B.O.- Broken Olfactometer

So it's the last day of January, can you believe it? I myself am amazed how fast time flies by when I'm not looking. Before I know it I'm going to have a test to take and homework to turn in. Technically I have a homework assignment, but the due date is open ended for now (that's how well my professor sticks to a course schedule...heh). That class is interesting, in its own unique way. It's held in our department's sole computer lab on the top floor of a building constructed who knows how long ago and with radiators that never seem to shut off. Literally, it will be up of 80 degrees in that lab and the only way to cool it down is to shut the windows and turn on the window AC unit. Oh yes, we can't open the windows to cool the room off because that will only make the radiator work harder to keep the room heated, thus pumping even more hot air. Sigh, it is quite the enigma, as all old buildings seem to be. The interesting part of the class comes into play when this room is packed full (it was supposed to be held in a larger classroom which got booked for some other class), and I mean every computer has a student sitting with it. Well, I really don't want to be too harsh, but some of the students in our class do not make use of this lovely thing called deodorant...So, about 20 or 30 minutes into class when we're all packed in there with the windows shut and the AC turned off (yes, off or else we can't hear our professor speak), a distinct smell of body odor starts permeating the air. It's not bad enough to run out of the room and gag, but it's enough that focusing on class material and writing notes becomes much harder because I'm also trying to ignore a smell that just won't go away. Ahh, the many joys of learning.


I think I mentioned I'm reading The Black Swan in a previous post. If I didn't, I'm reading The Black Swan, technically "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Courtesy of Amazon, "A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives."

The thing is, I'm only about half way done reading it (I've been reading pretty regularly for over a month, 'course I'm a slow reader) and it still has my full attention. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is I like about this book so much, but I enjoy the ideas this author has to share every time I pick it up and start reading again. I'll admit that I have to be in the mood for a nonfiction book, I can't just pick them up like candy and start eating it. This one seems to have me held in interest though. It's always fun to read novels like Twilight (yes, it's awesome), The Hunger Games series, or Mistborn series, they take you away to another place and it's almost like a mini vacation from whatever hurdles your day is handing you. Yet, I feel better a lot of the time when I read a nonfiction book (and enjoy it). It feels as if I'm learning something new, or seeing something from a new perspective that I hadn't thought about before. The fiction books are really like trashy tv shows that you make an effort to read instead of watch which actually puts them far above tv shows since you're using more than just a neuron to read and interpret words on a page. My point is that they don't really benefit me with anything other than an interesting twist on the world which will probably never happen. I'm not trying to put a damper on fiction here, but if I get the same enjoyment out of a nonfiction book, then I feel a little better about this world, the one we live in. I'm not sure I can put it all into words, but hopefully you catch my drift at least a little bit. If all we had were boring nonfiction books (a lot of them currently but not all) then no one would want to learn history or know anything about this world other than their tiny bubble they live in. Thankfully this is not the case and we do see some great things about this world, very interesting and noteworthy stuff that needs writing down so others can read about it in the future.

I really hope that whole paragraph made some sense.

Unfortunately for you, the reader, I'm writing this pretty late at night (late for me) and so I can't guarantee any sense of what transfers from my brain to my fingers to the keyboard. My only hope is that it's not complete malarkey, such a fun word, malarkey..look it up ;)

Happy Tuesday in 15 minutes!