Pre(r)amble
OK, we are rolling with our first post. Currently, nobody is forecast to be watching this blog other than myself for a while now. I've been wanting to create this for a while but I wasn't sure of how I wanted to organize things and whether I even had thoughts that were worth writing about (and you cannot trust a person who is too lazy to check her bank account for an e-transfer to set up and write an entire blog) (my bank balance has since been depleted down to 20 dollars by a vigilante agency with a number from Arizona who somehow got to know that ISIS had stolen my identity and demanded a money transfer to prove to the Canadian police that I'm innocent, also to retain my Chinese citizenship that I didn't realize I had)(Spoiler alert: I didn't get my Chinese citizenship back and the Canadian police are still on my trail, just at Canadian police speed).
So. What do I plan to write about other than barely-coherent ramblings about scammers? I've tried to organize the remainder of this post in a way that touches on some of the key points that you'd probably want to know if you're interested in sticking around. Feel free to read as much or as little as you want, but I'll go into what to expect, what my motivation for making this blog is, and an unnecessarily dramatic outro.
Also, the image that comes with this blog post is one of Lake Ontario, taken while I was at my hometown: Toronto! This picture was taken on a day that, unbeknownst to me, ended up being really special and emotional. And who knows, maybe one day I'll look back on June 2, 2024 that way.
Comedy show
I also want to start a comedy show and I think that if I have this sub-website dedicated to it, when people scan a QR code on a poster (that I'm yet to design), they'll come here and my show will get more traction. I'm hoping to eventually do it at a twice-per-semester cadence, if this first run goes well enough. Maybe you ARE here from one of those posters. That'd be cool.
The evolution of this idea
I'm not sure how I feel about my own commitment to creative projects (or anything in my life). I like to take things easy, but I also cannot remember a single project that I didn't finish eventually (whether or not "eventually" is within your lifetime is a rather trivial additional consideration).This blog has been running at the back of my mind for about three years now, but just like the Gods of Hindu mythology, it has taken many different forms over this period.
(Note: Most Hindu Gods and Goddesses have a form that results or accompanies the end of the world as we know it. Fingers crossed for this blog.)
A brief (spoiler: it ends up not being very brief) timeline of the evolution of this blog:
2018: I learnt about entropy for the first time in a physics textbook about thermal engines. It was defined as a "measure of disorder". I thought that was a painfully inadequate and vague description of it, and ended up meandering the web in search of a better explanation, which I was eventually able to piece together (credit to good material out there is at the end of this post). Hold onto this for later, it becomes important.
2022: Towards the end of the year, I decided that my internal monologues were insightful enough that the entire world needed to hear them.
2023: Shortly after moving into my dormitory at university, I decided that I was pretty enough that the entire world not only needed to hear my internal monologues but also see my face. Thus, the idea of a YouTube channel was spawned.
Most of my internal monologues are about food, money, sex, my crushing feelings of inadequacy, how absolutely flawless I am in every way, fame, money, and sex, usually in this exact sequence.
However, I do occasionally have internal monologues that relate objects and events around me to concepts in physics, math, or computer engineering that I have taken the time out to actually understand or that still intrigue me a little.
Because I have been gassed up from a young age about how compelling my writing is, I think I'm always in performance mode a little; I'm always wondering how to take my thoughts and ideas, or how to take these things in nature that I feel people tend to overlook, and present it to people in a way that doesn't really attempt to teach them anything (I do not know enough for that), but just stimulates their curiosity and maybe gets their own creative juices flowing. It would be nice to foster discussion and make science just a little more interesting and a little more accessible.
So, January 16, 2023. I have a background in comedic writing. I have an interest in education. I have a pet topic (entropy) that I really think can be explained better. And I now have a face that I feel like showing people.
But I don't have a mic, or a tripod. So, my mission is to go acquire these items and begin my comedic educational YouTube channel.
April 1, 2023: I have not done jack shit. My YouTube channel is nonexistent. I have, thankfully, passed all my courses in the semester and have gotten a little more physically fit. I have spent 80% of my time cooking and 10% of my time getting lost on campus in the cold.
August 30, 2023: Guess who continues to be productive. YouTube channel is a fond memory of something that doesn't even exist at this point. However, someone has tried stand-up comedy (too many people telling her "omg you're so funny"). She's also recited semi-comedic, semi-depressing poetry at a university talent show. Girlie has abruptly given up on cooking and now gets by with tacos, rice, and yogurt every day.
November 24, 2024: She has done it. Not started a YouTube channel; just gone to her first non-university open mic to recite poetry. It is depressing, but people clap. That is all girlie needs.
April 24, 2024: She has dipped her toes back into stand-up comedy, and is beginning to see the differences between live performance, YouTube videos, comedic writing, and educational writing. She is now attempting her first 5-minute educational interactive comedy show to teach people about entropy. (Spoiler: it goes pretty well).
June 2, 2024: She wants to hold a comedy educational interactive show on campus, for the purpose of getting to know people, letting people get to know each other, entertaining people, and hopefully stimulating their curiosity. As a part of her planning, she starts up a blog!
Roll credits!
What can you expect from this blog going forward?
As you may have gleaned from the previous section, I'm going to be writing about concepts in science, math, and computer science/computer engineering that particularly intrigue me and that I think can be easily connected to many fundamental aspects of our lives. As mentioned earlier, this is not going to teach you how to solve math problems from scratch or be equivalent to any kind of lesson in a course; it's simply going to be a discussion about some concepts that may seem a little obscure and meaningless, and hopefully a fun path towards unlocking a new interest in yourself.
Cinematic Outro
I've named this blog "throwing-mud-at-the-wall" because it's kind of how I feel about my entire approach to life; I kind of just jump into things and then figure shit out, but I do believe that I always try my best, and that in the end, at some level, we're all just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.
So cheers to shit on the wall (not really, though... please don't do acrobatics while on the toilet, you may seriously hurt yourself).
(I think I just lost half of my audience with one joke)
(Goodbye)
(But also quick credit to a couple of good entropy resources:
Eugene Khutoryansky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_WLrcgikc,
Steve Mould: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2iTCm0xpDc)
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