It's always interesting to read back on why people do things, especially people who end up making a career or a fortune out of the seemingly benign choices they make. Thelma Schoonmaker, the film editor whom my previous post was about was one of those people; she got into editing after seeing an ad in the New York Times. I'm in no way suggesting I'm going to make a fortune, nor that I'm a Thelma Schoonmaker in the making, but I certainly do make a lot of benign choices. Art blogging, for me, was one of those benign choices. I made the decision to start an art blog very randomly, so randomly I'm not even sure where the idea came from. At the time I had been studying a bachelor of psychology for about two years and found myself interested in the subject, but underwhelmed with the lack of creative ideas and media I was being exposed to. I'd always been interested in art and most creative mediums, often recording music or taking photographs on the side. But the pages and pages of white and black scientific journal articles must have got to me, because I found myself yearning for splashes of colour, moving imagery, challenging concepts and undefinable ideas. The next thing I knew I had started an art blog aptly titled: Artistic Expansion and I began spending hours a day searching through the internet for content, often finding my best pieces in the most random places, often not even defined intentionally as 'art'. Over the last two years I must have blogged hundreds of multi-coloured, multi-textured and multi-layered images, accumulated over 2000 followers and consumed more art than I ever had in my entire life. I find it interesting not because of it's success, but because before I started my art blog, I really had no idea how much I did or could love art and once I had made my art blog I couldn't imagine how I ever functioned without it. What does the author probably think about blogging? A. the author detests blogging B. not enough information C. the author enjoys blogging D. the author wants to quit blogging
C

Happened to me while visiting Chicago a few weeks ago. A young couple with a baby in a pram boarded a crowded bus. The bus driver would not pull out of the stop until the pram was secured in the wheelchair chocks, however an elderly women wouldn't give up her seat (seat needed to be folded up in order to make room for the pram in the wheelchair holding apparatus). We sat there for about 45 minutes while the driver, the mother and the elderly lady argued. At the end, my wife and I offered our seats (more like a commanding, cajoling, what-she-wanted-to hear, kind of discourse), and the lady moved into our seats. The young couple locked down their pram, and the bus took off. Meg and I stood for the rest of the trip. She was really annoyed over having to move, and there was some baggage attached to her situationI hate to have to mention the racial aspects here but it's an important aspect of the story. Most of the passengers were younger white folks (bus was heading through a neighborhood where re-gentrification had taken place). The elderly woman was at least 75 years and the only black person in the front of the crowded bus. She was sitting in a designated seat reserved for elderly or handicapped, and obviously she had earned her status to claim that seat. Unfortunately, it was also the one seat that needed to be vacated if the wheelchair equipment got used. As the bus rode on, her anger simmered. She asked me what I (middle-aged white guy) would do in a spot like that. All I could answer was to offer it up to God. Hot day, no air conditioning on the bus, people just want to get to their destinations. Why did the elderly woman have to move? A. not enough information B. She had been behaving badly on the bus C. The bus was crowded so she had to move to the back D. The couple with the child needed the seat for their pram
D

TL:DR: I un-professionally get mad at a customer and verbally slam the door on her way out. I was working a shift at a chain cafe one afternoon in England, it was during the lunch rush, so we had a back up of customers lined up to the exit. See the problem with the chain is that all of our customers mostly range from midlife crisis to half-a-foot in the grave, so once a customer lines up, they don't leave and they extend the queue. Plus this is a chain cafe so I've got a manager who's constantly on my back to speed up because someone is on her back to drive numbers up: this results in the line putting stress on my air-hostess smile, but they don't call it work for nothing. Now I'm not the only one stressed, a customer lines up during lunch, they're hungry and wish that Euclidean laws would suspend themselves so that they did not have to deal with the fact that I can't deal with a customer at the speed of light. Well one eldritch horror declares that my coffee took too long and does her rendition of the 1933 Hitler speech to the rest of the customers with an addendum that she will take her business elsewhere. Now my chain are pretty big in England, so if a customer wants to slap me around with a 'customer is always right' the script dictates that I do everything in my power to make sure they come back, and Cthulu knows this, well: I'm stressed, I don't like her face and she's given me an opportunity for me to give her the polite 'fuck off'. All I say is 'Good' and move on to the next customer. Hitler-lite phones my corporation to voice a complaint, so a suit comes out and asks the team who did it, I fess up so I can save the time and not have a reason to hate one of my co-workers. I get a lecture and a warning, the end. The worker probably believes: A. her manager is understanding B. not enough information C. her job is stressful D. the customer is always right
C

The southern state of Alabama is the center of the U.S. political universe this week as voters on Tuesday choose a senator to replace Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate to become attorney general. The race pits controversial Republican Roy Moore, who is battling sexual harassment allegations, against Democrat Doug Jones, a former prosecutor. The outcome of the race could have national implications for both political parties and for President Donald Trump. Moore has denied several allegations of sexual misconduct when he was in his 30s involving women who were teenagers at the time, including one who was 14. "I do not know them. I had no encounter with them. I never molested anyone," Moore said in a televised interview Sunday with the Voice of Alabama Politics. Jones says the accusations make Moore unfit to serve in the Senate. "It is crystal clear that these women are telling the truth and Roy Moore is not!" Jones said. Trump recorded a get-out-the-vote phone message for Moore and spoke on his behalf at a rally in neighboring Florida on Friday. "And we want jobs, jobs, jobs. So get out and vote for Roy Moore. Do it. Do it," he said. Trump held off on endorsing Moore for several weeks in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations, but now says electing Moore is a priority for him. "We certainly don't want to have a liberal Democrat who is controlled by Nancy Pelosi and controlled by Chuck Schumer. We don't want to have that for Alabama," Trump said. In the final days of the campaign, Moore is highlighting his support for the president's agenda. "We are going to see if the people of Alabama will support the president and support his agenda in Washington by electing somebody that is not part of the establishment there," Moore said. Democrat Jones told supporters that Moore's character is the issue. "We know who we are, Alabama, we know who we are. This is an election to tell the world who we are and what we stand for." Why did Jones say Moore was unfit to serve in the Senate? A. not enough information B. Because he is accused of sexual misconduct. C. Because Trump wants him elected. D. Because he is a republican.
B