Tuesday, August 4, 2015

#162: Make a Blog About the 161

Alright, well, I have no idea how to introduce a blog, but here goes.

Hey! I'm Adam, and together with my girl EmJ, we've decided to start a blog chronicling our adventures in trying to complete the latest 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do. We realize that this isn't the "typical" 161 things published by the Sun, but at the same time, this one looks really fun. So, we're gonna go for it!

So about us. EmJ and I met at a frat party (technically before that, but I think it makes for a funny story) with mutual friends, and shared some Pop-Tarts at Nasties afterwards (for more, see the EmJ Blog). Over the next month, we bonded over our mutual love of psychology and Harry Potter, and we've been together ever since. I'm the nerdy coding-for-fun one, while she is the awesome musically-gifted one. We love taking Myers-Briggs tests (she's an I/ESFJ, I'm an INTJ ISFJ ISFP INFP ENFP, for now) almost as much as we love cooking delicious food.

I'm not entirely sure how we got into the 161 things, but at some point, we decided that we were gonna try to do all of them together. As of this post, we've already knocked some out together (which will appear as future posts), and have done many more individually between us. So we have 3 years to finish 161 crazy, ridiculous, and sometimes impossible things. Challenge accepted.
*********************************************************************************
Hello, world. I’m EmJ, the other half of this endeavor. As for introductions, Adam’s got it pretty much covered. He’s the engineering genius-athlete; I’m in Arts and Crafts Sciences. You don’t need to believe what he says about musically gifted. I’d love to be in an a cappella group, but the ones I’ve auditioned for don’t seem nearly as thrilled with me as I am with them. Adam also likes to insist on the frat party story (see #115 by the way—more on that in a future post). We met through mutual friends who just happened to be going to a frat party that evening.

Originally, we were going to attempt the Cornell Daily Sun’s 161, but not all the items on that list are practical, feasible, or especially legal. We were going to modify items on the list or not do them altogether, but Adam has since found the alternate list that suits us far better, courtesy of the Cornell Alumni Magazine. It is, in his words, “a lot less ‘have sex and get wasted’ and more ‘do sh*t in Ithaca,’” which I like. And so we’ve decided to go with the lesser-known, more practical list.

Second semester, we were both in Social Psychology. In one lecture, the professor (good old T. Gilly) discussed what makes people happy. As it turns out, experiences tend to make people happier than tangible things. Basically, if you do things, you’ll feel happier. Adam and I have summed this up in one simple phrase: Do Sh*t. And that is what we intend to do with this list. So our adventure begins.