Stack the States

What’s up with me? I’ve officially collected all 50 states in “Stack the States.” On to “Stack the countries!”

It’s been a few days since this aforementioned achievement. While I initially faced this self-imposed challenge with blind optimism, I was soon forced to confront the inevitable truth: I had gotten bored and, as a result, essentially given up.

The face of pure shock

Really, I think it had something to do with the sheer amount of countries in the world. While that’s a fact that usually doesn’t get to me, in this context, all I could think about was the overwhelmingly large amount of rounds of geography Tetris I would require to collect all the countries I needed. I could only do it so many times before giving up, and this dreaded tipping point announced its arrival as celebratory stars filled my screen; I had just finished my third continent. I quickly added Oceania to my small but mighty arsenal of North and South America, seeing all the smiling territories look up at me as if to say, “I’m proud of you, Violet.” (I know it’s wrong: I still usually wind up calling Oceania Australia instead. What are you gonna do?).

Still, all hope is not lost. I did gain something from this past week’s adventures. Now, I can place all fifty states on the map in under two minutes. (While this may not seem like a big achievement to you, I assure you, it took a lot of practice and almost a couple of tears shed from frustration) (Hey, they never said I wasn’t persistent).

Related but not (In the slightest)

Question for the masses: I was thinking about this on my walk home the other day. I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve assumed the fact that we drive on the right side of the street and pass on the left is connected to the tendency to keep to the right of the sidewalk when walking.

With this logic, do British people walk on the left side since they drive the opposite way? Or is it a fully separate thing? (Also, I wonder why the switch of the driver's side occurred. Did someone just say, fuck it, I want to be unique?)

Also: I was thinking about how fun it would be to have a highlight reel when you die, especially all the stuff you don’t remember. This got me wondering.. what else? After reading the book Homegoing for my English class, I was thinking about family history. On top of the highlight reel for your own life, imagine having a highlight reel of your family’s?? Cause honestly, I feel like it would be so sick to have a little preview of what it was like to live a day in the life as my great-grandmother. What did she even do?

Speaking of the brain: my last burning question of the night. (TVD inspired) Since vampires live thousands of years, do their brains just continue “expanding” and learning new information? Or do they stagnate, only allowing them to hold so much after a certain point? If so, I wonder how much you can cram in there. If you were to plot the “brain size,” I wonder what it would look like. Is it an exponential function? What’s the derivative?