My First Week and My First Ramble

Hello everyone, welcome to Emi's blog where I shall rant to you every week! :D

First thing's first, Q&A! It appears there are some questions that require answers, and my goal is to answer them to the best of my ability. Best place to start: QUESTION 1!

> Where is my place on the globe and how am I doing overall?

Emi is located in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. I live on what we call "The Hill" and the weather is pretty odd at times. We hardly get rain, and in the summer the humidity is killer, but the winters and spring are usually fresh, if not freezing. I personally like the cold, so I suppose I am biased.

Not much has changed since I started university due to the pandemic; I still live with my parents, I still attend online classes from my room, and I hardly go outside like I used to. Such a drastic change in lifestyle was a hard toll on me mentally since I love socializing with people, even though in high school I never had the time to do so. I am thankful that I made lots of connections online, but I do hope to make friends in-person again soon.

I have also realized that I am not fit for online school, if I'm being transparent here. I can never focus, and I don't have any sense of time management. Last quarter really threw me down into the dirt and I'm still trying to pick myself back up, but I don't want to yield so easily.

> Writing reflection!

It's weird how writing classes are so much different to just writing for fun. I find writing classes to be too structured and not loose enough--almost suffocating, if you will. I write on my own time and tell a story that I'm personally invested in, and I have kept this story up for about five, going onto six years with a couple of online friends. It has been such a journey and I have developed my writing immensely, though that sadly isn't the case with my writing classes, I would say.

Again, if the prompt is my own and I don't have writer's block, I can write pages upon pages and just ramble. But in a writing course such as this one, I have to be structured and make sure my thoughts are not off in the clouds, but rather tied down and ordered on the ground. I'm hoping I can improve my lack of structure and analyzes in this course, and learn some better words since I have a bad habit of repeating myself due to my lack of vocabulary knowledge.

> What level is my writing and reading right now?

I covered this a bit in the previous question, but to reiterate, I don't believe I write too well in an academic setting. When researching I tend to skim and only look for quick and easy quotes without analyzing further into the meaning. I want to break this bad habit and actually absorb the information. I want to analyze and come up with my own ideas and thoughts and write them down in a logical way. I care deeply for animals, and I know little to nothing about animal rights. I'm hoping to learn and change my writing, while also doing the same for how I view the animal and human relationship we have in the world today.

> TIME articles and my thoughts on them?

Topic 1: Communication with animals?!

I guess I'm behind the times, but I seriously did not even know that that was possible! Don't get me wrong, I know animals are intelligent and communicate in their own way, but never did I imagine humans and animals, or in this case apes, would be able to speak to each other in a way that they can hold a conversation. How Kluger communicates with Kanzi by tapping on sheets, as Kluger describes it, is fascinating to me. Training apes since they are born and giving them words that they can then use to form sentences is amazing, and I wonder if there are any animals capable of doing this tapping with. Maybe one day UP will be a reality: I would love to have a talking Doug!

Topic 2: Friendship Magic!

I always believed animals ran on instinct alone, but I couldn't be more wrong. Reciprocal altruism is what they biologists say drives social behavior in the animal kingdom. In other words, a favor for a favor. Except you would think this would be done just for survival, but this has been found not to be the case! Just like humans, chimps were found to do favors for each other over differing periods of time. This means that they actively remember and reciprocate the kindness a chimp shows to them. Humans are not the only ones with best friends, I see! I wonder if this could be true for human-chimp relationships, I'd love to have a Chimp BFF!

BONUS!

I know the camera quality is very questionable, but I couldn't find any other photo of myself! If there's anything you should know about me it's that I ADORE sloths. My friend gave me this one for my birthday two years ago, and I have held onto it ever since! I call it Stickers (inside joke please don't laugh or think I'm weird D:). I was just posing with it after I had gotten it, and I was totally bragging to everyone because who exactly has a small cute pink sloth?

I think that's it for this week, join me next time when we discuss something new and exciting!

Signing off for now...

Emi out :D