Well, what a week it has been. (And Science Recap of the Week!)

(Skip this first part if you want to, it's mostly just a rant about nothing.) I'm sure its not just me that thinks that this week was filled with lots of things in the news that hit a little too close to home. Let's just recap this week in the news for a second:

• Monday:
• Boston Marathon Bombings
• Tuesday:
• Mail sent to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) tested positive for ricin
• Wednesday:
• More ricin letters, this time to President Obama
• Fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX
• Thursday:
• MIT police officer shot in the line of duty, leads to a manhunt that extends into Friday for suspects in the bombings that happened on Monday.

All this happens in the foreground of our lives, while several things were less noticed:

• North Korea still does some crazy shit. They say they are ready to deal, as long as they are recognized as a nuclear nation. They demanded that the South Koreans apologize, and to stop defaming the DPRK. They reject aid that a group of South Korean businessmen tried to send their colleagues in a joint industrial zone. They demand to have sanctions lifted, so that they will talk to the United States in negotiations.
• 75 people died in a wave of bombings in Iraq on Monday, 27 on Thursday.
• There was a 7.8 earthquake in Iran.
• Bird flu kills two people in Shanghai.
• 16 people are injured in a bomb blast in Bangalore.
• New Zealand legalizes same-sex marriages.
• 30 migrant workers in Greece are shot by a farm supervisor on a strawberry farm.

Holy shit that's a lot of stuff that happened this week. One thing that I thought of, however, is that it kinda doesn't match up to what is happening around the world. Yes, it's a major event, and I care deeply about everything that happened. I am deeply moved by the people willing to help everyone that is affected by the events of this week. But I am also wondering about why we don't give the same weight to everything that happens around the world. I know the reason: the reason is that we are more overwhelmed this week is because this stuff happened one after another in a place that we weren't accustomed to it happening: home. We are reminded that it's not just stuff that's happening a world away from us. I even have a friend that attends MIT. I don't know anybody affected by the earthquakes in Iran or the shooting in Greece or the earthquake in Iran.I guess that's part of the human condition: we care about things we relate to. We'd be overwhelmed if we cared about everything ever. I get that. But whatever. It's just something I've been thinking about. (/rant)

Now on to a section that I'm personally excited about: Science Recap of the Week! I'll post a study published that week that I find interesting, and give my two cents about it. It's mostly to force myself to read more sciencey things, but I thought it would be interesting to share it.

Anyways, without further ado, this week's article, courtesy of  Dr. Kareken of the Indiana University School of Medicine:

• The taste of beer causes a chemical reward in the male brain.

This is a really cool study, published this week among the madness, if you want to read it. If you don't have access to Nature, or can't read science,  this is a good summary. You could probably explain it away using Pavlovian methods: people who get drunk off beer feel good from the dopamine. The body associates the taste of the beer to the release of dopamine in the body. A small taste of the beer would then convince the body to release dopamine. The interesting part is that people who are predisposed to alcoholism actually release more dopamine than people who aren't. The significance of that fact is truly outstanding, and could lead to further understanding of alcoholism as a disease.

Expectations and Reality

I honestly think I'm going insane. But that's not this post is about. It's about Coca-Cola.

So UMCP is a Pepsi/Dr Pepper organization. Whenever I get soda here, it's a Pepsi/Dr Pepper product. Mountain Dew, Crush, Pepsi. That's it. I honestly haven't had a Coca-Cola product in like a year. Until last night. I wanted something to drink because it was really warm outside, but I couldn't choose between Sprite or Coke (since I haven't had one in so long), so I decided to get a Sprite. In my mind, I totally thought it was going to taste awesome. But it didn't really match what I thought and I said out loud, "I should have gotten the Coke." My friend heard me and basically just replied "Nah man, you probably would have said the same thing if you got the Coke." That got me to thinking: We hype up everything so much in our minds to the point where it's impossible to match it when the real thing comes along.
It's not only soda. It's everything in life. I realize I'm more disappointed in things, even when they turn out okay because I'm expecting them to be so much more than just okay. They need to be AWESOME. But my mind constantly plays out scenarios where good things will happen to me, only for them to not happen in real life. My head canon is so much of a better story than real life. At least things have closure. Stories end well in our minds and on paper, but never in the real world. It kinda sucks. But I've been trying to break that cycle. It's not if the story sucks or not that's important: It's what you make of the situation. Things will always happen that I can't control, and I just have to be okay with that. But that'll take some effort.

Oh and I totally read yesterday's post and it was super depressing and confusing. Sorry. That's what stress does to a mind.

Empty Boxes and More

So I'm supposed to be studying right now for Organic Chemistry. I have an exam on Thursday about stereochemistry of alkene reactions, substitution/elimination reactions, and whatever else I haven't been paying any attention to. And yet I'm here. Writing this. I wish that I had it in me to go study, but I just can't. Or won't. I don't know.
I got to thinking today: my life is separated into these neat little boxes: my family, my friends (subcategorized into littler boxes), and my academics. But sometimes I feel as if some boxes I thought were full were actually empty. Like my box for my organic chemistry knowledge. When test time rolls around, I rummage in that box only to find two paper clips and a pack of gum. Like that'll help me understand whether an osmium tetroxide reaction is syn or anti (it's syn, for those playing at home).
Then there are the boxes I wish had stuff in them. It's like I carefully label the box, make sure that it's a decent size and durability, and then realize that I never had anything to place in the box to begin with. And then I feel confused inside. Sometimes it feels like I'm constantly making boxes, forever to be empty. (Wow, I'm really driving this metaphor into the ground, aren't I?) I always feel like I'm on the brink of something new and exciting, only to be held back by my inability to move forward. But this is getting off topic.
It was really warm in College Park today. (I'm just going to move to a different topic.) Like 80 degrees after a string of windy 40 degree days. It was a nice change, but it was a little too warm, you know? I kept saying it all day, but it really did feel like I was in summer camp today. It brought back memories of when I was in middle school and I went to this one summer camp for acting. Just thinking about it made me kinda sad. I mean, when we were young, we didn't have to think about what we had to do in order to be successful. Now, I have to live every day thinking that even one screwup can ruin what I'm working towards. I don't even know what I'm working towards. When I think about my future, it's completely dark. Just a dark room with empty boxes and a label maker.

Well that was depressing. And confusing. But I feel I had to write it, just to get it off my chest. Whatever. Back to studying.

Well this is a thing now.

Yup. This blog is a real thing. Well I guess "real" isn't how I would put it. It exists now. There.

Anyways, I feel blogs always start with a "I am writing this for a particular reason." Well screw that. I'm terrible at that. This is probably going to go by the wayside anyways and I'll be back to doing my regular thing and not even thinking about this. But I don't know, it's good to have a way to work things out. Typing them out and letting the internet know is a good thing. (Sometimes. Like if I wrote down my social security number and mother's maiden name that would be a bad thing. Don't steal my passwords please. Thanks.) Even if one dude in Uzbekistan is the only guy reading this (Hi! So you're from Uzbekistan, huh? How is that country? I've never been. Also, I didn't know Uzbek is a real language until I just Googled Uzbekistan. Sorry.), or if the entire world is, I'll write the same way. Because I probably won't write here after like a week anyways.

So I'm sitting here on my bed in my dorm room doing my Organic Chemistry Lab pre-lab, in the hour break I get today between classes, for a lab starting in three hours. This has become almost something of a regular occurrence for me, to be doing work, especially for this lab, less than 5 hours before it's due. That got me to thinking why? Why is it that we procrastinate? But then it dawns on me that its usually just lab that I procrastinate for. Not for my weekly online quizzes, not for my Organic Chemistry lecture homework, just lab. Maybe it's just that I dislike lab.

Isn't that counter-intuitive, though? I put off doing something I dislike in a spread out amount of time, where each bite is just bearable, only so I can cram it all down to a large portion of things that I can't handle. I feel I do better work when I procrastinate, but that's probably just because I am actually concentrated when I'm doing the work as if I don't procrastinate, I'm not putting in the same effort.

Well, it's time for class, so I guess that's where I'll stop. But yeah, procrastination is weird.