Drabble Geeks

Geeks…Being Total Geeks.

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Math IRL

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Alright, guys… I’m an absolute nerd. You know this; I know this. I found a book about math in the real world and how we may or may not use it correctly, and I had to read it. I couldn’t help myself. It also had no reason being as interesting as it was. The book was The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow.

The title refers to the mathematical principle of calculating the random path a drunk person would walk. (I told you this was going to be really nerdy from the start.) Part of my studies included learning some statistics, but even then, hearing some of the concepts in an everyday context had me answering questions incorrectly. The wording of math problems will always be confusing. Another interesting aspect was learning when many of the principles we take for granted came to be. Hilariously, it was from people trying to constantly win at gambling. It made statistics interesting, although I might be a bit biased because I watched shows about math and had the time of my life.

The Mysterious Process

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There is apparently a very secret world that I knew little about even though I am part of the community. What community am I talking about? The uterus-having community. I read Period: The Real Story of Menstruation by Kate Clancy to see if there were any secrets that I could uncover. Although, in all seriousness, I did learn a lot about a process that happens to me. I did grow up in an “I don’t want to hear about it” household. Now that I’m older, I’ve taken the position of “it’s something that happens to about 50% of the population, so get over yourself.” Even with that perspective, I never took the time to learn about it until now.

This book takes the story of menstruation from a cultural perspective. It was interesting to hear about cultures where periods are something to revere rather than a shameful action and how that view has shaped gynecology. Next, the book covers the biology of why. Humans are one of the very few species that menstruate, so it’s interesting to listen to the theories of how humans have evolved. Another interesting thing I learned was that the “normal period” isn’t quite normal. People are placed into boxes that never made sense to begin with and can move in and out of said boxes. For anyone interested in the topic, I highly recommend this book.

Also, because I am an equal-opportunity reader, I would also love to read a book on male reproduction. I spent my doctorate studying parts of it, but I genuinely believe I could always learn more. Period was suggested to me as a good read, so it went on my list.

Let Me Teach You How to Lie

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Well, lie is a really strong word for what I’m going to discuss. A better word would be to deceive with facts and logic. I recently read How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. This book goes into all of the ways in which a glorified “statistic” can be used to sway and mislead the people who see it. With fun illustrations, we are taught how exactly looking at different axes and altering study design, you can get some really interesting conclusions, whether justly or not. At the end, we are at least taught who to dig deeper into what we are seeing to draw our own conclusions that may be different from the conclusions we are being led to.

One of the funny things about this book is how money works. Being that this book was written in 1954 and read by me in 2025, let’s just say that inflation has not hit these numbers. Having super “wealthy” Yale graduates making an annual salary of $25,000 or the outrage of the price of bread doubling to a single dollar was hilarious. If only the author knew and could update these numbers for the modern day. Hilarity aside, this book is a great way to learn how people may inadvertently lie to you, because they are 95 percent of the time*.

* Source: Because I said so…

Update for 2025

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So, this is the new year, so of course I have to inform everyone about the new-ish me. Just kidding. Not much new is going on. I hope to be able to post on a regular basis again, especially since I am getting to the end of the degree. Working on my different projects, which include this, is how I de-stress from the stressful day. I also hope to add longer form content. This is something that I have been working on in hopes that I can upload one later this month. Right now, I am hoping that I can release one every other month. First, I’ll have to see if I can keep up with everything. To see how well I’m doing, you can stop by my YouTube channel were I record myself working. So far, it seems to be working in keeping me focused on working during my time. Stop by if you need it as well. Either way, I’ll hopefully see you next week to continue our normally scheduled programming.

An Entirely New World Pt 6

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I’m almost done with the Chronicles of Narnia: a series I technically started when I was a child. I don’t even remember when the first movie came out, but that was how long it has been. This time, because I’m reading in publication order, I read The Magician’s Nephew, and what a wild ride it was.

If you didn’t understand that Aslan is an allegory for Jesus yet, there is so much Christian imagery in this iteration. It was a bit funny how I could guess the next plot point because I grew up in the church. I was in fact internally giggling. No matter how predictable the plot was, I was surprised by how good it was. If you read the last couple of my reviews, you know that I felt like I was dragging my way through the content. Insert random characters I didn’t care about. Insert literally nothing happening as we just listen to people talk. Insert absolutely no imagery, of which I could barely imagine what was going on, even with the included illustrations.

No, this story engaged me, and I practically read it from beginning to end in one sitting. There was just so much happening and so many questions I had as I reading. There was an entire chapter of which a landscape was being described, and I loved every second of it. The imagery was vivid and drew me further into the world of Narnia, something the few previous books had not done. This was a journey to Narnia that was unforgettable and should be read again and again.

Just Off the Railroad Tracks

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If you can, people-watching while riding along the train can be fun. Honestly, half the time, it’s too dark to see and go through the woods, but if you’re going through a town, people-watching is fun. Honestly, that’s what I thought this book was from the first couple of pages: a people-watching simulator. I was quickly proven wrong as I got deeper into The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

I honestly didn’t know much about this book except the movie trailer made it sound like a thriller. Because of that, it went straight on my to-read list, only to be read now. Now, in the end, I loved the book. It kept me engaged the entire time. There was a bit of mental whiplash from the changing points of view. I was just wrapping my head around all the new information that was thrown at me, trying to fit all of the puzzle pieces together. It was also interesting in the fact that I’m pretty sure that you are not supposed to like any of the characters. As soon as I think I might like them, they would do something I would deem to be completely shady, but I suppose that was to keep you on your toes. And on my toes, I was up until the final moments.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who loves thrillers and mysteries. Some serious topics do come up, but I think it fleshes out the characters and makes them more well-rounded. No one in this book is perfect and flaws are thoroughly on display. Just make sure to get really cozy while watching everything unravel.

Along That Yellow Brick Road Pt 8

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I’m back again to the fairytale land of Oz, and once again am wondering why. Why did I want to read all of the books of this series? Why did I make this a goal in my life? I don’t know, but I’m still going. This time I read Tik-Tok of Oz to read a story that I swear that I read before. A random girl and animal fall into the land of Oz, meets a bunch of random people and creatures, and then tries to defeat a great evil. Yeah, there is nothing new about this book. Except the random animal is a mule and the great evil is the exact same great evil from Book 3. The only thing useful in this book is the slightly more fleshed out nature of Oz, but half the time I feel that it is once again they author trying to make money off of his child audience who would have been obsessed with this series. Luckily for me, all these books are in the public domain, so I’ve paid nothing for them, or I would have gotten them from the library. I forget what book I said that you could have stopped at before, but there is no reason the read this book unless you are a completionist like me. Nothing interesting here.

An Entirely New World pt 5

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So……….

I’m at the fifth book of the series, with two more left to go, I think. It was struggle to get through this book. Something I mentioned in the last review, may have been slightly incorrect, as I need to consider that I’m reading the books in publication order instead of chronological order. Anyway, we do hear from a couple of our familiar characters as The Horse and His Boy takes place during the decades-long hiatus that took place during The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. However, that does not make up for the lack of anything happening.

We spend the entire time moving around Narnia as our two protagonists travel the desert and we are supposed to be convinced that they actually like each other. That, and maybe their two horses, who are want to go back to the land of which they are from since they are the only talking horses in the journey’s starting point. Honestly, I was bored the entire time, and there was no reason for this book to exist, in my current opinion, unless something happens in the next couple of books that requires what happened in this one. We can only wait and see.

~Sent from my iPhone

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Let me begin with the title of this post is honestly one of the most terrifying things a college student can get from their professor. It strikes fear in a similar way that I think this was supposed to in the piece of media that I will be reviewing today.

When it first came out, I was interested in what Baby Reindeer was about. I love a good crime drama, but I have tons of other ones that I have yet to get to. I’ll add it to the bottom of my list, I thought. That was until in my YouTube recommended feed, it said that the “real-life stalker” was being interviewed. And then I saw the video that another victim was also being interviewed. It was only until this came up when this show was moved up on my to-watch list. I also wanted to see if the complaints I was hearing were called for.

Now, Baby Reindeer deserves all of the content warnings and is not at all for the faint of heart. It is gripping and terrifying, yet at the same time, tries to explain the motivations of all the characters, even if it is stomach-turning to think about. Strike one for this fear is understanding that this is a true story, or as true as Netflix thought they could get. In most stories like this, it’s comforting since it is well known that it is fake, even if these are situations that happen in real life. There is no cognitive dissonance here. Strikes two and three, well, aren’t for the faint of heart and cannot really be mentioned here.

One thing that I did have to keep in the back of my mind here was that there was a possible lawsuit in the mix, with it apparently being too easy for people to figure out who different characters were based on. From the little information I knew beforehand, I would completely agree. The only thing I could tell they changed about one victim was their sex. Everything was exactly the same: look, occupation, location, mannerisms. Connecting the dots would have been way too easy, and changing a lot of things would probably have saved everyone a lot of headache. (I completely don’t support people trying to find these people, but the internet is going to internet.) I’m actually interested in the story as it goes from here, as there were a couple of things that were dramatized under the notion of being a true story, rather than “based on a true story.” If anyone hears about this before me, please let me know.