Sunday, April 26, 2009

Thoughts during a concert

So the SCSU orchestra, including myself, played a concert last night. A good concert. However, the orchestra only played for half of it, so after playing I went and joined my friends in the audience. Despite the fact that the concert was good, what this blog is really about is how I think during a concert.

My favorite part about going to see concerts is that music doesn't need to take up all of the space in your mind. You can zone out, still enjoy the piece, but think about random things as well. I've noticed I tend to think of some really random things. This last concert, for no reason at all, I started thinking about mechanical limbs. What if you lost your arm in some tragic accident but you were able to get a fully functional robotic arm? What would you want it to be like? Personally, I decided during the concert that if I had to have one, one of the requirements would be that it would have to have a full range of motion beyond what my normal arm can already do. For instance the elbow should bend backwards just as well as it can forward, the shoulder and wrist should rotate, I want to be able to effectively scratch my back with it!

I also thought during the concert, would having a spring loaded blade in your fake arm help or hurt? Cause it would be a grand defense, but you'd never be able to bring your arm past security checkpoints, or it would be confiscated by police if they for some reason had to search you. It would be considered a weapon on campus, so either you'd have to hide the fact that there is a blade in your arm (depending on the design that may be very easy or very hard) or you'd have to live without that arm (though you could get another, blade-less arm I suppose.. but where's the fun?).

Also, if the arm with which your non-dominant hand was attached would be better as a robotic arm, would you gave surgery to switch them?? I think the only reason I wouldn't is that I don't think I could successfully play the viola anymore. However if I could, with such an arm, I'd totally consider it.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Good day

So today was a good day,

It was much warmer today then it was say, yesterday or the day before. I got to wake up a little bit later, seeing as it's tuesday and I don't have lab until 10. Said lab was short and easy. After that I grabbed a buffalo chicken wrap from World of Wings, ate that during my hour break between labs, enjoyed it immensely, then headed for zoology lab. We dissected sea stars today. They're really cool inside. They're skeleton looks mechanical, like their some sort of organic machine. And their ring canal (a ring structure around their mouth) looks like a stargate. I also sit at a table with a really cool group of people who are all talkative and like to joke around. We name the animals we dissect. My sea star's name was cannabidude cause he was shaped like a cannabis leaf. And melissa named her's patrick, after the spongebob patrick. I did laundry today so it felt like a productive day. I went to a dodgeball game tonight around 8, but we were creamed 4 to 1. But I've been in such a good mood today I was acutally able to say "well it was a fun game anyways right?" I took a nice calming shower, so I feel all clean and happy. It's just been an awesome day! Sorry to bore you all with positive things instead of the negative stuff everyone likes to read =P