Platelet (血小板, 혈소판)

 On today's episode of "I didn't even know I had that inside my body," it's platelets, or a small colorless disk-shaped cell fragment without a nucleus, found in large numbers in blood and involved in clotting. Didn't know that, but platelets are apparently very important in performing surgeries and anything else that involves having to stop bleeding. That sounds...important. I know when I bleed, I usually stop bleeding pretty quickly, indicating a healthy platelet count, I'm lucky. Which is why I leveled up this past weekend from donating blood to donating platelets, "just to see how it felt." Well, it felt.....long and burdensome, and at times jarringly cool. I'll explain. Donating platelets is kind of an ordeal, but American Red Cross (the organization I work with/ have been indoctrinated into and get calls from all the time since I'm a repeat donor, aka blood bank in their eyes) highly recommends it because you can give platelets more often than the every-8 weeks for blood donation. Whereas I'm in and out of blood donation within 30 minutes ( I bleed quick and know the drill) platelets are at least a 2-hour ordeal, even more if you aren't fully hydrated and didn't drink enough water the previous 24 hours (I didn't). That's enough time for a movie! Which is exactly what you can do at a donation center, as that's the "compensation" or "reward" you get for the extra time. Except it's hard to enjoy a movie when you're not chomping on popcorn but instead have 2 needles sticking out of your arms pumping blood into blood bags and the procedure is causing a chilling sensation throughout your body. It's true: I feel like a cool breeze in my bones shifting through my body, but just covering up with a warm blanket doesn't really help; the breeze is coming through the veins. It's weird, but not "painful," just a literally chilling sensation. The needles in the arm, of course, are nothing to sneeze at (seriously, don't sneeze and move the needle) as they're smaller needles than blood donation needles, which sounds like a good thing for the novice but is actually a bad thing when going into the skin because I can really feel the prick, and the nurses have a finer margin of error. Putting TWO of those needles into 2 different also kind of doubles the risk of missing/ causing pain and discomfort, which is what happened to one of my arms, and I had to grin and bear it. Except unlike blood donations, you're not grinning and bearing it for 15 or 20 minutes, you're there for 2 hours. Oh and you can't pee in those 2 hours or use the restroom at all. 

Sound appealing yet? I was definitely having buyer's remorse during those 2 hours lying on the bed, but watching "The Crown" on Netflix kind of smoothed it over, until I found out I would have to stay longer than the other lady there who had arrived AFTER I did. That's really devastating, seeing someone else show up later, but leave earlier. It's not a competition, but when there are 2 needles stuck in your arm, there's a little bit of a competition.... to get out of there. My arms fell asleep like 4 different times, and I had to stretch my fingers without moving my arm too far. Princess Diana was being spied on by the Royal Family? Prince Charles had a scandal when his "intimate conversations" on the phone with Camilla Bowles was leaked to the press? Man the 90's in England must have been prime fare for the tabloids, bigger than anything Prince "Spare" Harry and Meghan Markle muster up nowadays. Princess Di was a pretty complicated figure; adored by all of England, strong and capable, but a little too much for her own good.....I can still remember the day in 1997 at my friend's house waking up on Sunday morning from a sleepover seeing my friend's mom sitting on the couch watching the news crying, with the TV airing coverage of Diana's overturned car with her driver and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. 

AND...back to worrying about my arms. That's kind of how it went in the blood donation, the Crown distracted me just enough from what I was doing until it didn't. Finally, when it was all over and the nurse could take the needles out, I felt life reforming in my arms, like my arms finally got their lives back. The platelets themselves look pretty cool in a circular pattern, and they also took plasma (maybe should have told me that before to get informed consent?) which looked like a yellow mass. Hopefully those will help someone, and my narcissistic self believed my platelets would be healthier than other donors and give whoever needed it a better boost since they're definitely health platelets. Probably just hopeful thinking not backed up by science, but platelets are platelets. Afterwards, the nurse presented me with my reward, an honorary, one-of-a-kind... blanket, as if to mock platelet donors being in a shivery mess during the donation. I'd rather have a cool Snoopy t-shirt next time. 

Will I give platelets again? Now that the donation's over I've psychologically convinced myself that it wasn't that bad, so maybe at some point I will, but after those 2 needles go in, I'll probably ask myself what I was thinking strapping myself in like an psychiatric patient without being to use my phone (did I mention that? No use of either arm = no phones). No wonder Red Cross needs volunteers so badly...some people might not do this even if they got paid to give. 

Crying in Chess Club

 Today's title is inspired by the 2021 bestselling memoir by Michelle Zauner, "Crying in Hmart." First of all, from a business perspective every book should have a catchy title that stands out rather than just "Another book about Cats" or "Nuances about The Federal Income Tax Code." Crying in Hmart evokes imagery of physically being in a Hmart, which MJ and I just were today (she loves the pre-packaged kimbap that they often reduce the prices of later in the day due to it expiring if you don't eat them right away), and it begs the question, "Why is someone crying there?" Not exactly 2 things people equate with each other, like "Picking Strawberries at the Lakers Game" or "Playing Dodgeball in the Rain" or something like that. So it's a brilliant book already, but I just love books that tell a true story but with the author's own flair or personal spin, probably because I try to do that with this blog. Zauner is funny, she teaches readers about Korean culture, language, foods, and superstitions through her relationship with her  Korean-born mother, and all the little anecdotes and unique experiences make it very relatable for the reader, like I could have of had her life as well. As a kid she was very proud to have double eyelids in a society that values them highly; I wasn't as lucky and have always lived under the curse of single eyelids, and know how big of a deal it is. The author is a musician herself, but music references to Karen O of The Yea Yea Yea's (also a half-Korean singer) and iconic songs like "Rainy Days and Mondays" by the Carpenters help the reader shape her world. But of course the biggest hook of the book is the answer to why Zauner cries at H-mart, which is that her mother (spoiler alert) passes away. And at a young age, when Zauner was just 25. I just read some of my posts in 2012 (when I was 25), and I would not have handled losing a parent well at that age. I still wouldn't handle it well, of course, but I was so much more immature then and complacent about having a mother forever and still actually rebelling and arguing with my mom, which Zauner regrets having done for so many years as a teenager, as soon as she finds out her mom has Stage IV cancer. My grandfather gradually faded away in his old age and passed away at 96, and I was pretty sad for a long time, but having to deal with the loss of a parent in twenties must add to the sadness due to not being ready, coming to grips that the parent won't live forever as you mistakenly thought when you were a kid. The author does a great job explaining all these emotions through stories, specific instances, powerful (but limited) conversations, and going through the 5 stages of grief (at one point she got married right away to her boyfriend just so her mom could see the wedding, and to plan other trips to Napa, etc. just to bargain with the gods to give her more time with her mom). It's a fantastic story but especially resonates with people like me, an Asian American who has lived in America but had conflicts with parents with Asian backgrounds. Something about songwriters or creative types, they really know how to tell a story. 

As for me, the reason I was (not really but only on the inside) crying in chess club recently is just realizing that I'm not as good at chess as I thought. Throughout high school and a little beyond I thought part of my identity was a chess player, having won some matches in high school and done well at the Illinois state competitions, enough to think I was hot stuff, and feeding the craving any competitive strides for: to search for identity by being really good at something so I can at least hold on to something in this world as my strength, something I'm better than most other people at. Come to find out, in 2023 I am not good at chess, losing most of my games at chess club and realizing a lot of people are better than me, and getting that sinking feeling that I'll never be as good as some of them. It hurts; maybe a little part of me, the chess competitive fire raging inside part of me, died today and I'm crying. As for specifics on why I'm bad, I never was a really good speed chess player, I always used up a lot of time on my clock to analyze all my possible moves, and in taking my time I was cautious, eliminating all of the bad moves that would lead to instant loss or at least allow my opponent to get an advantage. Now with no pressure to win and not playing for my school, I've developed a bad habit of moving too quickly, mostly because I have a tight schedule and I also don't want to look like an idiot and make the other player wait, so I move before I've done all the analysis I would have when I was 16 or 17 years old. In short, I'm worse than I was when I was 16 or 17. Or I was just not even that good back then; I just took a long time and eventually found the right move. There are people who move really quickly but still find the right move, then use the time I take thinking about my move to do their own analysis, and I just feel like an idiot or "noob." That's called "talent" something I gradually realize I don't have, at least in chess. But if I'm not good at chess, then what AM I good at? Tennis? Fantasy baseball, Languages? Trivia? Being a good person (I guess I did donate platelets + plasma for the first time this week)? The law? (definitely not, I am NOT a good lawyer) It's a little upsetting to know I'm not like elite at anything I do, and there's always someone better. Maybe if I had just concentrated on one thing strictly as a kind like Ken Jennings read encyclopedias as a kid or Tiger Woods started playing golf when he was 5 (on national TV no less). But I didn't, and the best talent I can think of for me is staying healthy and being lucky enough that all the people around me usually stay healthy enough not to pass away. Maybe that's my talent: not having people die in my inner circle, and not have to go through Michelle Zauner's grief process when I was just 25? I guess that's something to be happy about, or at least not cry about in chess club. 

Trainspotters/Train Nerds (電車オタク)

 There are so many different interests and hobbies in the world, I'm often surprised by new ones that I come across. Believe it or not, there is a large section of the population that who are obsessed about trains. After visiting Paris again, I'm not surprised, as it reignited my curiosity into subway systems. 

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, where the only subway I'd ever get close to was a 6-inch turkey sandwich on Tuesday Subway day. Only later in life did I even realize people used transportation other than planes and automobiles, that in major cities riding the subway was people's primary mode of commuting to work as well as just getting around. I never really got into New York's subways, maybe the smell, the state of the trains, the quality of the people riding them (there are quite a few crazies down there), but ever since my first solo international trip to Japan, I was impressed by the subway system; that was actually half the joy of the vacation, getting the JR pass and riding whatever train I wanted, to wherever I wanted. For some reason subway maps excite me, and the more complicated and with more colors and arrows, the better. It could be the same excitement I have for solving Jeopardy clues or putting together puzzles, subways present a mass amount of information that requires some studying to decipher how to get from one place to another (before Google Maps), and it fuses well with an interest in geography. Japanese trains all have a little jingle that gives you a bit of a soothing feeling before closing the doors, and (imagine this) they run on time, and people actually clean the trains periodically so as to make it a hygenically acceptable journey, something I'm not so sure of when I take the 7 train from JFK to Manhattan. 

I also like individual subway stops, where there could be a lot going on, from cool art exhibits to underground malls with tons of food stalls (Japan famously has a Michelin restaurant at a subway stop). Not surprising, as people in Asian countries pretty much have a second home at certain stops. There are also big connecting stops that link a bunch of lines together, like an octopus branching out to all different areas of the city. (In LA there's just one stop like that, it's called "DTLA" stop. Now that MJ and I visit some densely populated countries, I'm pretty invested in enjoying the subway system. Paris was....satisfying in that regard, although the weather in late May definitely incentivized us to be outside rather than going underground, and the whole pickpocketing thing is really a turn-off. (My dad actually lost 100 euro on a subway train; Europe is teeming with pickpockets, apparently, but these pickpockets were polite enough to leave his wallet with all the credit cards and non-cash related items intact. Call it a hefty subway tax. Definitely made me put one hand directly on my wallet at all times during this trip. I did get so caught up in the subway craze that I got overconfident and got lost in the Paris system, winding at a stop expecting to change lines, only to find out one of the lines did not run on Sundays. OH NO! The great equalizer of train transportation that makes me decidedly NOT a train nerd, closing o certain lines on weekends. I once was redirected on the BART (the Bay Area's train system) to take a bus through Oakland 5 miles to a stop that could transfer back to the BART. It was NOT a pleasant experience. And yea, also throw peace and quiet (and control over what smells you encounter) out the window when riding the subway. There's something calming about driving oneself on a highway, with one's fate in your own hands.....except until you hit traffic. Urg. Can't win. 

Eiffel Tower (埃菲尔铁塔, エッフェル塔, 에펠탑)

 MJ and I have now been to Paris twice, and twice we refused to go up the Eiffel Tower! There are some pretty good reasons for this, a.) there are so many other things to do in Paris, especially museums and artworks, especially in the spring/summer when the weather outside is so nice. b.) It requires booking way in advance to get a ticket for the elevator ride to the second section viewing area of the tower, and even booking in advance to WALK up there. c.) MJ doesn't like climbing excessively. d.) there are beautiful views of Paris all around the city, and the thing with seeing Paris from the Eiffel Tower is you're missing one giant landmark in your view- the Eiffel Tower, because you're viewing from the tower. Can't see the beautiful lighting up of the tower at night when you're standing in the tower itself. I have the same philosophy about other landmarks in other cities: I don't advocate going up Seattle's "400-day miracle" Space Needle to view the city because it's a bit pricey and you don't actually get to see the Space Needle up there, Empire State Building, Sears Tower, etc. 

Every city should have a huge landmark like the Eiffel Tower, a building that defines what it is and leaves an impression in visitors' minds, if only as part of a travel ad they click on to get them to come. Most tourists at least will know one thing about a city and make their decisions about whether to visit that city based on that impression, and if the Eiffel Tower's helping visitors lean towards coming, then it's really paying for itself over the long term. It's also a beautiful piece of architecture (spoken as someone who knows nothing about architecture) but it's really impressive watching from the bottom how different it is from most buildings and setting itself apart. MJ and I got up close from both directions, The Trocadero from across the Seine River as well as the Champ du Mars right underneath it, and it's very photogenic from any angle, but especially on a bright sunny day. 

I'm a guy who values underrated things, and I do think the Arc du Triomphe is underrated by many, as it's almost forgotten in that part of the city (most of the other attractions are in a different part of the city). It's more part of the fabric of French history than Eiffel Tower is (Napolean ordered the building of it after his famous victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1806, but it didn't get completed until the 1830's by Louise Philippe! Talk about production delays. It's a reasonably amount of distance up, not a devastating flight of stairs (we even saw a lady wearing heels who walked up and down the stairs) and the view of the Champs d'Elysses and the Eiffel Tower as well as Montmartre in the distance really bring out the flavor of Paris, even more than a boat ride down the Seine or Big Bus tour through the city. It really made me feel the exciting vibes of being in a big city, and made me realize that there are only a few cities in the world that can feel like Paris does just due to the layout and population of the city (only one in U.S. that is comparable is NYC). Probably the only time during my 2 visits I wanted to shout "Vive le France!" 

Moonwalking with Einstein- Memory (记忆, メモリー, 메모리)

 The title of this entry is a sort of experiment which is described more fully in the book "Moonwalking with Einstein," a New York Times bestselling book that came out in 2011, so way out of the public consciousness now, but just as important for people who want to enhance their memory capacity. Moonwalking with Einstein, as well as other books about memory, all agree on one simple: the more ridiculous and vivid a memory is, the easier it is to remember. For example, an image of Albert Einstein, the famous scientist, doing the Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk, is hard to get out of your head just due to how ridiculous it is, (and probably helped to improve sales of the book and vault it into NY Times Bestseller status) but it can also improve memory by linking long strings of numbers or facts with it, which is why we came up with mnemonic devices like "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." Which I just learned recently stood for the nine planets of the solar system (there's only 8 now without Pluto, so a slight adjustment of the sentence is needed). But it's a rock-solid way of remembering them because the human brain might forget the names of Uranus, Mercury, Venus, or get them wrong in some way if just ingesting them all in one big gulp, but with the image attached to it, can't go wrong. 

I realized after reading that I've been practicing this kind of "visual" memory technique my whole life without knowing about it, and the times I do employ it (subconsciously, without even knowing it) worked better than the times I didn't. For example, MJ and I have been to the Philadelphia Art Museum multiple times and there's a lot of art works there by a painter named Thomas Eakins, a 19th century artist who was born and died in Philadelphia. I associated his last name with the 1st-generation Pokemon snake "Ekans" (google it if you need to), and whenever I need to remember Thomas Eakins's name there's a photo of a snake with a paintbrush, and I get "Eakins." This obscure fact came up in Jeopardy Masters on a high-level (harder) question and I got it without even blinking, getting a shot of dopamine in the process which I'm sure keeps me coming back to the show over and over again. 

Memory experts also agree: the other great way to improve memory is to PAY ATTENTION. The No. 1 reason we likely don't remember people's names in a large group of new people is because we're not 100% focused on this one person we're shaking hands with. That happens to me too: I greet someone, I shake their hand and say I'm Robert, that person then says their name, but I'm often nervous because I'm in public and want to make a good impression, wondering if I tucked in my shirt, hoping my breath doesn't smell bad, wondering what I should say next after the obligatory introductions are over. I'm often NOT paying attention to the actual content of the name, just remembering that I should ask someone's name to seem polite, then move on to the next topic or move on to the next person and adhere to social etiquette. I'm not 100% focused when I absorb the name, and definitely not paying enough attention to digest the name, give a funny picture to it so it sticks. It's easy to forget a "David" or "John" or "Sarah" or "Kara," and again this is where the best memories are graphic memories are important: It's important to give some distinguishing feature to the person: "David with the purple tie," or "Sarah with the gold bracelet around her wrist," even better if it was alliterative to help remember like "David from Deloitte with dope dots on his purple tie" or something like that. So many ways to improve memory. 

Of course, making mental pictures and visual cues seems a little too tedious at times, and there's only so much effort I want to put into stuff. Putting things into songs definitely helps for me, the musical element, but also saying something out loud and repeating to myself. I do this all the time for phone numbers: I see 7-digit number I need to remember to call, I say the numbers out loud to them, and up to 1 minute later I can hear myself saying those words and can repeat them back. Sometimes just the memory of me saying those phone numbers out loud can trigger the memory, like creating a "save point" in a video game. Memory experts often say to create something like that, something out of the ordinary course of events, that helps it stick out in a generally bland pattern of life, and pattern of trying to remember stuff. Sometimes this is easy, like I learned the first British submarine was named DREADNAUGHT, and I love saying DREADNAUGHT, so I said it to myself over and over again until it became a memory of myself saying that word repeatedly. Memory experts suggest throwing something random against a wall, something you would never do, when you put your cell phone/keys/something you lose frequently away, because then when you have to find your phone next time you'll remember the last time you had it was when you threw that random thing against a wall. 

Memory! Tricky, but easily manipulated to do what we want it to do and remember what we want to remember! Also writing random facts on this blog helps trigger memories when I go back and remember them! Okhost Sea! Sakhalin Island is the largest island in Russia! Ants emit formic acid! Seaborgium is abbreviated Sg and atomic number 106 and the way I remember that is picturing 106 little blue Glenn Seaborg-looking smurfs running around with Sg on their shirts! 

Heat Waves (热浪, 熱波, 열파)

 Some songs just have that indelible quality of staying with people forever, and the most recent entry into my own collection of forget-me-not songs is "Heat Waves" by the Glass Animals, a hit 2022 song that will probably live until the end of time in people's minds, or disappear into obscure while getting mixed up with the 1963 song by Martha and the Vandellas. Either one. It's definitely more memorable when a heat wave does come around like this time of year, and MY CONDO DOESN'T HAVE FUNCTIONING AIR CONDITIONING AND MJ AND I ARE BOTH STUCK IN above-80 temperatures in our own home. Sigh. Another reason to always try to get a new device/machine/computer/air conditioner/unit when given a choice between fixing an old product vs. just getting a new one. We opted to get the "band-aid fix" last summer to get working AC back online, but less than a year later we're in the same place we were a year ago, having spent hundreds of dollars on an expensive band-aid. I do miss when we moved into a new apartment unit every year; everything was new and everything was working. I'm starting to understand why people call home ownership a "money pit." 

The only consolation to this AC fiasco is I'm learning a little bit about how air conditioners operate, especially in large condo buildings or apartments with lots of individual units. Everyone needs AC, so on the roof of every building is a massive maze/contraption/mess/whatever you want to call it of individual condensor units connected to the individual building units below inside. And when it gets hot, all those condensors turn on almost in unison and start running with fan going. What our AC unit is lacking apparently is pressure, or PSI to create cold air using the frigerant due to some sort of leak inside the unit that's leaking pressure......that's where the A/C guy lost me. But more people really should try going up to the roof of their residence building: it's really quite an eye-opening experience; just don't trip on the wires up there. I also wonder what happens when it rains, most of the AC units are just sitting up there with no real protection from water or other precipitation. Too much above my paygrade; I guess I'm just the customer who winds up getting saddled with the bill for paying for a product that I don't understand, placed in an unenviable position of being stuck without A/C during a heat wave. 

My only consolation about this current heat wave: at least there's Jeopardy, and right now there's a heat wave of episodes coming out with the regular show coming out and FOUR hour-long episodes this week of Masters Jeopardy. MJ and I have watched A LOT of Jeopardy this past week and have gone over a LOT of clues. The Masters tournament clues, while a smidge tougher, aren't exactly the head-spinning level of difficulty one would associate with "Master" level jeopardy players. It's definitely reaching into the nether regions of the Jeopardy canon, a finite universe, but they're not clues that haven't been seen before. The lesson is that James Holzhauer is still the second best player ever in Jeopardy history, after Ken Jennings. Season 38 was fine and dandy and produced a ton of great memorable champions, but mostly because none of them had to play James until now. 

Orangutan (猩猩, 오랑우탄, オランウータン)

Both trivia and studying different languages has given me a new interest: learning about words in the English language that come from various global languages. It really makes me convinced that not only is America a melting pot of cultures, but the language spoken here, English, a mishmash, jambalaya, potpourri of different languages, some more than others of course, but it certainly feels like it takes a little smidge from every language, if only the different foods and plants/herbs that come from each culture. This past Friday on Jeopardy I learned about babka bread, which is a yeast cake whose name comes from a Polish name for "grandmother," kind of like the Russian "babushka" meaning the same thing. Spanish and French are the big languages, but sometimes Spanish can get confused with Italian, in that a word ending with a vowel (-i, -a, -o) can be right in that border line between Italian or Spanish origins. Unfortunately Korean hasn't carved a large role in the English language other than in Korean food items (bulgogi, banchan, kimchi, etc.) but BTS, Blackpink and the rest of KPop is paving the way! That's how cultural revolutions begin! 

The surprising language that most people wouldn't even think about, but I happened to have studied, is Indonesian: a language that's shared by Malaysian and Indonesian people but hasn't really spread into other part of the words, but it's responsible for some commonly used terms American people use like it's nothing and don't think about why they're calling it that, which is "orangutan" - coming from the Indonesian words "human" (Orang) and "forest" (hutan), which is kind of what an orangutan is, a creature with a common ancestor of humans who lives in the forest. The reason it stuck is likely because it sounds and looks cool: Orangutan looks a lot like "orange" which a lot of them have that color skin/fur, and the peas and valleys of saying the word makes it roll off the tongue. Plus that drink "Tang" that tasted like orange juice, and was made famous when the astronauts of Apollo 11 took it to the moon (fun trivia fact). 

Orangutan's the most prominent word from Indonesian, but not the only one: pangolin and dugong (yes like the Pokemon) are animals with Indonesian roots, but also the word "bantam" which is used for small fowl like chicken or ducks, but is more commonly used in the term "bantamweight" which is a weight class usually around 135 pounds or so (yes there are men who fight at 135 pounds, which seems like a really low weight for muscular men; just the muscles alone seem like they should weigh a man down). 

The famous spy for Germany in WWI, Mata Hari, actually has an Indonesian/Malaysian name: it means eye of the day, appropriate for a spy I guess. I guess the lesson is when you're learning words and names of things/people/places, be curious and understand where those name come from; there's usually a story behind them. 

ChatGPT

 I saw a business news article today that said ChatGPT caused a 48% decline in the stock price of Chegg, an online education company and whose stock I used to own (just a little bit, not much, during the 2021 "ALL SPECULATIVE STOCKS ARE GOOD STOCKS" era). In hindsight, of course, it seems obvious that would happen, considering online education is kind of reliant on students and their drive to learn. Chegg was a company that provided homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, and online tutoring. It reminds me of SAT classes when I was in high school: Yes people take them to get a good score on the SAT, but did they really help? Maybe there was some quantitative results, but I have to think some of that was because students who paid the money for SAT classes actually buckled down and studied after spending money on the classes, not necessarily any brilliant techniques that SAT classes taught. As with almost any subject, SAT can be figured out on one's own, and someone studying on their own with the right drive (no distractions, just pure studying) is likely able to work more efficiently and skip the stuff that classes teach which you know already and are good at. It really epitomizes the American education system: everything taught in schools and written in textbooks can be learned on one's own, schools are just a way to instill a culture of learning. 

More concerning is this ChatGPT that is taking over everything; looks like homework help is just the first step. I remember in high school how many essays I spent countless hours on rereading and getting the wording just right, adding in different sections that I had found.....well, now the high school students are just using ChatGPT to write their essays. And the joke I hear among teachers (maybe not much of a joke) is that they grade those papers now using ChatGPT too to. So the whole exercise is pointless, it's ChatGPT evaluating ChatGPT's work. While I somewhat envy those high school students' ability to escape endless hours of mindless typing into their computer, I feel like most high students won't use the extra time wisely to hone skills in other areas, it'll just get used up on social media, internet, and other addicting pursuits. See the thing with iPhones and ChatGPT is that our technology is getting so much better and smarter, but it has an inverse relationship with students' intelligence, as in students are getting dumber by using the iPhone. Why learn languages if you can just use the phone to translate everything? Why learn to write and use proper grammar when ChatGPT (or Grammarly) writes everything for you? Why learn anything when the Internet contains everything you need to know already? That's the really scary thing about ChatGPT is not that it's taking over some fringe startup companies like Chegg; it's that students are actually using ChatGPT to replace all of their learning needs, it's the latest shortcut in a world of shortcuts available for the new generation of people that makes life easier in the short term but likely will have consequences later in life regarding working hard on something, developing patience, and most importantly, the desire to learn. That's been one of the best gifts I've ever gotten from reading books in my youth and actually doing those papers, reading the assigned readings from school: I desired to learn about them and hone my mind. Let's not lose that.