completely different and unique problems. It's amazing really. You've probably noticed this also. Somehow, somewhere, by some means of which I'm not sure, students have figured out that ALL of their problems can be neatly fit into a most time efficient acronym- FML.

Here comes the inadvertant profanity.
For those of you that don't know:
FML = Fuck My Life.

But what does this mean?

Well, people have been fucking for centuries, to be frank. If people didn't we all wouldn't be here. Now, in our advanced age, the F-word, as I called it in middle school, can be used as a noun and adjective but never as an adverb, to my present knowledge. Be that as it may, somehow fucking came to my life. And it came to yours, too. And since then, cyberspace, especially Facebook, has never been the same.

I have loads of friends, whom I love. I love to talk, walk, eat, sit, watch, etc. with them. But for argument's sake, viewers, lets suppose fuck is a friend. If fuck was a person, I'd imagine he'd be the kind of friend I always want to avoid. I'd never eat with fuck, and I probably would never, voluntarily, talk to fuck. One thing's for sure- I never would fuck fuck, not even for Fuck's sake. That's how bad fuck is. By saying, "FML", as far as I understand it, you're inviting fuck into your life. Or maybe he's already there! And just like a feline, he's peed over every hope and aspiration you once held dear. The end result - he's fucked your life, and you've given up all hope.

I think sometime in the future, FML will transend its mainstream use by adolescents and undergraduate students. I think professionals of every discipline will observe this term and see something special about it. Heck. I think it'll make it to the Oxford Dictionary. I think FML will eventually have its own index. Just like for pollen or UV radiation, there'll be some months where the FML index will be particularly high. In fact, the FML index is quite moderate right now, and I'm willing to forecast that by this time next week the FML index will be in the RED, expecially in the Georgia area.

Keep your eyes peeled for this, viewers since you're now in the know. Mark my words, towards the end of next week FML will be in everyone's Facebook status. Now that you know about this social phenomenon, don't get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of the moment. Use FML with discretion. Please. If anything, use this troublesome time to practice sublimation. Turn your fucked life into something more warm and cozey. Take a walk. Ride a bike. Read your respective religious book. And if you're married- fuck :)


Thanks for reading, viewers!
It is now 4:53AM, and I'm even more beat than before.

Has your life been fucked? Are you addicted to using FML? Am I completely wrong in my analysis? You know what to do. Please leave comments below.

Always First in Last Place

Today was a great day with far too much to write about now at 3:33AM, but I won't sleep until I birth this segmented part of the whole day from my brain to blog format. Earlier tonight I had a conversation with my French friend who just broke up with her boyfriend. She broke up with him because he was, essentially, too nice. What a travesty. This is nothing new in the realm of male and female relations, however. Relationships begin, and breakups happen with a certainty that parallels the suns celestial movements, but something about this conversation stuck. I need to blog about this because I need viewer feedback. This is a big one folks, so before you read onwards, I hope you're seated. Brace yourselves.

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST.

There, I said it. Rather- there, I quoted it. This cliche has been repeated, I'd imagine, far before my birth, but it's such an irksome and troublesome phrase. Why? Because I'm a nice guy (or so I've been told). I first heard this phrase in middle school, and it's given me trouble since. My French friend said that girls are attracted to bad and rebellious guys.

[At this point in my post, I feel it's necessary to say that the people on the floor above me are having sex. The frequent squeaks from the bed frame and moans make this the only logical conclusion. ]

Where was I? Oh yes. She said that females are attracted to the "bad guys", but ultimately want to marry a "nice guy". This concept utterly confuses me, and leaves me to conclude that women are complex, confused, backwards, and interesting individuals. Wouldn't it just make more sense to cut to the chase and pursue relations with a guy you'd like in the long run? It only makes sense. But then again, I have a male brain.

Well, just like the sun's celestial movements, I feel that this situation is fixed. No amount of blogging I do will change this confound. I really won't feel satisfied with ending this blog like this though. I need to blame someone- anyone, and who better than Hollywood? I'm convinced that if it wasn't for Hollywood and it's deep influence in the media, the world would be completely different. It would be quite the lovely place, actually. In this utopia, nice guys would finish first, and bad guys would realize that if they don't change their mindset, they'll end up last. In this utopia, nice guys won't need a tragic event/accident/mishap to be noticed by their desired female as is the case in most Hollywood films because their niceness will shine forth as the sun's rays after a sultry rainy day in Atlanta.

Somehow, I'm still doubtful and perhaps Panglossian. Do nice guys really finish last? Is society fixed in this skewed and faulty paradigm? Help me out here, viewers. Post your comments below.

At last, the blog is complete, and so is the sex on the floor above. With that, goodnight, all, and thanks for reading!