This Bucket List Kicks Back

Hey, folks. Today’s Daily Prompt is all about bucket lists. You know, the list of stuff you want to do before you die? I don’t know about you, but mine seems to get longer every time I think about it. Here’s a (work in progress) list:

• Earn my master’s degree, and least a few more bachelor’s degrees.
• Learn many languages, most likely Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, and French for starters.
• Learn how to drive. (I really don’t want to, but I’m going to have to.)
• Learn a martial art. (My college freshman jiu-jitsu course was a long time ago.)
• Learn coding, either in terms of sites or apps.
• Learn how to create digital art.
• Learn how to read music.
• Learn how to horseback ride.
• Relearn Calculus and continue beyond it. (MIT has courses for independent study)
• Read at least one novel a week. (I usually have a couple on hand.)
• Write and publish a novel. (Hopefully winning a Nobel Prize for Literature?)
• Review 1,000 games. (I’m at 702 now.)
• Visit all seven continents. (I’ve only got South America, Australia, and Antarctica left!)
• See at least one new country a year. (I’ve managed this three years in a row, Italy is coming up in a few months.)
• Visit an active volcano. (Visited Kilauea in December 2014)
• See snow fall.
• Celebrate Holi.
• Participate in La Tomatina.
• Participate in the Taiwan Lantern Festival.
• Visit the Pyramids at Giza.
• Visit Hagia Sophia.
• Visit Easter Island.
• Visit Stonehenge, preferably during an equinox.
• Visit the Burj Khalifa.
• Visit the Taj Mahal.
• Visit Petra.
• Visit Angkor Wat.
• Visit Santorini.
• Visit Vatican City. (This might be happening soon.)
• Meet the Dalai Lama.
• Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway.
• Stay in Finland’s Kakslauttanen igloo hotel and see the aurora borealis.
• Stay in the Rangali underwater hotel in the Maldives.
• Return to Paris and explore the Catacombs.
• See Japan’s Nabana No Sato, Shibuya, Mt. Fuji, and all of its castles.
• See Machu Picchu. (This one almost happened this year!)
• See Iguazu Falls. (See above.)
• See Victoria Falls.
• See the Hunan province.
• See Holland’s flower fields.
• See the Amazon and Sahara.
• See Uluru.
• See the DMZ.
• See the polar ice caps.
• Participate in a research expedition. Classifying new species in the Mariana Trench, archeological digs in Europe or Asia, etc.
• Visit ALMA.
• Visit CERN.
• Visit Pic du Midi.
• Watch all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films.
• Go skydiving.
• Earn a pilot’s license.
• Ride a hot air balloon.
• Walk the Great Wall of China.
• Climb all the major mountains of the world. If I can only choose one, then:
• Climb Mt. Everest. If I can’t make it to the top, then I want to see the mountain at the very least.
• Learn how to play an instrument, preferably the guitar.
• Get a tattoo.
• Watch a space shuttle launch. (Or to go space myself!)
• Experience zero gravity.
• Finish a marathon. (Bay To Breakers is probably the closest I’ll get.)
• Donate to or create a charity.
• Do volunteer work abroad.
• Attend Comic Con, E3, and compete in EVO.
• Start a gaming/review channel on YouTube.
• Do voice acting for a video game or anime.
• Invent/discover something that would be beneficial for society.
• Have an astronomical object or theory named after me.
• Restore the old family house.
• Further expand my personal library.
• Find a house big enough to store my personal library.
• Retire in Cinque Terre. (Open to other suggestions, though!)

It seems like a lot, I know. Kind of far-fetched, too. But looking through some other people’s bucket lists, I’ve now realized that I’ve already done a ton of weird and awesome stuff. I’ve seen most of the major landmarks and buildings here in the States, been to a dozen countries, visited a Buddhist temple in Thailand, fought a fire, lived in two countries, went to the Eiffel Tower and Versailles, was a pallbearer, camped out in the Sierras the old-fashioned way, gone on a cruise, went to Chichen Itza, ate durian, bought goods in a kasbah, spent a weekend on Alcatraz, grew a garden and trees, lead a wedding procession twice, graduated from college without loans…the list keeps going and going. Judging by everything else I’ve thought up, I’m nowhere near finished.

What’s on your bucket list?

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Daily Prompt: A Bird, a Plane, You!, Or: This Is Heavy, Doc!

Hey, folks. Today’s Daily Prompt is about power. Specifically, choosing one of three superpowers provided:

• The ability to speak and understand any language
• The ability to travel through time
• The ability to make any two people agree with each other

Now, I’ve established that I’m pretty geeky, so of course questions like this are nothing new. The concept of superpowers is ancient; a cursory glance of any major battle in Homer’s epics will reveal quite a bit. When I was a kid, it always came down to Achilles’ Nigh Invulnerability versus Odysseus’ cunning. Cunning isn’t technically a superpower, but being able to outsmart gods is undeniably awesome. But since wisdom and strategy are part of Athena’s domain, she’s probably my first favorite superhero…

Going on a tangent. Sorry.

Anyway, so this debate focuses on the three aforementioned powers. I can dismiss the third one outright, because making two people agree doesn’t exactly solve the inherent issues of a disagreement. The implication of this power is that you use some kind of psychic ability to mess with people’s brains, essentially forcing them to do something. It really boils down to individual morality versus necessity; if you need to mentally force people to agree, then what does that portend for the future of civilization? Look what happened to Rohan in Lord of the Rings. I don’t know about you, but I like having free will and memories. Hey, remember when ? Remember when she mind-wiped Batman in an attempt to cover it up? Yeah, that didn’t have any negative consequences whatsoever…oh wait.

I’m sorely tempted to go with the first one, simply because I really enjoy learning languages. I spend a lot of time using free online resources like DuoLingo and Open Culture. If The King of All Cosmos can speak Esperanto, then so can I! What’s cool about speaking any language is that it’s not limited to verbal communication. Taken a step further, universal translation also applies to technology. You ever take a course in C++? BASIC? Congratulations, you know a programming language. How about body language? Music? Symbols? R’lyehian? You might want to save that last one for a special occasion. There’s a lot of opportunities to be had, and being able to communicate is a more civil method of diplomacy than, you know, mind-wiping naysayers.

However, I have to go with time travel. If you have all the time in the world, you can develop universal translation on your own! Yeah, it’s a lot of studying, but at least you won’t have to sacrifice the ability to bend the fabric of reality. You have enough time to do, learn, and create anything you want. The sky isn’t even the limit; develop technology over the centuries and discover interstellar flight! It’s all there for the taking. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, though. There are a lot of problems associated with time travel, usually due to individual choices and hubris. Remember what happened in Back to the Future? Marty McFly nearly erased himself from existence, and accidentally re-wrote a bunch of other stuff! Or how about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, who used her powers to avoid problems and drastically altered the fates of everyone around her? Doctor Who is all about why time travel is so ridiculously awesome and dangerous at the same time. Then there are all the questions brought up with multiverse theory, which is even messier. Time travel is the best of these three powers, but it requires unparalleled responsibility and foresight. I don’t think I – or anyone else, for that matter – could use it perfectly.

But I’d sure like to try.