So this interesting thing happened. I was feeling pretty terrible about my life, so I did what I usually do. I wallowed for an hour or so, and then I looked things up. What had other people done in my situation? What did people say about the problems I'm having? What interesting things are vaguely related and pop up in the YouTube sidebar that will distract me from wallowing? All part of a fairly natural progression for me. And then, having watched all the videos I could conveniently find, I started watching random stuff. See, I had made up my mind to write a post on here explaining my reaction to the interesting (and motivational) videos I watched in the wake of feeling bad. But then I realized that when I wrote that post, I was going to be sharing a lot of stuff. And that I was going to be making some real commitments. And that scared me. So for the past two hours I have been watching drivel. Well, what feels like drivel after the stuff I spent all of yesterday watching in an effort to figure out what to do next. So this post is itself procrastination. Unless I just start off on the post I had intended to be previewing here. How about that? Let's make this part one, and break the pattern of procrastination? So without further ado, YouTube: Part One:
A Girl Who Reads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmEbF2uhsZk
I favorited this video a while ago. I love the rhythm. I don't necessarily love the adherence to rhyme, but the poem is good enough. And by clicking on this as a distraction, I was off to the races. The sidebar yielded this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Ks06Al8c0
Not directly, of course. I heard some other poems in between the two that I didn't include here. I wasn't sure I was going to include this one either, just because his emotion makes me uncomfortable, but again, the poem passed the test. The "I wish you were here" postcard transitioning into his lecture about how war sucks was amazing.
That transitioned into this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz630krJWoE
Which is just hilarious. The guy's poem doesn't quite stand on its own, but man, his presentation is superb.
And lo and behold, the name Ted Talk was in the sidebar. And with that, I transitioned from seeking distraction to an interest in discovery. I spent the next four hours straight watching 20-minute talks about anything that might seem relevant to any trouble I'd had recently. And boy, were there a lot of them. I don't know whether that means I've been having a lot of troubles, or whether that means I'm insecure, so I only think I've been having a lot of troubles, or if it just means that there are a lot of videos out there and YouTube is just that good at figuring out what a person might want to watch next. But it's possible that the following videos could change my life. Undoubtedly, if I let them change my life, they have the power to do so. But enough of that. I'll be responding to them individually anyway. Let's just jump in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKHTawgyKWQ
This is awesome! I like the first two to ten minutes the most, in case you want to conserve some time. It's too easy to relate to this, obviously. I particularly like the part where he says that people come up to him all the time and say they have an interest. He says "That's wonderful... now find 20 interests. Passion is more than that. It's your greatest love." (The anecdote about the sweetie is hilarious!) It moves on to hiding behind excuses. I don't know if you know this, but apparently this is a theme for motivational speakers: A large amount of people who attend motivational talks lack motivation! So invariably these people talk about being afraid of failure, hiding behind excuses, etc. So immediately after hearing this, I swore I wouldn't hide behind excuses. And then I clicked on another video... Because that's totally not an excuse... And then I wrote this very entry as a sort of segue into the real post. But I'm trying to get to the point; I really am. I just need to describe all these videos first...
Damn. Well, I'll indulge my fears a little longer. On with the show!
In the sidebar, I saw a caption about suicide. Still fascinated by the topic, I clicked. Here is that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1QoyTmeAYw
And you know what? I'm not like this guy at all! That was encouraging. He describes his suicide attempts as an attempt to gain control over a life he felt was beyond his ability to affect. I have always felt very in control of my life. While I know what he means when he talks about his perception narrowing, I'm glad that my reaction is different. Encouraged that at least the point of my life wasn't to commit suicide, I continued clicking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVsXO9brK7M
80% of Yale grads were unhappy at the speaker's 25 year reunion. It turned out the humanities people who studied classes for the joy of learning were the ones that were happy. So I think I did something right! This may be a prime example of confirmation bias. I mean, there are probably a ton of videos I've ignored that say the opposite, and I'm just pulling this out as an example because it makes me look good, but I'm actually still happy with how I spent my undergrad career. The things he says are important for discovering your life purpose are knowing yourself, what you do, who you do it for, what they want, how they change as a result? He emphasizes focusing on being outward-facing, not focusing on what makes you happy, but on what makes the people around you happy. As you may have guessed, this wasn't quite what I was hoping to find when I was looking for a way to ascertain my life's purpose. I mean, I certainly don't mind doing things for other people (most of the time?), but it's hardly a basic part of my decision-making process. Also, I didn't quite like how the first part of his speech talked about how people were happier with their majors when they focused on what they wanted (a thing I was totally ready to sympathize with), and then switched over to thinking about what they did for others. I mean, shouldn't that logic have applied to their choice of major, then? I don't know, it just felt like something that didn't mesh with me naturally. So I kept looking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLt_yDvdeLQ
This was about a writer! I was interested, but it turned out that his process involved working over 50 jobs while wandering the globe, and that it all just "fell into place" eventually. This was not that helpful. I have no inclination for that. The second part of his talk focuses on an innate inclination that we are aware of from birth. This was also unhelpful. Sure, he said to trust my instinct, and if I didn't feel right, move on immediately. At least he was focusing on being internally driven as opposed to the guy before, but it still wasn't helpful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0h8ZKvJW4
Finally! Something useful. I actually seriously considered doing this, but I really hate the shower here. Also, I have this delusion that I am capable of mentally grasping the point without having to put the theory into practice. Of course, this seems ridiculous when one considers the whole point was that you have to condition yourself through repetition, but I'm egotistical enough to think I can get it anyway. See, the thing is, when I have to do something, I do it. Sure, I hate talking to strangers in forced environments. I hate calling people about things. I hated my client interview. But that doesn't mean I am scared or lack confidence. On the contrary, I know I can do these things. When it comes to things I don't have to do, however, I find no trouble rationalizing my way around whatever it is, even if I know on some level it is the "right" thing to do. The project for myself, then, becomes looking at personal happiness (in my career, as well as my day to day life) as something necessary. I feel quite strongly that once I take this to heart, things will improve. Law school is helping, for exactly the reason I don't like this semester much: it is forcing me out of my comfort zone. I will be conducting interview-style situations many times this semester, even arguing in front of a real judge on two occasions, and I am dreading it. But I will do it. And I will do it well. And on the other side, I will be ever so slightly less averse to the things I find uncomfortable. So I'll skip the cold showers until I have a bathroom more to my liking. (Yup, still procrastinating) Having braced myself that things were going to be uncomfortable, I forged ahead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWxMDdLey0E
This started to get relevant at the 6:50 mark, where she starts talking about tests for general life happiness. The obituary test: work backward from your death; what do you want to be known for?
Get comfortable with discomfort: sing in public, go to a restaurant alone (without distraction), backward elevator (face inward instead of at the door).
Evaluate goals, what you do, and why you do it (same as that guy with his Yale alumni).
Income volatility: figure out how much you spend, try living on different percentages. (not relevant for me)
Problem solve for others at their jobs.
Announce your farewell party from your life to make yourself accountable to your friends.
This blog is a way of holding myself accountable. I would try the money thing, but I think I'm almost living at the minimum as it is. But looking backward from my death, it's even more clear to me that I don't have any desire for being known as a good lawyer. I mean, I guess it might be cool if I were a great lawyer, arguing before the Supreme Court, but that's still not a passion as much as it is a desire to have status. When I think of being an author like the ones I love (Heinlein, Pratchett, Stephen King (currently)), it's a different story. Even being known as a great handball (or frisbee, in some weird universe where that's possible) sounds more appealing to me on a visceral level than arguing about the law. So at least on a relative scale, I need to be refocusing. This isn't to say that I will be dropping out of law school. But I plan on changing some things.
I went on. I will continue with more videos in my next post. But in between the ones about my "passion," "life meaning," and other topics we'll get to shortly, I found some that were great just because they were great talks. Here is one example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc
The first 10-15 minutes of this are really good. He's got a great story and tells it well. While not great in how it relates to me, this is a great illustration of a guy acknowledging how wrong he was. And he's quite funny, which never hurt anything.
Here's one that I watched in case it said anything relevant for my now-retired dad (congratulations!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgoCm1hofM
It didn't say anything that wasn't really common sense, but I hope my parents have a plan that accounts for these things. Mostly for selfish reasons, of course. Stick around you guys! I love you.
And with that, I will sleep a bit before the next installment of the Australian Open (gosh darn that Federer guy not being able to play tennis against Nadal). Thanks for reading!
January 25, 2014
January 22, 2014
Complaining
I had a bad day yesterday. This was not optimal, obviously, but made even less so because it was the first day of the semester. Not a great time to be incredibly unhappy with your lot in life, to be sure. So let's review:
Monday I played frisbee. This, actually, was awesome. I got handblocked on my first throw as a handler (on an easy swing, no less), and was assigned the role of cutter thereafter. It turned out we had too many handlers anyway, so I would have been cutting a bunch no matter what. I spent the first two games doing pretty basic things. I threw a couple scores, floated a sweet high release forehand over my receiver's head and landed it in his hands, and that was about it for memorable occurrences before our third-round bye.
After the bye, everyone was stiff. That included me, but I wasn't about to let a little thing like that stop me from being able to run around for the first time since intramural frisbee, which seemed like ages ago. So run around I did. As I've always thought, the longer a day goes the "faster" I get (in relation to everyone else). Oh, and my captain was James Hron! That guy is pretty cool. He refused to cut deep for me when I caught the disc under, though, so I called him out on it. Sure enough, the next time I caught it, there he was, running toward the endzone with the other team's tallest player (and best receiver) on him. I floated the disc to his back shoulder and he didn't even have to jump. Sort of anti-climactic, actually, since he's one of the better receivers in the area and it would have been cool to see him in action in the air. In our third game I got a layout D! It was actually legitimate, and because it was against Greg's team, he even said how cool it was again yesterday in class. I get to wear my scabs with honor for a while. I also threw a pretty cool score. See, there's a cable running about frisbee-throw-height across midfield (for a curtain they can slide across), and I caught the disc on the sideline only to see my receiver cutting deep. I heard someone on the sideline yell "No!" so naturally I threw it. But because of the clothesline, I had to throw it higher than normal, so I threw it with a little more outside-in and hit him in stride. People were impressed. Then in the fourth game I became our primary receiver. And our secondary receiver, actually. See, I was the only one left running as hard as possible. I had cramps in both calves by the time the game was over, but it was worth it. I would make the initial cut, catch it (under, usually), look around, see everyone standing, dish it, and cut deep. I caught four or five scores that game and threw another three. Overall, it was pretty awesome, especially for me being in the cutter position. And I got another D that game too, making me wonder if I could actually play this game. After we finished we had half an hour before the field closed, so I hung around and threw with a teammate. We were practicing hucking, and when we finished up I threw a couple full-field lefty backhands, which made him yell that he was impressed. I went for broke and tried a lefty flick, which made it the forty yards or so to where he was standing. He asked if I had broken my arm at some point. I said "no, I just play handball." We talked for a while and he said he was sure there were plenty of teams that would be happy to have me in the area. I'll have to see what my plans are for the summer, but it's not likely, since I need to make money, not spend it, to further my ability to exist in Minnesota. But it's awesome to feel wanted, even if he was just being nice.
But that was really just a preface to explain why, when I woke up, my day was already off to a bad start. My legs were so stiff I had a bit of difficulty biking to school. Oh yeah, and it was like eight degrees. My first class was Corporations, where I was told there weren't any jobs for lawyers, that to make partner I would have to work from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day, and that it wasn't a good job anyway. I also learned about LLC's, Partnerships, LLP's, C Corps, and S Corps, but that seemed a bit less important than the extreme ennui that was setting in. He stressed that being a lawyer was all about working with people and playing the social game. I was not enthused.
I ate my apple and cashews for lunch. That was the only decent part of the day.
Property was an odd juxtaposition. On the one hand, my professor is incredibly enthusiastic about the material and is obviously trying very hard; on the other hand, the material is so boring I almost fell asleep anyway. Then came Law in Practice. It started off with assigned seats. Fine. I can deal with that. Our seats were assigned by placing our schedules at our designated area. Sure enough, my small group meets at 6:45 on Thursdays. So I can't play handball on Thursdays anymore. This is a "big deal" for me, even though I can look at it rationally and say that the people I play Thursday are rarely the opponents that make me better. And for the kicker: I'm the primary attorney for the first assignment. Oh yeah, and that assignment is due tomorrow (today), with a live client interview I will be conducting alone on Thursday (tomorrow). I do not want to be this sort of lawyer.
The professor is actually pretty cool. We start each class with two minutes of meditation and at least one poem (yesterday it was two poems). But all that did was remind me how much I'd rather be writing or reading poetry. The meditation was good though. He emphasized that meditation isn't about clearing your head, as in forcing things out. Rather, it is about letting things come and go and not actually focusing on them or pursuing them. Just letting your ideas flow through you instead of attaching to them. It was actually really helpful to think about it like that.
So I stuck out the class, feeling as though law school was the worst idea in the universe. I didn't want to work at any of the jobs I'd seen, I didn't want to talk to clients, and I didn't have a backup plan. Law school was my backup plan. It was always, well, even if I don't get things figured out, I can always go to law school. And sure enough, here I am. And when I was lacking a backup plan in the past, it was always, well, at least I have someone I love to lean on and know we will be there for each other. But now I'm in the position where I feel like I need a backup plan or I'm not going to be able to deal with it all. Because it's becoming clearer and clearer that just having a law degree probably isn't going to be enough. To prosecute patents I need a science degree (or equivalent course work), to be a tax attorney I need to murder my inner child and resign myself to never having fun again, and to do anything else my goal will be to talk to people every day and secure clients for my firm. None of these are viable options. And as may be obvious by now, I don't deal well with the unknown.
I've been trying pretty hard to take the meditation approach to all this and just let the ideas come and go without getting too stressed out about the fact that none of them seem any good. But when it's my entire future, it's not that easy. So to compensate, I ate three doughnuts. The apple fritter was delicious, the glazed with chocolate frosting was delightful, and the cream-filled chocolate was sublime. And then I was sick to my stomach and still wondering what the hell was going to happen to me. So naturally, I climbed on my bike and sallied forth into the snow that had started to fall in the zero-degree air, headed to handball league on my legs that still didn't quite work. Our team looked at the lineup we would be facing and decided we had the best chance of sweeping if I played doubles. So I did, and we lost horribly to two players I'm pretty sure I could beat on my own if any one of at least three conditions had been changed (slippery court, partner miscommunication, glass back wall). Luckily, we still swept singles (staying undefeated as a team), but I felt awful. I played singles with David and tried until I hit an amazing no-look behind the back shot. Then I stopped trying and he won easily. It got to the point at the end that I was yelling at myself to run and still just wasn't moving to relatively easy shots. I got a ride back, ignored my homework, and fell asleep rather than give myself any more time to feel sorry for myself.
Oh yeah, and during my doubles match, I got frustrated and kicked the wall. As usual, the wall didn't give much. I bruised my heel. That didn't help me play any better, which made me more frustrated. So a couple points later, I punched the wall. It prevailed yet again. So my knuckles are bruised again. Perfect.
And that is where I will stop the complaining. I woke up around 2:00am and watched tennis. That is where today began, and it has been a bit better ever since I saw the majesty that is Roger Federer in action. That guy is a wizard with a racquet. He is apparently healthier than he has been in a while, and has switched racquets and playing styles. I still think the thing that has changed the most is his mental game, but whatever the reason, he played beautifully. My classes today weren't much better than yesterday, but it turns out that just being busy and unhappy is distraction enough from the big-picture-unhappy that I got through the day without any more major drama. The angst is at bay, at least for now. I'll dress up pretty, do my client interview, and I'll deal with it. Thanks for reading!
Monday I played frisbee. This, actually, was awesome. I got handblocked on my first throw as a handler (on an easy swing, no less), and was assigned the role of cutter thereafter. It turned out we had too many handlers anyway, so I would have been cutting a bunch no matter what. I spent the first two games doing pretty basic things. I threw a couple scores, floated a sweet high release forehand over my receiver's head and landed it in his hands, and that was about it for memorable occurrences before our third-round bye.
After the bye, everyone was stiff. That included me, but I wasn't about to let a little thing like that stop me from being able to run around for the first time since intramural frisbee, which seemed like ages ago. So run around I did. As I've always thought, the longer a day goes the "faster" I get (in relation to everyone else). Oh, and my captain was James Hron! That guy is pretty cool. He refused to cut deep for me when I caught the disc under, though, so I called him out on it. Sure enough, the next time I caught it, there he was, running toward the endzone with the other team's tallest player (and best receiver) on him. I floated the disc to his back shoulder and he didn't even have to jump. Sort of anti-climactic, actually, since he's one of the better receivers in the area and it would have been cool to see him in action in the air. In our third game I got a layout D! It was actually legitimate, and because it was against Greg's team, he even said how cool it was again yesterday in class. I get to wear my scabs with honor for a while. I also threw a pretty cool score. See, there's a cable running about frisbee-throw-height across midfield (for a curtain they can slide across), and I caught the disc on the sideline only to see my receiver cutting deep. I heard someone on the sideline yell "No!" so naturally I threw it. But because of the clothesline, I had to throw it higher than normal, so I threw it with a little more outside-in and hit him in stride. People were impressed. Then in the fourth game I became our primary receiver. And our secondary receiver, actually. See, I was the only one left running as hard as possible. I had cramps in both calves by the time the game was over, but it was worth it. I would make the initial cut, catch it (under, usually), look around, see everyone standing, dish it, and cut deep. I caught four or five scores that game and threw another three. Overall, it was pretty awesome, especially for me being in the cutter position. And I got another D that game too, making me wonder if I could actually play this game. After we finished we had half an hour before the field closed, so I hung around and threw with a teammate. We were practicing hucking, and when we finished up I threw a couple full-field lefty backhands, which made him yell that he was impressed. I went for broke and tried a lefty flick, which made it the forty yards or so to where he was standing. He asked if I had broken my arm at some point. I said "no, I just play handball." We talked for a while and he said he was sure there were plenty of teams that would be happy to have me in the area. I'll have to see what my plans are for the summer, but it's not likely, since I need to make money, not spend it, to further my ability to exist in Minnesota. But it's awesome to feel wanted, even if he was just being nice.
But that was really just a preface to explain why, when I woke up, my day was already off to a bad start. My legs were so stiff I had a bit of difficulty biking to school. Oh yeah, and it was like eight degrees. My first class was Corporations, where I was told there weren't any jobs for lawyers, that to make partner I would have to work from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day, and that it wasn't a good job anyway. I also learned about LLC's, Partnerships, LLP's, C Corps, and S Corps, but that seemed a bit less important than the extreme ennui that was setting in. He stressed that being a lawyer was all about working with people and playing the social game. I was not enthused.
I ate my apple and cashews for lunch. That was the only decent part of the day.
Property was an odd juxtaposition. On the one hand, my professor is incredibly enthusiastic about the material and is obviously trying very hard; on the other hand, the material is so boring I almost fell asleep anyway. Then came Law in Practice. It started off with assigned seats. Fine. I can deal with that. Our seats were assigned by placing our schedules at our designated area. Sure enough, my small group meets at 6:45 on Thursdays. So I can't play handball on Thursdays anymore. This is a "big deal" for me, even though I can look at it rationally and say that the people I play Thursday are rarely the opponents that make me better. And for the kicker: I'm the primary attorney for the first assignment. Oh yeah, and that assignment is due tomorrow (today), with a live client interview I will be conducting alone on Thursday (tomorrow). I do not want to be this sort of lawyer.
The professor is actually pretty cool. We start each class with two minutes of meditation and at least one poem (yesterday it was two poems). But all that did was remind me how much I'd rather be writing or reading poetry. The meditation was good though. He emphasized that meditation isn't about clearing your head, as in forcing things out. Rather, it is about letting things come and go and not actually focusing on them or pursuing them. Just letting your ideas flow through you instead of attaching to them. It was actually really helpful to think about it like that.
So I stuck out the class, feeling as though law school was the worst idea in the universe. I didn't want to work at any of the jobs I'd seen, I didn't want to talk to clients, and I didn't have a backup plan. Law school was my backup plan. It was always, well, even if I don't get things figured out, I can always go to law school. And sure enough, here I am. And when I was lacking a backup plan in the past, it was always, well, at least I have someone I love to lean on and know we will be there for each other. But now I'm in the position where I feel like I need a backup plan or I'm not going to be able to deal with it all. Because it's becoming clearer and clearer that just having a law degree probably isn't going to be enough. To prosecute patents I need a science degree (or equivalent course work), to be a tax attorney I need to murder my inner child and resign myself to never having fun again, and to do anything else my goal will be to talk to people every day and secure clients for my firm. None of these are viable options. And as may be obvious by now, I don't deal well with the unknown.
I've been trying pretty hard to take the meditation approach to all this and just let the ideas come and go without getting too stressed out about the fact that none of them seem any good. But when it's my entire future, it's not that easy. So to compensate, I ate three doughnuts. The apple fritter was delicious, the glazed with chocolate frosting was delightful, and the cream-filled chocolate was sublime. And then I was sick to my stomach and still wondering what the hell was going to happen to me. So naturally, I climbed on my bike and sallied forth into the snow that had started to fall in the zero-degree air, headed to handball league on my legs that still didn't quite work. Our team looked at the lineup we would be facing and decided we had the best chance of sweeping if I played doubles. So I did, and we lost horribly to two players I'm pretty sure I could beat on my own if any one of at least three conditions had been changed (slippery court, partner miscommunication, glass back wall). Luckily, we still swept singles (staying undefeated as a team), but I felt awful. I played singles with David and tried until I hit an amazing no-look behind the back shot. Then I stopped trying and he won easily. It got to the point at the end that I was yelling at myself to run and still just wasn't moving to relatively easy shots. I got a ride back, ignored my homework, and fell asleep rather than give myself any more time to feel sorry for myself.
Oh yeah, and during my doubles match, I got frustrated and kicked the wall. As usual, the wall didn't give much. I bruised my heel. That didn't help me play any better, which made me more frustrated. So a couple points later, I punched the wall. It prevailed yet again. So my knuckles are bruised again. Perfect.
And that is where I will stop the complaining. I woke up around 2:00am and watched tennis. That is where today began, and it has been a bit better ever since I saw the majesty that is Roger Federer in action. That guy is a wizard with a racquet. He is apparently healthier than he has been in a while, and has switched racquets and playing styles. I still think the thing that has changed the most is his mental game, but whatever the reason, he played beautifully. My classes today weren't much better than yesterday, but it turns out that just being busy and unhappy is distraction enough from the big-picture-unhappy that I got through the day without any more major drama. The angst is at bay, at least for now. I'll dress up pretty, do my client interview, and I'll deal with it. Thanks for reading!
January 19, 2014
Break Highlights/Summary
You might think that tons of free time would have enabled me to update here a lot more. However, I don't really have much to say about watching five or six movies a day for weeks at a time. So here are the highlights:
Finishing the Semester (Grades mediocre, aligning appropriately to my effort compared to my classmates)
Puzzles! (More specifically, all-nighter puzzle dedication with my sister)
Handball! (Trying to squeeze every game possible in while back home)
Movies! (Machine Gun Preacher, I Am Number Four, Princess and the Frog, Silence of the Lambs, Coraline, The Illusionist, Warrior's Way, Friends with Benefits, Real Steel, Tangled, Equilibrium, The Grandmaster, Thanks for Sharing, Fergully, Benny and Joon, Braveheart, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Hitman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Willow, Wall-E, As Good as it Gets, Stand Up Guys, Sunshine, Book of Eli, Hesher, Easy A, How to Train Your Dragon, Sucker Punch, Bronson, Rango, Quest for Camelot, Brave, Yes We're Open, Inglourious, Basterds, The Waking Life, Warrior, The Wolverine, The A Team, The Dark Knight Rises, Kick-Ass 2, Man of Steel, and a few more foreign ones/ones I can't remember)
Handball! (Playing with my dad! And doing well!)
Great Food! (Three for three on restaurants while my parents were in town)
Seeing Sarah S! (Quilt delivery successful, food sharing as well (pickled herring, even))
Longer things:
One day I started off with Silence of the Lambs, as it was early afternoon and I knew I didn't want to watch it late at night in case it was scary. It turned out to not be that scary, but I wanted something different anyway. I had heard Sunshine was a good movie. It's description was basically "astronauts have to nuke the sun to save earth." I was skeptical, but hey, it's science fiction, so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be the most intense psychological thriller/scary/head-wrenching movie I have seen in a while. That was hardly what I was expecting when I sat down for a movie called Sunshine with the aforementioned description. Good movie, just way to intense for me at that point. So I looked for something else to fit the bill. I found a recent movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and gave that a watch. Turns out, that movie (Hesher) was pretty out-there too (more on that later). In a last-ditch effort, I turned to another source. My friend on Facebook had recently raved about a TV show called Helix, which has recently started on the SyFy channel. I found the first episode and gave it a go. Whoops! Turns out that these generic names are really just disguises they put over crazy death-filled insanity. Helix, it turns out (in case, like me, you didn't read anything about it and are just about to watch it based on a friend's recommendation), is about a mutated virus-thing that has broken out at a research facility (either intentionally or unintentionally), causes people to either turn to bloody mush, or makes them crazy infect-other-people-at-all-cost-machines with weird abilities. So people are dying, sabotaging, turning on each other, and getting attacked by zombie-like coworkers for the entire thing, and I'm just left shaking my head at the choices I've made.
I was really happy with how this weekend went. My dad and I beat a decent local doubles team after dropping the first game, and we actually wound up giving Andy Nett and his dad a decent go of it in our match against them. We were leading 16-15 in the second game, but my serve let me down a bit and they played well (as always) to put us away. We still got more points off them than any other team, though! They won their finals match 21-7, 21-10 (or 11). So I'm considering our debut a success.
Movie notes for movies I hadn't seen before:
Best movie I watched: Warrior
This movie was moving, full of action, complex, and well-acted. Pretty much aces in my book (though my book has always been partial to guys beating each other up). Sunshine was also really good, but it just messed with me too much to rank it as highly as this one.
Weirdest: Hesher
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a weird old-ish guy, Natalie Portman plays a generic, (nondescript, mundane) grocery store worker, and a little kid's life gets temporarily really weird as a result. JGL (as his friends probably never call him) vandalizes his way through most situations (with no consequences), Natalie Portman never looks attractive, and Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute) nails the role of uncaring widower, and the movie just sort of moves along.
Worst: Brave
This wasn't the absolute worst as far as quality was concerned (I stopped watching a couple others, whereas I finished this one), but it was the one that under-performed the most. It looked like it could be decent, and it just wasn't. Maybe if at any point I had known that the movie was actually about a girl's mom transforming into a bear, and not about something interesting, I wouldn't have been so let down.
In an interesting turn of events, I am playing frisbee tomorrow. More on that after it happens.
I was thinking about not writing much about some thoughts/conversations I've had recently. Beating a dead horse, at all that. But I've been mulling it over ever since my last entry, so stay tuned I suppose in case the draft of a post I've started ever actually materializes...
When I was watching the new Superman movie, the only thing I thought stood out was that in one scene, when Zod grabs him and swings him around, the path Superman takes when released is an outward spiral instead of a straight line. This bothered me an inordinate amount. To the point that, because the rest of the movie was so blah, all I recall when thinking back on it is that mistake.
Digging into my phone for topics:
My professor was explaining the guidelines for taking our exams and telling us we couldn't use the internet. One student started to ask if they could use an app to write, then hesitated, backed up, and asked "wait, do you know what the cloud is?" The professor got the funniest offended look on his face, the class laughed uproariously, and he nodded. The student finished her question. The professor responded, saying, "No, that should be fine, but if you're going to use your computer, I would say you shouldn't have to open what's called a browser, (you know what that is?) for any reason." It was fantastic.
I'm just stalling right now. Nadal is being taken to a tiebreaker by a Japanese guy in the first set, and my internet at my apartment is unreliable, so I'm obviously stuck here indefinitely. Very sad...
Okay, okay, I'll get on with my studying (depressing that it starts before school does...)
Thanks for reading!
Finishing the Semester (Grades mediocre, aligning appropriately to my effort compared to my classmates)
Puzzles! (More specifically, all-nighter puzzle dedication with my sister)
Handball! (Trying to squeeze every game possible in while back home)
Movies! (Machine Gun Preacher, I Am Number Four, Princess and the Frog, Silence of the Lambs, Coraline, The Illusionist, Warrior's Way, Friends with Benefits, Real Steel, Tangled, Equilibrium, The Grandmaster, Thanks for Sharing, Fergully, Benny and Joon, Braveheart, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Hitman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Willow, Wall-E, As Good as it Gets, Stand Up Guys, Sunshine, Book of Eli, Hesher, Easy A, How to Train Your Dragon, Sucker Punch, Bronson, Rango, Quest for Camelot, Brave, Yes We're Open, Inglourious, Basterds, The Waking Life, Warrior, The Wolverine, The A Team, The Dark Knight Rises, Kick-Ass 2, Man of Steel, and a few more foreign ones/ones I can't remember)
Handball! (Playing with my dad! And doing well!)
Great Food! (Three for three on restaurants while my parents were in town)
Seeing Sarah S! (Quilt delivery successful, food sharing as well (pickled herring, even))
Longer things:
One day I started off with Silence of the Lambs, as it was early afternoon and I knew I didn't want to watch it late at night in case it was scary. It turned out to not be that scary, but I wanted something different anyway. I had heard Sunshine was a good movie. It's description was basically "astronauts have to nuke the sun to save earth." I was skeptical, but hey, it's science fiction, so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be the most intense psychological thriller/scary/head-wrenching movie I have seen in a while. That was hardly what I was expecting when I sat down for a movie called Sunshine with the aforementioned description. Good movie, just way to intense for me at that point. So I looked for something else to fit the bill. I found a recent movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and gave that a watch. Turns out, that movie (Hesher) was pretty out-there too (more on that later). In a last-ditch effort, I turned to another source. My friend on Facebook had recently raved about a TV show called Helix, which has recently started on the SyFy channel. I found the first episode and gave it a go. Whoops! Turns out that these generic names are really just disguises they put over crazy death-filled insanity. Helix, it turns out (in case, like me, you didn't read anything about it and are just about to watch it based on a friend's recommendation), is about a mutated virus-thing that has broken out at a research facility (either intentionally or unintentionally), causes people to either turn to bloody mush, or makes them crazy infect-other-people-at-all-cost-machines with weird abilities. So people are dying, sabotaging, turning on each other, and getting attacked by zombie-like coworkers for the entire thing, and I'm just left shaking my head at the choices I've made.
I was really happy with how this weekend went. My dad and I beat a decent local doubles team after dropping the first game, and we actually wound up giving Andy Nett and his dad a decent go of it in our match against them. We were leading 16-15 in the second game, but my serve let me down a bit and they played well (as always) to put us away. We still got more points off them than any other team, though! They won their finals match 21-7, 21-10 (or 11). So I'm considering our debut a success.
Movie notes for movies I hadn't seen before:
Best movie I watched: Warrior
This movie was moving, full of action, complex, and well-acted. Pretty much aces in my book (though my book has always been partial to guys beating each other up). Sunshine was also really good, but it just messed with me too much to rank it as highly as this one.
Weirdest: Hesher
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a weird old-ish guy, Natalie Portman plays a generic, (nondescript, mundane) grocery store worker, and a little kid's life gets temporarily really weird as a result. JGL (as his friends probably never call him) vandalizes his way through most situations (with no consequences), Natalie Portman never looks attractive, and Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute) nails the role of uncaring widower, and the movie just sort of moves along.
Worst: Brave
This wasn't the absolute worst as far as quality was concerned (I stopped watching a couple others, whereas I finished this one), but it was the one that under-performed the most. It looked like it could be decent, and it just wasn't. Maybe if at any point I had known that the movie was actually about a girl's mom transforming into a bear, and not about something interesting, I wouldn't have been so let down.
In an interesting turn of events, I am playing frisbee tomorrow. More on that after it happens.
I was thinking about not writing much about some thoughts/conversations I've had recently. Beating a dead horse, at all that. But I've been mulling it over ever since my last entry, so stay tuned I suppose in case the draft of a post I've started ever actually materializes...
When I was watching the new Superman movie, the only thing I thought stood out was that in one scene, when Zod grabs him and swings him around, the path Superman takes when released is an outward spiral instead of a straight line. This bothered me an inordinate amount. To the point that, because the rest of the movie was so blah, all I recall when thinking back on it is that mistake.
Digging into my phone for topics:
My professor was explaining the guidelines for taking our exams and telling us we couldn't use the internet. One student started to ask if they could use an app to write, then hesitated, backed up, and asked "wait, do you know what the cloud is?" The professor got the funniest offended look on his face, the class laughed uproariously, and he nodded. The student finished her question. The professor responded, saying, "No, that should be fine, but if you're going to use your computer, I would say you shouldn't have to open what's called a browser, (you know what that is?) for any reason." It was fantastic.
I'm just stalling right now. Nadal is being taken to a tiebreaker by a Japanese guy in the first set, and my internet at my apartment is unreliable, so I'm obviously stuck here indefinitely. Very sad...
Okay, okay, I'll get on with my studying (depressing that it starts before school does...)
Thanks for reading!
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