Drabble Geeks

Geeks…Being Total Geeks.

Tag: books

Finishing the Rat Race

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Since it is still the beginning of the year, and I am still convinced that I need to be a better me, I have found another book on habits that I sat down and read. The thing that I really enjoyed about this book was the varying narratives that were found throughout. If you want exciting ways to look at habits, I would suggest The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg.

What I enjoy from reading this was both the personal aspects of habit-making and breaking and how businesses can use that information against us. One example is how Target can say if you are pregnant or not. The data behind that crazy story is revealed in this book. How did Febreze take over the world of cleaning supplies? That answer is here as well. By working through the various cues in our lives, we can figure out how to find the best places and get into new habits and weed out the bad. The stories are attention-grabbing and fascinating reads on how patterns make up our entire world, whether we realized it or not.

Along that Yellow Brick Road

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I decided that I needed a break from all of the heavy reading. I decided to go with a classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Like most movie remakes of books, the book had a lot more going on that could not fit into a feature length film. The movie also wholly misunderstands Oz as a country, and the book has a lot more blood in it.

Let me begin by saying that Oz isn’t a dream world. It’s a real place where multiple types of these supernatural creatures reside. Also, Dorothy is not a grown woman. In fact, I would say that she is no more than ten. For the most part, forget everything you know about the land of Oz from the movie because it’s completely wrong. The ruby slippers aren’t even ruby; they’re silver.

Now, there are 15 books in the Wizard of Oz series. I counted. I plan on going through every book in giving my thoughts on it and see how the world revolves as it goes on. I know that there a couple more movies out there that take place and Oz, and I want to see how those fit into the storyline. I have watched a Disney version based on the fourth book, and so far, that seems to be the most accurate to the series. I can’t wait to see what I’ve been missing by only watching one movie.

Bad, Science!

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As we look toward the future, we must also look to that past to make sure that we do no back the same mistakes, especially when we talk about it from an ethical perspective. We do not want to cause harm, but we also want people to understand what we are saying as scientists, or at least that is what I was always told. Then I bumbled my way into reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

This is one of the stories of science going wrong. As someone involved in science, I believe that these are things that must be discussed to not happen again. The story starts with how the first-ever human cell line was discovered and then is a train wreck from there. This book goes into the African American population’s distrust of the health care system, which stems from racism and lack of science literacy. It takes this abstract idea that most people have about the ethics behind science and then makes it much more real by adding a face. If you are interested in science in any way, I would consider this a must-read. We have to learn from the past mistakes to make significant innovations in the future.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

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I feel pretty comfortable saying that this past month has been crazy, specifically in the United States, and fraught with tension. Whenever I’m confused about things, I try to turn to books because what else is there to do. I turned to social psychology to maybe explain some things to me. That lead to me reading The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo. If this name sounds familiar, he was the principal investigator of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.

This book goes through every step of the prison experiment from opening day to when Zimbardo was convinced to close the doors. Not only this, Zimbardo discusses every step in the slow descent of his guards and prisoners in playing their roles. It also walked through the real-world example of abuses in American prisons across the world built for the War on Terror. Instead of just blaming the “bad apples,” this book accuses the barrel those “apples” are found in, blaming the system that sets the rules in place and gives no actual oversight. In other words, this book does a great job of explaining what is going on in today’s world and how to prevent oneself from being brainwashed by these systems. But before reading, I must warn you of trigger warnings, and I must say every single trigger warning imaginable. If you get offended by anything, this might not be the book for you, no matter how important I feel reading it is.

Why You Do What You Do

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Want to know why you do something eagerly but drag your feet on other things? It’s because you have specific motivation themes that guide what you do. In fact, everyone has 27 different themes of motivation in a particular order. To find out all about yours, I suggest reading The Motivation Code: Discover the Hidden Forces That Drive Your Best Work by Todd Henry after taking the assessment. The assessment is completely free, and it will tell you your top three themes in order. This assessment will take about 30 minutes to complete, so be prepared to take the time to fill it out. After that, you can pay for a more in-depth analysis of your results and all your themes in order. I am also thinking about making a small “cheat sheet” for those who do not want to read the entire book with each theme’s main takeaways.

Going to read this book, I had no clue what the book would tell me, which I feel is the best way to read this book. After finding my motivation themes, I felt ultimately attacked. Besides telling you just how you work under your motivation theme, it suggests ways of working with other motivation themes and giving both sides of the coin. This is an excellent resource for just a personal assessment or figuring out ways to get the most out of your team. The information is expansive and very useful, no matter what you do.

Because You’re Always On That Phone

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In continuing to be somewhat helpful in keeping to your New Year Resolution, I would suggest reading Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. If you read my reflection on my first semester in grad school, you’ll know that I was not the biggest fan of his writing style because it came across as elitist. This go around, there are inserts from a lot of different everyday people, which I appreciated. It was easier to connect with Newport as a reader.

Why am I suggesting this book? Unfortunately, if we spend a lot of time mindlessly scrolling through our phones, we will not get the things we want to get done. It isn’t that surprising when social media companies engineer their platforms to be as addicting as possible. I have, in fact, implemented some of Newport’s techniques. Other than messaging applications, I have taken all social media off of my phone. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Reddit. The only way I can get on these websites, per my rules, is on my personal computer. When there are times where I don’t need to be on my phone, I usually put it away (such as waiting in grocery lines) and put it on “Do Not Disturb” and get to work. The only time that I get on my phone during that time is to take photos of something or change whatever I’m listening to on Spotify. The one thing that keeps me from completely separating myself from my phone a lot of the time is mobile games. I have this thing with merging and idle games for whatever reason. I love them. I’m currently trying to choose between my favorites and only keeping those on my phone. It’s taking a bit, but I’m doing it.

If you have any tips for staying off your phone at different times, I would appreciate reading them, and I’m sure others would as well.

Actually Doing the Resolutions

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“New Year, New Me” is a common sentiment that you hear every single year, and that lasts for about a week before they disappear. From the gym, from their budget. As this new year is followed by what should objectively be considered the worst year ever, instead of just focusing on goals, we should focus on habits. Why do you not go to the gym after a week? You’re of the habit of not going to the gym. And making habits is hard.

That’s where Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. This book outlines the four steps to make good habits more comfortable to obtain and bad habits harder to get. Instead of just saying what practices you should add to your life (because it’s effortless to admit that you should do something), this book lays out the foundation you need to actually do things. Want to go to the gym? Here’s how you do it. Overall, start small and don’t punish yourself too much. Even if you do not want to read this book, I recommend listening to some interviews with James Clear. Listening to those are what actually got me into wanting to read the book. As we start this new year, maybe this will keep you on track to obtaining all of your new year’s resolutions.

Big Brother

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I’ve spent that last couple of years swearing up and down, promising that I would eventually read the classic 1984 by George Orwell. Apparently, it took me getting into grad school to finally fulfill that promise. Like most people who read this book, I knew the general plotline and some key moments that are considered cliché in our modern society. Even with knowing all of that, I couldn’t help but get captured in every single page. I kept promising myself that I could go to sleep once I got to go breaks in the chapter; that didn’t happen. It also felt like the book was written a couple of years ago. It’s just so timeless. I would definitely call this a must-read. I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t warn you about discussions of sexual assault and torture, though.

Remember the Lost Souls Pt 3

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I am back, finally finished with the Remember Me series. First, I would like to mention that the third book makes no sense without the second book. Second, I would like to say that you should only read the first book. This last book is a total deviation from the first in ways that make absolutely no sense. The protagonist’s characterization went entirely by the wayside, where she wasn’t the same person we were introduced to. Other characters appear, where the entire time they’re there, you just thinking “WTF?” the whole time—also, lizard people, for some reason. The book felt like a cash-grab, read like a cash-grab, and should never have been written. There is also a mixture of r/menwritingwomen that is more creepy than endearingly stupid or hilarious. I honestly wish that I could forget everything that I read. Stick with the first book, and no further. You’ll thank me.

Dating the Same Girl

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I’m really late to the John Green bandwagon, but here I am. This is actually the first book of his I’ve read, but I don’t really know what I think about it. An Abundance of Katherines features our protagonist, Collin, who only dates people named Katherine. I’ve never heard of a name being a person’s type, but here you go. While Collin is a genius who drops random facts here and there, which I personally found interesting, other pieces of dialogue felt like inside jokes that went on for way too long. Every other sentence either included the word “fug,” mention of a “Jew-fro,” or what seemed to be an Arabic slur. It was bizarre, and I could have done without a lot of it. Other than that, it’s the typical “boy is broken up with an is super mopey for the majority of the story” story. If this sounds like your kind of thing, you may like it. Personally, with all the hype I’ve heard around John Green, especially with some of the books being turned into live-action media, I was not impressed. I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.