Slowwwwlllllyyy

Long ago I talked about a strategy to pass the time while you are doing something that has no entertainment, and that is extremely boring, such as work, and especially school. I still believe that not looking at the clock is a very... VERY good way of passing the time. But it can be extremely punishing if done incorrectly, if you don't trust yourself, or if you tried the other method, and it failed, and you never want to try it again because yesterday just felt like a month. Then try these two new methods.

The first is intervals, you take your shift, or school day, and split it into time segments. Say you are working a 5 hour shift later today, you will split it into segments between 30 minutes, and an hour. Say we choose 30 minutes for this shift. It is split into 10 different segments. Just in case you have to work late, or just for a extra bonus to feel good at the end of the shift, add another hour, or segment onto yours. So for my example I am working a 5 hour shift, that is split into 12 thirty minute segments. At the start of your shift you can look at your watch. But it works best if you try and predict what time it is. So whenever you feel like it has been 30 minutes, look down, and check your watch. If you are doing something boring, it may feel slow at times, but if you feel bored, a lot of the times (at least for me) I look down after what has seemed like a long 30 minutes, and it has turned out to be 45 minutes. When you are at your half way mark, you are actually past the half way mark in your shift, that is if you can trick yourself into thinking that your shift is longer than it actually is.

I really think this can genuinely help you get through the day quicker, with less boredom, and you will feel better afterwards, I still don't think that it is as good as the other method. But if you have the self discipline to look down at your watch whenever it feels like its been 30 minutes instead of every 5 minutes, it is a very effective strategy that everyone should try.

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Streaming Competition

Some people don't even know what Hulu is, Netflix has had control over streaming since it began, and still have it today,and the people who know what Hulu is think it is simply just a bad version of Netflix. I think that Hulu is better than Netflix. It does have ads, but it makes up for it by showing series as they come out on TV.

Hulu has less movies than Netflix, but most people can agree that most movies on netflix aren't that great, it has some, but not even close to all or most of the good movies out there in the world. Most people just watch series, most popular are Parcs and rec, the walking dead, arrow, south parc, supernatural, and others. Hulu has all of these, and they show them the day after they are showed on TV.

The main reason that Hulu is looked down on by people is that it plays ads, and if you think that this makes it worse than Netflix you are super inpatient. Hulu has adds because they have to spend more money to get the shows right when they come out. Which would you rather have, wait 30 seconds for your show to continue, just a couple of times each episode, not nearly as bad as commercials on television. Or would you rather have no 30 second commercials, and have to wait over a year to see the next season of your show.

Most people with brains could agree that it is worth the ads, and that having to wait a year for your show to come out is not worth no commercials. So open your eyes don't let Netflix have the "I phone effect" on you (its an I phone so its the best automatically), don't just assume its the best because its name is more popular. Look through the options, and you will find out that hulu is better than Netflix, and you will want to change.

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How easily can we be entertained?

When you have nothing to do, when youre in between assignments. Most would check social media like twitter, instagram, reddit, etc. But there is a limited amount to see on these. one you have seen everything new since the last time you checked, there is not much to do. So what do you do once you have seen all of the content on social media? You look for fun and random phone games to play.

It is suprising looking back on my two years of high school how simple, stupid, and silly the games I have played on my phone are. But it's just not me being an oddball of society, being an introverted freak staring into my phone screen throughout the day, It's everyone. Some games are understandable, like angry birds, a game that tests your knowledge of phisics. But some are just plain stupid, like cookie clickers, and angry bird and crossy road.

I look back and wonder, how in the heck was everyone so intreagued by this simplistic, elementary game. For example, in cookie clicker all you do is endlessly tap a screen, just so that you can get enough upgrades to tap the screen for more imaginary currency. And once you reach the highest level of the game. It taps the screen for you just so you can get the imaginary currency to upgrade further and have it tap the screen for you for even more! And you repeat this process until the game dies out of popularity, and another game like flappy bird becomes the most popular game in the school.

I wonder what makes us want to play these games. Weather we just have to get to the top of the mountain because we have nothing better to do. Or if we just want to be able to show it to people to show them how great you are. Or if we are actually entertained by staring at a screen and doing nothing. But more than all I wonder if I will look back at the games I play right now and call them just plain silly.

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The Fault in Our Songs

Nowadays everyone is guilty of loving a song so much that you just want to sit there and do nothing but listen to it on repeat all day? STOP! you will drive yourself crazy. Not only will you have it stuck in your head, you will not want to have it stuck in your head. If you listen to a song on repeat if wears out quickly, it gets only exponentially quicker, and you will never want to listen to it again.

This problem has been more and more problematic for me in today day in age where radio is obsolete, almost all cars have AUX cords, and if it doesn't, you probably have a CD player that you use in it. And also there are all these new music apps and websites like Pandora, spottily, and YouTube Repeat, so if you want to listen to a song over and over again, you easily can. This may not be true for everyone, but for me, I don't like the songs today on the radio, or the songs in the past couple of year's, because I have listened to them far too many times, I love the music from the early to mid 2,000's. When I was in elementary school, and maybe early middle school. I didn't have a smart phone, I did not have the option to listen to a song on repeat, the only time I even listened to music was when I was in the back seat of my parents car. The songs that were on the radio back then are the songs that I really like now, because when I used to hear them it was a treat.

I don't like them because they reminded me of my early childhood, and no, I didn't have a terrible childhood, I still like them because they were not played on repeat, and they did not get old to me. They were a treat, and now when I hear them, they are vaguely familiar, and I still like them 5,6, or even 7 years later.

My suggestion to you is that if you like a song, don't put it on repeat, and don't put it on a short playlist, playlists should be a medium length, somewhere between 10-20 songs, if you have too many, there will be some that you simply just don't want to hear, and then you will spend half the time skipping songs, and not actually enjoying them. And if they are too short you will hate it soon because it will get old very quickly.

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The Matrix is a Computer Generated Dream World Made to Control us...

As time goes by, technology gets more advanced, it gets easier and easier to do what you love, alone, by yourself. Today, kids look less forward to getting together with their friends, and more towards getting together with their phone, TV, or computers. Its now really easy to just sit at home and play games, or watch movies for eight hours. You don't have to go outside anymore and see the beauty of nature, you can simply look up beautiful nature on your phone and find really pretty views around the world.

More and more kids are having less and less friends, and now, they don't even need them. Some kids literally don't have any friends, and don't even realize what they are missing, because all the social interaction they need is the television screen, and seeing the main characters of a show have a relationship. Some shows even make people not want to have friends, and human interactions because of how crazy and stupid people are (Jersey Shore). Some people just don't want anything to do with that part of life, so they would rather just watch crazy things happen to other people, or other people do daring things, and not risk anything themselves, they would rather just let other people do it and watch, while they laugh at, or with the characters of the show, or game.

Another thing that has come out of new technology is relationships and friendships online. People who play online may talk to other people playing the same game as them, find out they have some things in common, and end up becoming friends, or even in a relationship. Even if you have known somebody for a year, do you really known them. It is not the same as a long distance relationship because you have never seen them before. I'm not saying this because I'm a shallow person, and saying "what if they were ugly the whole time, and you didn't even know". A lot of you men and woman have been abducted, or murdered because they had online friend ships of relationships, and when they finally went to meet up, one of them was not who they said they were, and on of them never comes back home. Or even on a less dramatic scale, what if somebody is completely nice over the screen, or letter, and then you see them in person and they are a complete slob, and you are a clean freak. It will hinder how well you will get along with each other. Body language can go a long way too, what if they were ignoring you the whole time online, and you couldn't notice because you couldn't see if they were doing something else while you were talking to them, maybe they don't know as much about you as you know about them.

In just this short decade or two kids have become less social, and more introverted, and secluded. What will happen in the next 25 years, will technology become more advanced, will you not have to leave your room for anything, there already are online schools, and plenty of entertainment. what will come next. Or have we reached the peak, and kids are already secluded as possible. Or will we begin to correct ourselves, and become less dependent on technology, and start having more friends, and social interactions. Don’t let the matrix control you.

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Procastination

I am terrible at this, I will tell myself at school, its not that bad, just a little bit of homework, I'll just do it right when I get home, it sounds like a good plan, but then when I get home I feel like I deserve some rest after a long day of school. I've been sitting in a chair doing work for 8 hours, I owe it to myself to relax, I work a long, hard, day, and I deserve this. Then after its about 8 O'clock already because I have wasted my night eating, playing games, and watching TV. And I procrastinate more, and most can probably relate with the Sunday struggle. But I take it even further, I love smart lunch, and I talked in a blog a few weeks ago about how I utilize smart lunch, and how I utilize it very well, and how everyone should. And I do utilize it, but I don't work on tonight homework, I work on yesterdays homework, in fact, that's what i'm doing right now, writing this blog.

I know its hard, but if you can, just try not to be like me, don't get behind, If i simply sat down for one night and just do work for one or two hours instead of procrastinating, I would no longer be behind, I would be able to eat at smart lunch, and I would not have as much anxiety about getting done my school work, just do your homework right when you get home, I myself don't do it very often, and I am trying to get better at it, even though I probably won't do it tonight even though I am telling myself right now to do it. But if you are better than me, if you have the self discipline to force yourself to just do it. You will love yourself, you will have a less stressful life, and you will be a happier person, not to mention you will have far better grades, and probably be smarter than me.

Don't let the Sunday struggle happen to you, be strong, and do your work on Friday night, or better yet, get it done during smart lunch, work on tomorrows homework in smart lunch instead of yesterdays homework, I know I've said it a bunch, but when you get home tonight you will not want to, JUST DO IT. You will love yourself at 5 O'clock in the morning when you are in a deep sleep

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