Mailbag: When I'm Not Blogging

Many of you have been very interested in what I do outside of posting things on my blog -- I love it! Make sure to send me more, okay?

First question:

"Lex,

I absolutely love the work you've displayed in your gallery thus far, but you haven't put up anything new recently. Same for your music. Why is that? Is your work on hiatus for some reason?

~ Elliot"

I'm glad you've been keeping up with my work, Elliot! My art/music isn't exactly on hiatus, just that I've been feeling uninspired concerning my piano pieces and I haven't done anything worth posting on my gallery; however, that should change within the next few days or so. I'm working on a digital art piece (maybe two!) that I'll be uploading soon. I'll be sure to update my blog with it as well. I may push that date back, however, because I have one more mailbag to post after this.

Otherwise, thank you so much for your support. It's always nice to have the support of veteran artists. I'll try to compose something on my piano within the month of April, but no promises.

Next question?

"Hi Alexis, I noticed that your description poses you as a student researcher as well as an artist/musician, but aside from your essays, you haven't really mentioned anything about actually doing research at your university. You also seem too young to be a student researcher. Do you have an explanation for any of this?"

It's kind of complicated. When I call myself a student researcher, I'm usually referring to my private research essays. That being said, I actually am an undergraduate researcher, which answers the question of why I'm so young. Undergraduate researchers do less invasive research, and usually it's less exciting. It's mostly about replicating findings that are already well supported.

One example of this would be a few months back. I was supposed to be involved in an experiment with one of my professors involving RNAi of Cycloidea. During the month that I had been offered to participate in this experiment, I was throwing myself into a surge of urgency to try to do a bunch of things to make myself feel more important (yes, I know, that's pathetic). However, a friend of mine has worked with me in testing the fluidity of IQ, and we're both working on a long-term case study of a single individual's intelligence (unnamed).

I'll be doing more research once I obtain my degree. Then I can focus on one field as opposed to two, one of which takes up most of my time. (You feel me, art majors?)

"You talk about a lot of things. What's your favorite topic?"

Straight to the point! Hnn... Personal topics -- the moments where I get to sit down and answer questions like these. It's far less stressful, and I'm sure a lot of you like this form of me better than the raging alcoholic that attacks people who disagree with me.

"I've seen you around on YouTube arguing against people on a variety of topics, but at the same time, I see how stupid many of them can be. Why do you even bother?"

Funny you should mention that, because as I'm typing up this post, I'm concluding an argument with a creationist on YouTube over the debate between Dawkins and Lennox. It can be irritating at first, yes, and many of them can be stupid; however, after a point... isn't it kind of funny to see what people resort to when there's nothing left for them to say?

There are other reasons, though, for why I waste my time in the Den of Deception:

(1) In some cases, I genuinely believe I can change someone's life by offering them information they weren't aware of.
(2) It's good practice for legitimate debates.
(3) It motivates me to dig deep and research topics I like.
(4) It helps promote my blog. (I know, sneaky right?)

So, I guess YouTube arguing isn't all that useless and time wasting.

Last question:

"Dear Alexis,

When you've got no homework to do, nothing to do online, and are just sitting in your room without cause, what do you do?"

I either lie in the grass on my front lawn, looking out at the stars or the horizon (my home has a nice view of the mountain range), or I climb one of the trees in my backyard and play guitar, or just sit there and take a nap. It's more relaxing than you could ever imagine.

That's all for now, ladies and gents. Stay tuned for the last mailbag, and then I'll get back to the typical things I talk about on my blog.



Follow me on social media!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisDelanoir
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AlexisDelanoir0/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AlexisDelanoir