Let It Rain

I haven't seen rain in quite some time. The fact that it rained all day long means: hey! It got above freezing! YEESSSSSS!
Reli was really, really interesting today. Really. We're discussing free will, and we got into one of neuroscience's favorite current theories: that all decisions are actually made in the subconcious before we conciously become aware of them. This means that all the reasons we think we have for these decisions aren't our actual reasons, because those reasons are concious. Naturally, a lot of people don't like this theory. I love it. Just because you make a decision subconciously doesn't mean you aren't responsible for it- it's just that we can't judge your decision based on motive, because motive is an afterthought, something we create to make us feel we've made the right decision. Our brains are great at justifying things- man, I had to spend most of Bio convincing myself that the choice to stay at school although I was so, so tired was the right choice. Anyone who's ever gotten in trouble knows that the first thing you do is try to find a beautiful reason or excuse to make your behavior seem less terrible. Thing is, nothing we do has reason. I figure, the sooner we quit searching for the "why" behind our "what," the sooner we can make some real progress in making the right decision, next time. The subconcious isn't stone- it changes as easily as our concious, we just don't know how to make it happen. But every kid learns that there are things you don't do, things with unpleasant consequences. The subconcious accepts this fact and makes decisions based on it. Sometimes it ignores the consequences, but it's not unaware of what the concious is aware of. In fact, the subconcious should be hyperaware of things the concious knows, by my logic. The problem is that people tend to feel the subconcious isn't Me- it's some puppeteer, some ancient collection of instincts and whatnot that, since we have no concious control over it, should be ignored or overridden as often as possible. What excites me about this whole subconcious-as-decision-maker thing the most is that it forces us to realize that our subconcious is still 100% Us, perhaps even moreso than our concious, without the constant attempts to fit into our world and be acceptable to others. Should we learn to accept our subconcious so fully, and understand it as the real drive behind our every thought and action, I can't begin to imagine what could happen. But it makes me excited, somehow.
Good thing Hampshire's got an amazing Cognitive Science Department.
(Update on the "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up" front, because things are moving around: the whole diplomat thing is still cool, but it's becoming my "acceptable" option. I kind of really (ignore the kind of) want to be an Event Manager, because that is about the most exciting job I can think of. Also, Brain Researcher, because this stuff gets me all worked up and interested in life again. Diplomacy seems kind of hard, in comparison?)

I tried really hard to stay awake in Bio, although this whole gene research thing really is interesting. I've realized that I crash completely in third and fourth periods- it is just the worst time of day for me, no matter the class. (9:35-11:05 is the time period) In America, they gave me lunch during that time, which I think helped a WHOLE lot. Here, I get two breaks, one 9:15-9:35, one 11:05-11:15, so on each end of my crash. Eating during these breaks doesn't help wake me up. After lunch is hard, too, but I think that's because German and Math are really boring.

Lunch break got off to a good start, though, with David and Robbie and Viktor discussing all sorts of flying machines: first it was using magnetic force, then there were sillier things like winged shoes, and there was a long discussion of Van Gogh's flying machines, and lots of other silly ideas that made me smile. They also compared Back to the Future's concept of 2015 with our current progress, and it turns out that we are a bit behind! Flying skateboard technology, it is time to get on The Ball!

Afternoon classes proved pretty boring. The one highlight came in German, while discussing some terrible Romantic poem about some Artist who points the way we should follow, a road from which no person returns.
Michi: So why doesn't anyone ever come back?
Robbie: Well, all the artists starve to death, of course.

First semester is done without fanfare, Olympics are progressing nicely (I apparently went from some too-soon results and US ended up with gold, not bronze, yesterday, so 5 Gold US! WHOOOOO!)