Connect

Unusual experiment 3:

Today’s plan is to connect to 50 people I haven’t talked to in over 6 months. I am going email, chat, call and use facebook to reach out to friends, acquaintances, contacts, professors, ex managers. I understand now that this might not be very unusual for a lot of people.

But to me it is unusual on two counts. One, I haven’t reached out to these people in over 6 months and sometimes over a year. Two, you have to admit that 50 is a pretty aggressive number taking into account that I have a full time job and a life after work.

50 turned out to be too aggressive. But I did end up hitting 35.

No food day

Unusual experiment 1: No food day

For the first day, I thought Ill start with something easy. To go 24 hours without eating food. Its already been 14 hours. I started at 8.30 pm yesterday night and now its 10.15 am. The next 10 hours do look dreadfully slow, but I am determined. Since I also have to be at work I am tanking up on coffee and diet coke.

So now its 2.15 pm and I am at 18 hours and going strong. 6 more hours do not look that difficult anymore. I guess going 24 hours without food isn’t a big deal. I am guessing it would have been easier if I was completely occupied. Right now I am surrounded by food and I can dig in if I wanted to, so it makes it a little difficult, but still very doable. Resisting temptation is a decent exercise.

And it is 6.25pm right now. Which means that I still have another 2 hours to go.  I never knew that going without food for 24 hours was so easy. I wonder if I killed off a few brain cells in the process. It just feels as though there is something stuck in my throat for some reason.

I also really really want to eat, just because I cant. Its like someone tying your hands behind your back when you really want to scratch your nose.

Alright. So thats done. Fairly straightforward. At least I know no one dies without eating for 24 hours.

Ten unusual things

Starting today. I am going to do 1 unusual thing each day for the next 10 days. This experiment has two purposes.

1. To prove to my good friend that I am still as unconventional and creative as I was 4 years back and

2. To prove to myself that I have the ability to stick to my commitments, irrespective of how difficult or odd that task is.

Ill blog each day about the success or failure of my unusual attempt. But I will attempt the task.

A day like today

Is something you dream about. Well you dream about it  when you are really young and then when you grow up you discard such childish fantasies. But still I had to write it because it was so different yet so cool. I guess my readers are aware by now my primary means of making money on campus is to volunteer as a research subject for various researches. Today I volunteered for a research with the neuroscience department. The research consisted of me looking at pictures and rating them. Guess what the picture was

Women! I got paid today, and pretty well, for looking at pictures of models and rating the way they looked. Can you believe that? I wonder if there are more researches like that.

Everyday I am amazed with my experiences here. I am exposed to researches, beliefs, cultural traits, customs and environments that I thought never existed. Like students playing with a Frisbee in the middle of the campus in the evenings. Like people running around without their shirts around campus for exercise. Bathrooms where everyone has to take a bath together! BBQs and music on the main campus lawn. I wonder where all the teachers and profs disappear to during these events. Or maybe they don’t, they too walk around in their shorts and mingle with the students and blend in. The culture accepts anything and everything goes. I can walk into campus with a huge purple hat and not be given a second look. Couple of days back I found people walking around in togas for a party which had I guess a roman theme. And everyone is invited to these parties.

Tonight I am going for a dance. The homecoming dance. homecoming is something I have read about in Archie comics and watched on teenage movies. Tonight will be my first exposure to a homecoming dance. Wine and deserts will be provided. And the dance is in the gym. Scheduled from 9:30 in the night till 1:00 in the morning. Ill get back and blog about what a homecoming dance is all about.