Picture Post

Family get-together

At some light show

Secretly taking pictures with Mickey because it's not allowed O_o 

Meeting with friends~

Fear?

I'm watching Divergent (sci-fi movie--there are five factions in society that you must fit into, one of which is Dauntless. A part of the training to become a full-fledged Dauntless member is to face your fears in some sort of hallucination) and started thinking (as always). 

Something mentioned in the movie was that most people have 10-15 deep fears (i.e. those that are essentially crippling when confronted). Because it's just a movie, I have no idea if this is true. How many fears does each person have? Is it even possible to quantify them, and can something someone has never had to confront or think about be a fear? Fear, then, would be limitless. 

Obviously, we have fear as a survival instinct and it's an emotion imprinted in our brains. The central fear system is the amygdala, which associates fear with whatever stimuli the individual is taught to fear, like snakes, fire, etc. etc. and also is a sort of shortcut of visual processing, which is why sometimes we freak out at snake-shaped twigs before slow visual processing (which goes all the way to the occipital lobe and is milliseconds slower) kicks in to tell us that it is really just a twig. 

But fear has evolved as society has. Clearly our ancestors didn't fear the stock market or car accidents, since they didn't have those back then. How has fear evolved to include social fears like insecurity, and is it still a survival instinct at this point? I'm not downplaying such fears, because social anxiety, insecurity, and others can be very real, very serious, and very crippling. But are they still for survival, and are increases in diagnoses of mental illnesses just speaking toward a greater understanding of the symptoms, are an actual epidemic to society?

Fear is relative. But to what?

What am I even talking about? Do I make sense? 

RL

Being Active For Once

I actually did stuff yesterday! Rode the bus out to Ximending and met with a friend from college I met in our dance crew. She's from China so her parents were there and I ate dinner with them. Didn't have an appetite but of course Asian families don't care and they kept trying to get me to eat haha

Ximending is a shopping district, now mostly for young people--there's movie theaters, stores with cute stuff, "young people fashion" (although I don't think I would ever wear that stuff), etc. I like to wander around there, although it's becoming more and more commercial. 

Anyway so we wandered around after her parents went back to the hotel, got lost a few times, looked for the bathroom a few times. The most English I've spoken this week, and it's totally the best feeling to not have to think about how to say things :P and she made fun of my lack of Chinese reading ability >.<

Today, I rode a bus (number 235) about 15-20 minutes to a big road and walked back for an hour and a half, just for fun :P 

I'm still jetlagged :P

RL

Jet Lag

Today is day 3 here! Aaand so far I have done nothing but lounge around, sleep, go on the occasional walk around the area, and go to 7-11. Nothing wrong with that...but I should really be going out to do something :P

I am definitely feeling the jet lag this time around :P Taiwan is 13 hours different from home, usually it is 12 hours when there's not daylight savings time. So yes, it is literally halfway around the world. I'm not sure which is worse, an exact 12 hours or 8 hours (like when we went to London)--waking up at 7:00 but feeling tired literally all day, or waking up at 4:00 but sleeping again at 5:00. 

So, TL;DR, I will actually post something when I actually do something fun :P peace.

RL

TAIWAN

"We toured the city by BMW! B for Bus. M for Metro. W for Walking."

Oh my aunt....

So now I'm here in Taiwan! One of the longest travels ever, 30 hours from start to finish. The flights were okay, just long like always. 

As soon as I opened my mouth to talk to the first Taiwanese person here, my Chinese accent changed to that cutesy, nasal Taiwanese accent that is so different from the one I use in America and in Chinese class. Help me.

Exams

I am not studying.

Thank you, internet. 

RL

Piece Of the Day.

For your listening pleasure.

RL