Reactions

As you all may or may not know, I am a girl in mechanical engineering. I'm not making myself to be special or superior to any other person in any other program but it's just a fact of life that you don't see that every day.

When you meet people, you obviously have to go through the small talk of school and what program you're studying. It's inevitable. I think asking people what book they're currently reading is a much more interesting form of small talk. I am going to make that a thing. But of course, when I tell people what I'm studying, I get THE BEST reactions. They're usually extreme and there's always the typical ones but I've gotten some pretty atypical ones. Since I get a kick out of them, I figured you dudes might too and this is what the rest of this post entails.

1. Wide eyes. This is usually when they're trying to mask the fact that they had a reaction altogether and go on to regular answer like "Oh, are you liking it?" and "Are you living in residence?"

2. "I'm so glad there are people like you..." This comes from people who can't believe anyone would want to continue doing math voluntarily. They kind of make a joke where they're thankful that "people like me" exist because if it were up to them to do what I will be doing once
I graduate the world would start crumbling in on itself.

3. Genuine questions. There are people who know a few things about the classes I'm taking and ask how I'm finding them and all that. I like giving them feedback.

4. The future-thinkers. These are the same people that always asked what you were going to major in back when you were in high school. Now that you've got that pretty much cemented in, they move on to the next big milestone: your career. You are asked what you plan to do with your degree and where you'd like to live and basically all the questions that make you want to go back to kindergarten where everything was safe and certain.

It's always the creepy old people too

5. BOYS. WINK. This reaction is by far the creepiest and kind of the most insulting. This is where they point out that engineering is mostly filled with people with XY chromosomes. They ask for ratios of girls to guys in your classes, and, inevitably, talk about how easy it will be for me to find a boyfriend. Like whoa, who has time for a love life when you're taking these kinds of classes. That is definitely not my number one priority.

6. Doom predictors. These people know of other people who also decided that they could handle becoming an engineer but ended up doing really badly or dropping out or switching to a different program and on the outside I'm all like cool story bro but on the inside I freak out because it's not like I was a child prodigy or anything I've had to work hard and what if it's not enough and my entire life falls to pieces before my eyes.

Your turn! Tell me about the funniest or most insulting or best reactions to whatever you're doing with your life!

Say NO to Mind Reading

If you are randomly asked which super power you'd want if you could have any one, chances are that mind reading comes to mind. And who wouldn't love to know exactly what your friends thought or all the deepest darkest secrets of your coworkers. In theory, it's pretty sweet.

Now, think about what this actually means. You will be able to hear in your own head whatever is running through the minds of however many people who are within a certain radius of you. All those thoughts will be piled up on top of each other as each person's separate inner monologue takes place within your brain. And they never go quiet, do they?

Here's an example of what is literally running through my brain while I'm in the middle of typing this:

what if I have don't have anything interesting to say I mean think obviously cause it's in my brain but anyway oh snap I need to study for my math test it's in let's see today is friday because I have youth group tonight and we're doing something with toilet paper kinda interesting sounding I hope Jason is there but then the next day is saturday then sunday then monday so technically three more days and I totally forgot what happened before christmas break was that trig functions or maybe rates but we did rates with every type of function but we had to learn it at some point wait wasn't there that thing with an h that equaled zero what if it's on the exam and I can't remember how to use it

This has probably gone on long enough for you to get a glimpse of how you just literally think things non stop and they run into each and overlap and jump all over the place. And that's just the main part, there's other things like the song you have stuck in your head plus maybe a part of you that's processing what's going on around you.

I really don't think a person could stay sane with all these intimate thoughts from so many people they might not even know happening inside their head. Would you even be able to distinguish your own thoughts amidst the foreign ones?

ALL the words

Not to be the party pooper, I was just thinking of how seriously unfun that super power would be when it comes down to the finite details that no one actually thinks to think about.

Audition Rant

I need to rant.

So I've been part of my church's worship team for perhaps 5 or 4 years. And it's all been swell. But now, they've decided that we need auditions for anyone to join it and to be fair everyone has to audition if they want to be a part of it, even the people who have been on it the entire time.
This is basically a way to get rid of the people that suck in the roundabout manner that doesn't involve the people in charge just having a simple talk with them.
I am not worried about not getting in, this is not the issue here. I just don't think we need to elite-ize this. To have the people that were good enough and the people that aren't. This is about the worship, not the performance. As long as the message gets through to the congregation, does it really matter if someone messes up sometimes or if the keyboard player is only playing simple chords?
Also, I actually don't have a clue who is going to be cut. Like, everyone who is on the team has musical talent or else they wouldn't feel confident enough to join. This is not like American Idol where you might become famous at the end of it or will get some TV time if you are ridiculous. You are working so that other people might having a pleasant experience and you don't do that unless you feel like you'd be good at it. So there basically is no point to doing this since the end result will be all the same people.
UNLESS some people get so annoyed (kinda like me) with this whole necessary process that they decide it's not worth it to audition and comply with this decision. So, in that case, you end up losing otherwise awesome parts of the team which, in turn, puts more pressure on the remaining people since you need to cover for the loss. And it's not like our team is massive and a half. We have enough to alternate each Sunday so that you get a break every second week. Who knows what it might turn in to.

Anyways, I'll be auditioning, since I actually like singing but I really don't understand this idea at all.