Challenges

Hi again

The other night I left my phone at a friend's place, and had to live three days without a phone. So I started thinking, that in today's world it is quite challenging to live without a phone. People are used to having the internet with them in the phone, and they're used to being always connected to other people, always being available, always being able to check anything online when they need to. Or feel like it. (I am sure I will talk more about this later on, but I did not plan this post to be about how people are addicted to communication and connections and the availability.)
As is turns out, it wasn't challenging for me at all. There were some inconveniences, like not having a clock you could see in the middle of the night, but the only person who tried to contact me during those few days was my flute teacher, who had to cancel our lesson. This caused me to drive around in a bus for an hour and a half to go to the lesson I didn't know I didn't have instead of studying for my philosophy exam, which was a bigger challenge than the phonelessness (what do you mean it's not a word?).

So, it was my first exam in almost two years, and first during my university time that wasn't maths, meaning it was an exam for which the studying is reading. And I suck at remembering what I've read, unless it's a book that has a story. For some reason the slides our teacher put in the internet that were the only material for the exam did not have a story. They had a lot of names of people and groups of people that think the same way, and what they thought. Not something I'd be great in remembering, especially because I don't find the thoughts interesting, but the ideas. So I was afraid my exam would go something along the lines of this:

Q: I am George Berkley. You may have heard of me. What were the main points in my philosohpy?

A: Umm.... Yeah, your name does ring a bell.... Which one were you again? Oh, right, that's the question. I think you're the bishop.

Probably not the way to phrase questions in a philosophy exam, but you get the point. Anyway, it turned out it was easier than I thought, because I didn't actually have to remember names of people, just different groups. That said I still wrote one of the worst essays of my life. And that is a lot said, since I also suck at writing essays.

Moving on to other kinds of challenges.

I have two challenges for you.

1. No candy until New Year. You heard me. I will do this with you. I challenge you to not eat candy for the next three months, chocolate included. Chocolate in pastries is ok, but not on it's own. Also, pastries are ok. We'll make a separate ruling for anything that's not clear whether it's candy or not.

2. There is something I will try to include in every one of my blog posts. Figure out what it is. If I for some reason have not included it in a post, I will say it in the post in question. And yes, that something is included in the first two posts.

Quite a short post today, but I guess it's enough challenges for the week.

~matu