I have long wondered how I would respond to being knocked out and having some of my body parts forcibly taken from me. The recent necessity of needing my wisdom teeth removed gave me the perfect opportunity to find out.
So how did I respond to such a traumatic experience? Well, shortly after seeing the room around me and hearing sounds coming from the nurse sitting next to me, I proceeded to do prime factorization, starting from one. In the mid-twenties they told me to walk down the hall. By the mid-thirties I became cognizant that all this talking was making it difficult for my gums to heal, something the nurse had been telling me since around 3.
This is when I desperately sought out paper from mom. It was not until 42, when while trying to write a 7 over my erroneous second 2, which I missed by a good half centimeter, that I first became fully aware that I had been doing prime factorization. My response to feeling out of control and a little unsure as to my level of coherence, was to immediately and single-mindedly prime factorize.
Looking back on the experience it is not surprising. My family can tell I am uncomfortable with a situation when I start to list facts I find interesting, in hopes of derailing the conversation and ending up in a field of flowers rather than the forbidding train station of hurt feelings and regret to which we are headed.
The problem is, the farther I get into my Electrical Engineering studies, the less effective this technique has become. Enough people can get aboard the German versus Russian writers train as to effectively change the conversation. This is not true of microprocessor speed and capabilities. A basic understanding of electronic components and C code has given me the constant companion of interesting thoughts and rewarding projects, but does not help me relate to most people.
For awkward social situations I fall back on “Dr. Who” references, which is working out brilliantly. When two parties start saying nasty things, and I feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed, I just say something about wibbly wobbly timey wimey and suddenly find myself in a conversation I enjoy. But first I think about the next line of code I need to write to calm my nerves and focus my mind.
How to I deal with traumatic experiences, physically or socially? With science.
My name is Caroline Storm Westenhover. I am a Senior Electrical Engineering student at the University of Texas at Arlington. I am the third of seven children. I enjoy collecting ideas and theories and most enjoy when they come together to present a bigger picture as a whole. Perhaps that is why I like physics and engineering. My biggest dream is to become an astronaut.