Nobel, Here I come!

This week in class we worked on a gamification project to teach people how to use the Rebecca Crown Library. At first I had the idea to do a scavenger hunt with Jumanji clues using QR codes. But I went in a different direction and I decided to make a code about how to

At first I had the idea to do a scavenger hunt with Jumanji clues using QR codes. But I went in a different direction and I decided to make a code about how to reserve the study rooms which looked like this:

The answer to Step 1 is “Select Book a Study Room Space.” Do you see it?

Here we are. It’s two am and she calls me cause I’m still awake— wait. No. Let’s start that again.

It’s 2am and after creating this code my mind is feeling a bit loopy. It feels like I’m in the movie A Beautiful Mind, but not the when John Nash was beginning his research, but the middle of the movie where he has fully descended into the depths of paranoid schizophrenia imagining that the government is after him. After translating emojis into jumbled words, (somehow “after” came out of the Afghanistan flag symbol) I’m starting to think in weird connected bits of sliced up words.

I’m pretty sure that humans have developed medication specifically to avoid thinking this way.

Gamification in this form is not something that I would do again. It makes my brain hurt. I like puzzles, but I enjoy puzzles with big ideas and not many pieces, like psychology. It’s a very big puzzle, even when looking at a single individual to understand why they are doing what they are doing or try to predict what they are about to do, but it exists in this very ephemeral space. These types of codes feel too, Earthly, I suppose? Too concrete and fixed is perhaps a better way of saying it.

Are you looking for the password to get to unlock the next thing? Next level of a maze? Next level of consciousness? Go back in this post and find the sentence that is also lyrics from a 2005 one-hit wonder. The password is the last name of the singer of this song. Hint, the song has two titles and one of the two titles is mentioned twice in this post. The answer is below.

I think I’m going to try to get some sleep now. Good night to you.

Answer: Nalick Anna Nalick wrote Breathe (2am) in 2005. The song starts with the lyrics “2am and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake.”