Game of Thrones

Who’s going to sit on the Iron throne?

We’re on the 6^th season of Game of Thrones and there’s a lot that happen and a lot that didn’t (at least that’s what everyone has been saying. I’ve decided to only read the books after I have them all. Which means G. R. R. Martin has to finish the series before I even start to read the first book).

So everything I’m about to say is based ONLY on the Series.

After 6 years of Game of Thrones it’s impossible not to see some patterns in the story arc. That leads to everyone having their own opinion on how the story is going to end. This is my vision of it. I won’t talk about every character, because in total honesty I believe that 70% of them will already be dead after next season. Why? Because the death ratio in Westeros has been increasing significantly over the years.

The only thing fans can be sure by now is that no one is save.

(I add the fact that G. R. R. Martin met with Stephen King the other day, so that may have given George some inspiration on how to kill some more character…)

So I’m going to focus on this season and what I think is going to happen in the final.

In the last episode we see Daenerys madness growing. And by the looks of it, she likes Yara Greyjoy… and let’s be honest… that’s one hell of a troublemaker right there, and I bet that’s not going to help Daenerys to be reasonable person. Besides she’s what? 16/17? And we’ve all been seeing how power has been growing to her head. She burned people alive to get an army! How’s that for madness?!

Tyrion even mention Daenerys father, reminding her what got him killed – Madness. She was responsive to it…but the more she grows I bet the less advice she’ll take in consideration. And I don’t see the producers making this kind of scene if it didn’t had a meaning. So probably it means she WILL be consumed by madness.

I do believe Daenerys will sit on the iron throne in the finale.

She will win the battle against Westeros. But I also believe that by then she’ll be completely mad and beyond saving. History will repeat itself.

So who do I think is going to kill her? Tyrion. Yup the tinny smart, drunk, sex-addict dwarf. Tyrion is a good guy, and he does see things that no-one else does. For now he’s there to help Daenerys control her madness, but how will he react when he can no longer bring Daenerys back to reason?

 

How’s that going to affect the end and who’s going to rule the Iron Throne?

Well, without Daenerys, there has to be someone else to rule. I doubt Tyrion could do that. He tried this season to rule in Marine, but showed he had no strength to do what’s necessary. He’s a diplomate, not a king.

Then there’s Jon. Jon is also a nice guy. He likes to do things the right way, and he’s a good fighter, and he has a good set of followers. But, I don’t think he’ll rule the Iron throne. He’s from the North, he’s more attached to the northerners. And I doubt he’ll even leave the north. I don’t see Jon ruling Westeros. I don’t even think he likes power that much. Especially after he left his place as commander of the Night’s Watch. He saw that as a ruler he has to do things that he doesn’t like to do. That was his experience as a ruler, and it went bad. He died because of it! And had to kill because of it! I don’t think he can be king of Westeros after that.

Then who?

Well I’m not sure yet.

Sansa has been a growing character. She’s the opposite of Daenerys. She was a bad teenager to whom terrible things happened, and made her grow into a more stable person. And then there’s the fact that Littlefinger is by her side. Even if she doesn’t like him, she knows he’s a powerful ally.

Maybe it would be Littlefinger that would rule the Iron throne. He’s not a good person, that’s for sure. But he does what’s need to be done. He’s capable of doing bad things, and good things. He’s smart and resourceful. But then again he’s too smart to be a king. He knows better than that. After all – kings die a lot. So he would never be the king of Westeros. They all get murderer. He could rule the kingdom, but he would put someone else in the throne. Someone he could control. Like Robert Arryn, maybe… He’s an idiot kid, but Littlefinger already showed he can manipulate him. So who knows?

So yeah. Basically I’m not sure yet of whom would be better to rule the Iron throne. I’m just 90% sure that it shouldn’t be either Daenerys, John or even Tyrion.

If everyone is right about Sansa being pregnant, maybe it will be her child. Who knows, maybe the king of Westeros isn’t even born yet. That would be one hell of a plot twist, wouldn’t it?

Good Bye

Today I say good bye to my volunteer work at the library.

It has been a long nine months filled with joy and friendship at this magical place. I’ve met great people and made amazing friends. But how could it be any different?

After all, the library is indeed a place of magic…

And for me, it has been the best of places. And luckily everyone (or almost everyone) was super kind and super helpful. I’m forever thankful for this opportunity.

If you read my previous post (Volunteering, internship and slavery) you’ll see I speak badly of volunteer work because it steals jobs. It is true, and I still defend that. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t  love the experience. I did.

This was the last week. This was the last day. Everything went by so fast that I now believe that time does fly.

To all my new friends, to everyone that made my experience great – thank you. I will never forget any of the things we did and said.

Good bye.

Probably forever. 

Daily Promps – Purpose

I often ask myself what is the purpose of life. We live and we die, and in between we stress, we get depressed, we get sad, and we fight to fit in in a society in which our inner self could never fit; if we set our spirit free, society will not accept us. Because of it we hide, and play a part; we’re actors.

It that purpose of life? To pretend to be someone? To pretend we’re normal when we’re not?

Some people know since their early years what they want from life, I didn’t, I still don’t. I love everything, or at least a significant amount of stuff.

I like writing, I like singing, I like art, I like History, I like Archaeology, I like Biology, I like engineering, I like Gardening, I like Chinese, Japanese, Italian, English, Latin… etc, etc. Oh, I like so many things! I can’t decide what I want to do or be. I don’t know what I want.

A couple of years ago, before college, I tried doing an Aptitude Test… Because well maybe it will chose my life for me, seeing I couldn’t do it myself. It was worthless. It said I was good for any area. So I was back to not knowing what I wanted or what I should do. I still don’t. I like archaeology, but what I like about it is the artifacts. I hate digging… (Unless I’m digging a grave or something like that). But I don’t like carrying buckets. I like the details…

In my country if you want to be an archaeologist you will either teach, or carry buckets non-stop all day. Almost no one studies the artifacts. And that’s the part I truly love.

I like History. But I don’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life.

So what’s the point in life? To chose something? To just stick to doing one thing for the rest of your life, and settle??

What’s the Purpose of it? To pretend? Not grown as an individual? To just survive until you die?

What’s the Point? It is worth it? Why should we have to decide? Why can’t some people just do many things? Why do you have to be a specialist in ONE area to be taken seriously?

I hate the way we built the world and society. I wonder how it would feel if we had made differently. If it didn’t matter who you are, and how you look to others. If you didn’t have to find a purpose.

What if you didn’t have a purpose, and could just live? What would you do? What would you feel? Why do you have to have a purpose at all?

 

Purpose

Unscientific nº3 – Volunteering, Internship and Slavery

You read the title and you’re now thinking what do all of this have in common?! Well everything… or at least almost everything.

The thing is, nowadays volunteering has become and unpaid job, and so did internships (at least in my country). And if you analyze the basics of slavery, you’ll find that its fundamentals are the unpaid work.

I have been doing volunteering for years now, and the more I volunteer the more I hate it. Social causes are one thing. You’re helping people, you’re helping society and others. “Social Volunteering” has always been a part of society, and it has worked great for many years. The problem is that volunteer work has extended to other areas, and is now a global economical problem – it steals jobs from qualified workers.

I did all kinds of volunteering. I know I could just not do them, yes, but then how would I gain experience to work?

All jobs ask for 3 to 5 years of experience. And that’s for a low paycheck. Higher paychecks ask for more “qualified” workers, which means more years of experience. 3 to 5 years means you have to spend 3 to 5 years doing volunteering works, because honestly, in my area, I have not seen a job offer that does not ask for experience.

What is my area you ask? Culture. I have a degree in Archaeology and I’m finishing my masters in Military History (Yes, that is an area of study… )

I’ve spent the last year volunteering at my university library. Before that I’ve volunteered as a tutor, and after next month I’ll be volunteering in a museum. My dream is to be a museum curator. In fact, I remember that when I was little (I think at 13 or something) I visit the museum of Natural History in London, I loved it. In that moment, without knowing, I was choosing the path that I’m now walking.

I studied archaeology because I wanted to work at a museum, touch and study the materials coming from excavations. I’ve had multiple experiences with those “artifacts”. Some better, some worse. The thing is, my experience is not enough. I doubt it will ever be enough, so I have to volunteer… hoping that one day, after 10 years of volunteering, I’ll have enough experience to be called for any museum.

So when you read this, and think that I’m comparing Volunteering to Slavery because I know nothing about volunteering, you’re wrong. I’ve been volunteering for years. And from that experience I’ve reached a conclusion that there are two types of volunteer work (and workers). On one side you find the Volunteering for Social reasons, and which basically you just want to help society, help it improve, help doing things that no one wants to do. For example, helping children from a minority group, or elderly, etc etc. This volunteer work has what I call “The Human Factor”. You want to volunteer because you want to help. I’ve done that kind of volunteering, and It’s amazing. The feelings, the fullness… it’s beyond words some of the best kind of sensation one can feel.

Then there’s the second kind of volunteer work – Slavery. You heard it, that’s what I call the second type of volunteer. In this type of volunteering you’re basicly just working to gain experience and nothing more. You’ll not get paid, you are stealing someone else’s job.

To illustrate better, let me give you a couple of examples.

I’m volunteering at a library, and I’ve volunteered as a Tutor, and next I’ll volunteer at a Museum. All these places have a minimum of 20 more volunteers for 4 or 6 months. While having 3 or 4 actually employees. For example the museum. At the meeting we were I believe 15(?) volunteers (or something like that). While the rest of the museum team was I believe was 5 people. It’s actually a very low number between employers and volunteers. . The lowest I’ve seen as a volunteer.

The thing is, this volunteer work is ONLY for the summer, in which the amount of museum visitors will triple. They don’t want to hire more people, because that would mean use more money, so they start, what they call a “volunteer program”. In reality volunteers will be doing what should be done by qualified workers. They will be there to help the visitors, they will be there to answer any questions, etc, etc. AND YOU HAVE to act as if you’re actually a worker – do your best, be there every day you’re supposed to, because you have to be responsible, be there on time… etc, etc. All things an actual worker has do to too.

Volunteers are there to fill places that should be filled by qualified people. Yes, they don’t do the “important” work. (Although they can in the future, “as we’re still experimenting, and this is the first time we’re opening a volunteer program, so your duties may evolve”). So basically, nowadays, companies are opening “volunteer programs” because they don’t want (or can’t) pay for qualified workers. This has special impact in Culture, in which this “phenomenon” has been increasing, making an average of 1-2 workers for 20 volunteers.

Now, internships… oh boy, do I have a lot to say about this… Again, my area is culture, so this is mostly a problem in the Cultural world. You need to keep in mind that this may not apply to other areas.

Ok, so to finish my degree in archaeology I had to do several internships in several excavation sites. In all of them there was 1 Archaeologist and could have 1 or 2 Assistant archaeologist (these were, sometimes, students taking their masters degree, which means they were not being payed…But some were).

So you see the numbers here are either 1 to 3 people getting paid in an excavation site. And I’m not talking about those small excavations, by private financing from small companies… No. All of these excavations were being financed by the government! By the district of regional governmental administrative buildings… And worst is yet to come.

These 2 or 3 people were paid. And then there was 20 or more interns… because we had to be there or we wouldn’t graduate. It was 20 or more interns carrying buckets and digging holes, while the “archaeologists” supervised or excavated the more interesting things. So here we are again on a scale of 1-2 to 20…

But it gets even worse.

Because having 20 unpaid interns (that ARE qualified to do the work seeing we were all archaeology students), was not enough, they decided to bring in the most outrageous thing I’ve ever seen. 20 interns, 2 or 3 archaeologist and then 15 children. Yup, children. And again, that’s not the worse part.
The 12 to 16 years old kids, carrying buckets, were not volunteering there. They were in a summer camp. Their parents WERE PAYING for their kids to be there. So you see, there was like 30 or 35 (I don’t even know anymore) interns plus kids, and 2 or 3 people getting payed.
This means that out of (more or less) 40 people 2 or 3 were being paid, while half WAS PAYING to work there, and the other half had to be there if they wanted to graduate…

This is why I’M AGAINST internships and volunteer working. I need a job and I CAN’T have one because:

– EVERY museum has a significant number of volunteers (especially during summer, in which they NEED more people to work) so they don’t need more workers;

– EVERY museum that actually has a job offer, asks for significant experience that I DON’T HAVE despite the fact that I have being volunteering for years, and did internships…

 

 

PS. The picture I used Is OK, because the childreen are just SIMULATING an excavation, not actually doing the job of anyone…

 

Unscientific nº2 – Morning birds and Nightly Owls

Welcome back to Scientificly Unscientific!

Today I want you to imagine something.

 

“The birds singing; the sky is quiet, and everything is peaceful.

 

Two man stand in front of a wall; their tool belts weighting heavily on their waist. They pull their pants down, just enough, to allow their butt-crack to breathe. They look at the watch in their wrist, anxiously waiting. Anticipation killing them. 

3 Seconds to go.

They raise their hammers in the air, counting the seconds.

2 Seconds.

Holding their breathes, they wait.

1 Second 

The hammers began their way down, cutting through the air, forcing their weigh into their target. 

09.00 AM (Not one second latter, not one second before)

The hammers hit their targets; two innocent nails.

Savagely and wildly, the hammers hit the nails, again and again. And when their done with those two, they moved onto another nail.

They’re trying to make a symphony, but they’re terrible musicians. They’re not even synchronize! But it doesn’t matter because this is their moment – the veil is up. The law of silence no longer lives. No more need for special noise licenses, concerts can be given whenever without having to worry about making too much noise! It’s anarchy. Noise is King! All hail the rightful king…! (At least until is night again, when the law of silence will rise from is tomb, to force everyone into a peaceful quiet.”

 

This is what I imagine happened in my neighbor’s house this morning.

It was 9.00 AM sharp when they began hammering their house, like they usually do, oh so often.  This is the part when you say – well people need to work on the house sometimes…. So let them.

Yes, you’re totally right. But this particularly people, have been doing this for years. By now, I imagine they have knocked down the walls twice, and rebuilt them three times; Destroyed and built the furniture 4 times, and are now wildly crushing the walls again.

But it’s fine, that’s not even the point. The point is, because I was sleeping and was awaken by this, I began wondering, and It lead me to this post – The silence law and nightly owls.

You see, nowadays, there are A LOT of people that work at night; a lot of jobs require them to. So my question is – why is there a law of silence for people that work from 9 am to 5/6 p.m., but not one for those that work at night, and need to sleep during the day?

It’s really unfair. People that work at night should have the same rights as those that work during the day.

And that’s not only that. I believe I read somewhere that there are two kinds of people – Morning birds and nightly howls. In that article (I believe it was an online news, but this is internet, so 1º I could be wrong or 2º It could had been a completely made up article), people where divided in two categories based on their brains. Apparently some can function in the morning and others are more productive in the afternoon.

So, you see, there are a lot of nightly owls out there. They’re not a minority. So my question remains the same, and without answer – why is it that there is a law to allow people to sleep at night, but one to allow people to sleep in the morning?

Well, that’s all for today.

If you have an answer to this question, feel free to answer in the comments. I would love to hear from you.

 

Zaniah

 

 

For All the Lonely Children with Imaginary Friends — Discover

“I dreamt that a man with purple skin, a long tail, with an egg balancing on his head, came to my room, held my hand and walked me outside, where we played all night long.” Kiprop Kimutai recalls an imaginary friend.

via For All the Lonely Children with Imaginary Friends — Discover

The Unscientific Fundamentals of Blogging – Lesson nº 1

With the Creation of my blog I decided to join WordPress blogging “university”

Because the truth is:

I know nothing about blogging.

So I sure needed a course on it;

The first Lesson is to publish a post of “Who I am and Why I’m here“.

I took a course last month on communication in science; it was horrible! I mean don’t take me wrong, the course was great, I was the one that was terribly horrible at it. But I did learned one thing – people will hear you if you tell them a story.

So why not apply it in this specific post? After all is an “all about me” post. So here it goes – Who I am and why I’m here?

First let’s answer the: Who.

I have a cat, I named her “Miau” (which basically means “meow”). I did that because she “talks” a lot, she’s a very communicative cat. She’s also afraid of everything. Every Time the doorbell is heard, she hides under my sheets and you’ll not see her until there’s silence again… or if she smells food.

Why am I talking about my cat, you ask?

Because pets are the reflection of their owners/ caregivers.

Whenever the doorbell rings, I lock myself in my bedroom. I don’t like people. I’m socially awkward. I say all the wrong things at the wrong time… Unless there’s food. If there’s food, I’m fine with being around people (mostly because I’ll ignore everyone and focus on my food).

Also I don’t do drama.

I think that’s all you need to know  about me for now…

Now the why?

Because. Do I have to have a reason?

Unscientific nº01

 Currently Reading: Filhos do Diabo (Devil’s Sons)

Hey guys, welcome to my blog!

I decided to start a blog because I’ve always wanted to. I did tried a couple of times before, but always ended up giving up, mostly because I was trying too hard, and writing things that didn’t actually matter much to me.
This time I hope to change that.

I’ve decided to start the blog by talking about Serial Killers. (Because what better way to start a blog than to write about blood and horrors, right?)

A while ago (like last week) I finished reading another one of Tess Gerritsen books (which I’ll probably praise later,  because I’m a hardcore fan of them). After finishing several of her books, I found myself wondering: Are Serial Killers addicts?

It’s a weird question, I know. But, we all make weird questions once in awhile (Honestly I’m the champion of making stupid and weird questions).

I actually never studied the subject. But after reading Tess’s books, I couldn’t stop myself. And this is how I ended up here – Devil’s Sons: Serial Killers, satanics and vampirists. *

I haven’t finished reading this book yet, but I will (Soon, I hope).

Anyway; by the end of the first chapter, I found myself asking the exact same question I did before – Are they addicts? My answer to this question (at the moment) is yes. Serial Killers are addicted to killing, just like a drug addict is addicted to drugs and a alcoholic addicted to alcohol.

Most drugs addicts goes to rehab, comes out and does drugs again. Most Serial Killers goes to jail and when he/she comes out, they end killing again.

Another thing that’s similar between serial killers and addicts is the reason to why they do it:

1. Boredom;
2. To cover Painful memories from their past;
3. And to chase the high they once experienced.

Now let’s go back to the book I was talking about. According to the author you can divide Serial Killers in 4 groups:

Visionaries – they see and hear things that “force” them to kill. In this group I would say that there is a pathology behind, and so I don’t consider them addicts.

Missionaries – this group attacks a specific groups with intention of erasing what is, for them, immoral.

And finally, Emotional and Libertines. Is in this two last groups that I believe that we’re in a presence of addicts.

Why does this matter? I think it matters more than people know. After all you can only act upon something, after you truly know what you’re dealing with.

If you have any idea on the subject I would love to hear it =) I’m always open to learning and discussing weird theories.

*Portuguese Book by José Martins Costa. I believe it doesn’t have an English translation. This book is a sociological and Anthropological study on the mind and behavior of Serial Killers, Satanic and vampiric.