What We've All Been Searching For

I recently hit a blogular milestone: One of my posts got to 1000 views. So popular, on the internet. It only took 2 years' time to accomplish, which rounds out to almost 1.4 views per day, 41 per month. So so popular.

Intrigued by such astounding popularity, I got to noticing and I noticed that of my other blog posts, my next nearest one was only at about 400 views, which rounded out to significantly less views per day. This math astounded me and I told it to get out of my life. More research led me to find that the way most people came across the aforementioned post wasn’t because I was cool or because of my writing style or because anyone cares about my existence. It was because people search for things on the internet. My blog is on the internet and it contains things. Therefore, from time to time, particular searches led them to particular blog.

After emerging from a deep and dreary depression, I needed to know what searches made this particular post so popular. I found that people like and/or are afraid of gingers.  Redhead festival, red head festival, red hair festival, ginger head, and scrawny ginger were the most common searches to present my blog to the unsuspecting public.  I don’t know what people were hoping to find in searching such things, but that’s not important. What’s important, as every blogger knows, is views.  Viieeewwwwzz.

If you know me, you know that I am aware of the existence of science (!) .  So. In my ongoing search for knowledge and popularity and acceptance on the internet, I have decided to increase my view total by x using science (!) . I’m going to link to pictures and sites of highly searched things so that people will look at my blog. After all, no one cares about actual meaningful content. They just want the juicy bits. So here are some bits and I think they’re juicy. We’ll see how long this one takes to hit 1000 in comparison to the other one.  Should you feel the need to sign some sort of permission form before participating in this study, here is one, just after the fact. Just print it off and send it to me. Now on to the juice:

Justin Bieber

Miley Cyrus

Obama

Obamacare

Hot women

Kardashian

iPhone News

http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/



BCS

http://www.bcsfootball.org/


Super Bowl

http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/48


Super Bowl Commercials

http://www.superbowl-commercials.org/


Political Unrest in the Middle East

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2045328,00.html



Funny Cat Pictures

http://www.funnycatpix.com/



International Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law



The Migratory Patterns of Caribou

http://www.beingcaribou.com/beingcaribou/backg/mig.htm



Quantum Physics and Yoga

http://www.quantumyoga.com/quantum-yoga/quantum-physics/



How to train bumble bees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training



Medieval Recipes

http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/



Star Wars Origami

http://www.starwarigami.co.uk/diagrams-by-others.html



Where exactly Waldo is

http://whereswaldo.com/index.html#home



The secrets of ancient alchemy

http://gizmodo.com/meet-the-man-who-decodes-the-ancient-secrets-of-alchemy-633187520



How to get married on World of Warcraft

http://voices.yahoo.com/want-married-world-warcraft-206624.html?cat=41



The Irrelevance of the Presentist/Eternalist Debate for the Ontology of Minkowski Spacetime

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871177406010059



Kissing Tips


http://voices.yahoo.com/how-kiss-well-ten-very-good-tips-219292.html

I think that pretty well covers it. Bring on the science and the viiewwszz.

I've Been Away, Pt. 3

This will simply be my overall impression of the trip, 4 months after the trip:  Amazing, to say the least. But I never say the least. Not on the internet.

One thing that I really enjoyed was getting to know a different part of the country. My first visit saw me spend the vast majority of my time in the capital of Santo Domingo, which is in the south-central Dominican Republic. This time I was stationed in the north. When people hear I’ve been to the DR, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the beaches–they ask me how they were. For the longest time, I’ve had to tell people I didn’t know; beaches do not line the entire island, and there aren’t many nice beaches close to my side of the capital. But this time, si. The north is where some of the most beautiful beaches in the country are located, and I got to go see them with my very own eyeballs–I’ve never been one to borrow eyeballs. My eyeballs tell me that they look just as nice as the postcards in real life, if not better. The north also boasts many mountainous regions–which are also quite beautiful–, and a much more laid-back approach to life. All of these things dieron gusto.

Another thing I found to my interest was getting to know different aspects of the country and culture–specifically education. My first trip was fairly focused in purpose, and the education system was not on the ledger. This time, my trip was also focused. But education was on the ledger. It made up the entirety of the ledger, being the ledger. I’m going to look up the definition of ledger to make sure I’m using it correctly.     Yup. It was interesting to see the role that education played in the lives of many of the people I came in contact with, and to see the ways in which its administration was failing or helping them. Growing up, I was immersed in an education system. I was not, however, savvy to its structure or mechanics. As I grew, I did not become much more aware. But going somewhere where something you grew up with is completely different makes you think about it. So I thought more about educational systems in general: what makes them, what makes them effective, inefficiencies, etc. All of this helped me to understand the people and culture more, as well as my own. All of this dio gusto.

Another aspect of the country that I got my first real taste for/of was that of tourism. Being with the beaches made for a much different experience. Living in Cabarete was very different from living in Santo Domingo. Suffice it to say that, although I was not a tourist, I felt very much like one. And that got me thinking about tourism and its effects on… well, lots of things. Tourism can be good in the sense that it tends to help the economy of a country or area. Tourism can be bad in the sense that it can harm the culture of a country or area. When one’s economic livelihood is dependent on a particular demographic, one caters to said demographic–this is a concept that is at the very heart of capitalism. Industries like tourism tend to be focused on economic and not sociological factors. Sociological factors, however, continue to exist and be affected, whether they be taken into consideration or not. It was interesting to me to consider the ways in which local tourism affected specific aspects of the life and culture there. Having experienced Dominican life outside of a tourist hotspot, it wasn’t difficult to recognize the differences.

I guess having new and swell experiences was the major theme of and takeaway from this trip. Again, living in Cabarete was different than living in Santo Domingo. In some ways, this made me a little bit sad. But mostly because my time in Santo Domingo was so great. I don’t know if I was expecting or even wanting it to be a very similar experience, but it differed in a lot of ways. However, the difference gives me reason to love and be thankful for both. In Santo Domingo, I got to live the life of a Dominican:  I lived in typical Dominican neighborhoods, among typical Dominican folk. I would have an apartment that was of the same quality and on the same streets as the Dominicans that lived there. We shopped at the same places, used the same transport, ate the same stuff, walked the same roads, lived with them in their circumstance. Naturally there were some differences, but for most intents and purposes, I was integrated. I loved that, because it gave me a pure and unadulterated look into these people’s lives. Coupled with the fact that we would go and speak and eat with them in their homes, etc., I feel like that was living the life of a Dominican–that was getting a true taste of the culture. At least as much as an American pelirojo can. In Cabarete, I got to relax and explore a little bit more. I spent a month in one of the windsurfing capitals of the world. I stayed in a relatively nice hotel. Most days, there was hot water. I got to appreciate the breathtaking beauty of the country. I worked with students and teachers in their schools and learned about the educational system that governed their early lives. I got to haggle and explore and seek more personal and intellectual pursuits.  I got to adventure. In both places, I worked towards something that was extremely meaningful to me. I met some of the best people. I got to know new places and new things about a new culture. I got frustrated and I learned and I grew.

The DREAM Project is a cute acronym for a non-profit organization. At first, I thought it to be a little cheesy. But after having participated, it truly was a dream come true. It really does help and capacitate these kids to rise above what can seem like a difficult and insurmountable circumstance. And even from a purely personal and self-centered perspective, it was a beautiful and surreal experience–one that, in ways, can help me to rise above difficult circumstances all my own. Dream on, you crazy dreamers.