Feeling really sad — want to talk about interests to feel a little better

[Asking Queries]

Hi everyone,

I’m having a really bad with my medical issues, including what felt like (but wasn’t really) a fight with my mom about me wanting to use a wheelchair.
Anyways, I’d like to talk about something interesting with people (to distract myself and fill my social meter a bit). My interests are pretty broad, and I’ll put the ones I can think of to talk about: I’m interested in geology, oceanography, trains, planes, machinery, painting, writing, and art and science in general. I’m also up for people just saying something interesting.
To be clear, I’m intending to have this be a fun discussion, and I won’t talk about my problems unless asked. I hope this is ok to ask for.

- AQ

[Asking Queries]

I’m feeling mostly better now, although I don’t mind if people want to talk.

[Latha]

Hi AQ,

I'm sorry you're having such a bad time! Let us know if you would like to talk about what happened with your mother.

I can't say I know much about these topics, but I was reading these articles recently:
Earth from space: Shapeshifting rusty river winds through Madagascar's 'red lands'
Eye of the Sahara: Mauritania's giant rock dome that towers over the desert

(You might have better luck finding people to discuss with if you went to forums dedicated to these topics)

[jellyfish4]

Hi AQ!!

I’m so sorry that you are going through all that, just know that you are loved, and we are here for you.

If you do get a wheelchair I think you should paint it that would be so cool!! What would you paint on it?

I have a hyper fixation on jelly fish, so I will be sharing some facts that make me happy in hopes they make you happy too

There are over 10,000 different varieties of jellies, there are jelly fish out there that are older than dinosaurs, they are 98 percent water (they are gust lil squishy guys) and I think they look like water color came to life.


Do you have any cool science facts???

[Asking Queries]

Hi Latha and jellyfish4,

Latha:
Thanks for those articles, they were quite interesting, especially the second one.
I’ll probably talk about the disagreement with my mom in a different thread so there aren’t multiple conversations going on.

I agree that I might have better luck if I went to dedicated forums — I asked here because of the weird situation of both being upset and wanting to talk about fun stuff. I’m not implying that you were disapproving of that, to be clear, just clarifying my thoughts.

jellyfish4:
Thanks for saying that, I really appreciate it!

Hmm, I’m not sure what I’d paint a wheelchair. One of my ideas is a joke that can only be seen from a certain position, like painted on the top of the seat. Maybe something like “This wheelchair is a trained attack wheelchair, theft is not advised.”

I recently did an oceanography course, so I’m certainly interested in ocean facts.

Wow, I didn’t know any of those facts about jellies: that’s a lot of varieties, I’m surprised that some can live that long, that’s an incredible percentage of water (I wonder if they’re around the same density as water then?). Ooh, water color came to life, that’s a cool similarity.

Definitely! Here’s two:
1: Similar in appearance to jellies, Portuguese Man o’ Wars aren’t actually one creature, but a collection of individuals. Here’s a NOAA article about them, *content warning for anyone else who looks them up, they look a lot like jellyfish*: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/por ... o-war.html
2: In a vacuum, a dropped feather and a hammer will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time. It’s one of those things that I intellectually understand, but it looks and feels so weird to actually see. If you look up “hammer and feather falling in vacuum” you can find YouTube videos of this demonstration being done on the moon (Apollo 15) and in vacuum chambers on earth.
Let me know if you want more, finding these was really fun!