Have keyboard, will post

Man, money is difficult. I have a bunch of things going wrong right now, and it's really frustrating trying to get them all straightened out. The first thing is that my credit card was charged fraudulently a while ago. This happened before an autopayment I scheduled, so I payed for the payment and then I filed the claim. Sure enough, a credit appeared on my account. That was all well and good, but I hadn't bought anything for the credit to be applied to, so I used the card to buy textbooks. I bought a book from the bookstore, which was twice as expensive as the one online, and then bought the one online as well, planning to return the book from the store. I did that, and was happy with the hundred dollars I saved. But now I looked at the credit card report and the credit still hasn't been applied to my account. To make matters worse, the credit for returning the book also isn't appearing. So I'm currently out over $200, which is really frustrating. I also need to go talk to the financial office here about where to send my scholarship money and to make sure that money will be okay to be received by me. I hate dealing with all this money stuff. Very annoying in general.

I should have taken the advice people have been giving me to just keep doing things to forget about being broken up with, but I didn't really do that today. Instead, I returned to my salvation in the computer lab, but even three episodes of Breaking Bad and live streaming Magic coverage from Atlanta wasn't enough to keep me occupied, and I've been feeling a bit sad. This won't be the post where I go into things in depth, but be forewarned, the storm is imminent. In the meantime, I made note of a few things worth talking about, so I'll hit those up.

The first topic is this video Sarah sent me from her beloved NPR:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/05/219266779/our-cultural-addiction-to-phones-in-one-disconcerting-video?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20130908&utm_source=mostemailed

If you didn't watch it, it's basically just making the point that cell phones are ruining EVERYTHING!

I waffle back and forth on this topic. On the one hand, I hate to see three people with their phones out not talking to each other, but on the other hand, I've totally been the guy up at night on his phone. I've also been part of the group of three people, and as long as nobody in that group was hoping for eye contact, that isn't necessarily as bad as the video makes it out to be. The only time it gets bad is if someone without a phone expects reciprocation (like the girl in the video is obviously hoping for). I guess it might also be a little different for me because I don't have that many friends, so if I'm in a group, it's not usually because I actually want to be spending time with each one of those people. So when I'm talking to the friend I do want to be there with, I don't look at my phone, and when that person is talking to other people, my phone provides me with an out so I don't have to talk to the other people there I don't really care about. I'm rarely even doing anything on my phone. I just have it out and look at a game I've already moved in, and it solves my awkwardness problem.

Phones are also really handy to have when you're in a conversation. Or maybe just when you're in a conversation with me, because I tend to spark controversies that need settling, and phones provide a great way to do that. When a person runs out of something to talk about, a phone provides endless topics. The only time phones really get in the way is when a person is trying to social network (which I assume is what's going on in the video). Then they are showing a preference to people other than the one right in front of them, which does seem a bit silly. I also get irritated by people constantly taking pictures to send to people who aren't there, or for later, when nothing that cool is actually happening. Remind me to tell you about the only time I've been to "the bars" sometime...

The thing about having the phone in the bedroom might be a bit different from my perspective also. See, I don't sleep well/at all/easily, and I usually stay up until I feel certain that if I go to bed I will fall asleep quickly.  Otherwise, my mind starts wandering and I really hate where it goes. Before my phone, this meant I would either have the light on, have a computer on, or be in a different room entirely, none of which were as good as having my phone. It disturbs whoever you're with to have those distractions, and not being in the room just makes both people lonely. But having my phone (or iPad), means the lights can be off and not distracting while I can be distracted, a critical element unless I want to start feeling depressed. The iPad lets me read with the light off, the iPhone lets me stream something, etc. while allowing me to roll over and sneak a cuddle or hug or other sign of companionship. I'm not saying everyone should have their phones out all the time; I'm just trying to provide my point of view and preemptively defend myself against people wanting personal contact.

The other thing I was going to talk about is how much weight I've lost! Of course, this means broaching the Rebecca topic again, but whatever; that seems unavoidable. The story is basically that Rebecca had said she wasn't feeling attracted to me anymore, and I said, naturally, that I would do whatever I could to make that change. I asked if it was because I weighed more than when she met me (I'd put on ten pounds or so since my sophomore year of college). She said that might be it, and I put myself on a diet. I didn't really know how to go about that, so I just thought of all the things I've heard of people doing and combined them. So the restrictions I currently operate under are:
1) No carbs after 5:00 and no food after dinner. This was motivated partly by the Atkins people and the people who say eating late at night is bad for you. Just thinking about it made it seem likely that carbs (that take longer to break down, I think?) shouldn't be cut entirely, but I'd heard that while sleeping the body converts a higher percentage of food into fat than while awake, so I wanted to limit the amount of work it was doing then.
2) Portion control. This was a lot more important to me when I just started trying to lose weight. I took careful precaution not to eat more than a handful of food at a time. I would only eat when I felt like I needed to, and if I still felt hungry fifteen minutes later I might have a bit more.
3) I started eating healthy. This was more challenging when I was in Ames (and in a relationship), because I don't buy unhealthy food here. One of the more frustrating things was Rebecca offering me ice cream, cookies, candy, etc. while she knew I was trying to lose weight. I guess she just didn't remember or thought I would be making exceptions for things she was also eating, but as has been discussed earlier, when I commit to something, I don't do it halfway.

The results have been pretty great. I lost ten pounds in the first few weeks. Since moving here I haven't been nearly as good about not eating late or right before bed. Also, I've been making bigger portions for myself, since I'm not really doing this for anyone anymore, and only because it seems healthier. I started this mission at 167 pounds, and I even saw my weight over 170 on a couple of occasions (when I came back from a magic tournament having eaten as much as possible without moving for instance). I now weigh about what I did in high school. I took this picture yesterday:

153!

I haven't noticed a huge change in my energy level or what I look like, but I put on some shorts I bought before I left, and this was the result:

I can't figure out how to rotate this!

There's a lot of extra space in that waistband, which is both awesome and frustrating, since I didn't bring a belt. And I probably wouldn't wear a belt anyway.

So I don't know which of these things to credit the most for losing weight, but I do know what seems to work for me. To be honest, it's probably mostly the fact that I just really wanted to lose weight, and I was willing to feel hungry to make that happen. Now I am less thrilled by that idea, and I seem to have stabilized somewhat around 155. But I'm also not working out as much as when I was in Ames, when I was playing frisbee twice a week and handball twice a week. But I'm starting intramural frisbee tomorrow, so maybe...

yeah, that's not going to be the same at all.

It should be fun though. I haven't thrown a disc since I've been here. I was considering playing left-handed if this situation cropped up, but I want to make my captain want to play with me, so I will be trying pretty hard for the first time and I'll see where we are after that. I should really start running again, but I don't really like my neighborhood, and I just haven't been thrilled about being in public now that I'm in a city. I restrict my time outside my room to being on campus and biking as fast as I can between the two locations. And I walk to Aldi once a week. That's it. And I wonder why I'm lonely...

Well, that's all I had noted for topics to say. I'll just edit a few more poems, I think. And if I feel like depression is about to overwhelm me, maybe I'll start complaining again. Thanks for reading!

Wheeeeeeeee!

Hello there!

I finally made my way to the computer lab in the library, and I must say, it's odd to type on a real keyboard for a change. My fingers aren't used to the work involved, and each key press makes my wrists wonder how long this is going to go on. And I'm not sure I am typing any faster what with all the times I have to hit the backspace key. I don't use that function on my iPad because its autocorrect feature is so good. I just hit the space button and usually the word I was supposed to be typing appears.

I'm writing to announce a few changes/updates to the whole blog situation. This will still be my hub of operations, but I've started yet another blog for my poetry (peschpoems.blogspot.com). So I'm gradually taking the stuff from the entries here and hopefully other places and I will put it all on there in separate posts. And I'm editing them as I do it, so they're going up a few at a time. My plan is to continue to write everything here raw, so if you like to read all about me, this is still the place to be, but in case someone stumbles across my blogs and doesn't like to read about my emotional problems, this gives them another way to access my stuff. I've added a little gadget-y thing to all my blogs (hopefully), so you can just click them on the right side of the screen over there -->

That being said, this will probably be updated pretty frequently, but I can't guarantee it will be creative-oriented as much any more. I have a bit more free time and fewer people I want to talk to, so I figured I'd just cut to the chase and tell anyone who wants to listen. So I'll write anything here, but I'll start new blogs as I feel they are warranted. I'm thinking I might start one just about law school, for example, so people searching for cases can see what I thought about them, or people interested in the experience can get an idea of what I'm doing as I go through it. But maybe that's what this is already? So I'm not sure. I just know that when I want to say something, I'll come here first and divide later accordingly. So you're not missing anything by continuing to read here.

I really like that poem I wrote a while ago called "Trouble with Chess." I just put in on my other blog, and I was going to revise it, but then all I did was change capitalization and punctuation. It even gets better when you read it twice, because the chess metaphor applies to the military so well. The soldiers are the pawns on the board obeying commands and standing there defending the people while occasionally being sacrificed. People think that progress is good, meaning that we get involved in everything, when it might just be better to sit at home and defend ourselves rather than interpreting everything that happens as a reason to move.

"Skepticism," on the other hand, is incredibly underwhelming. I added a bit to it, but I can't decide whether the correct move is to add to it or take away from it. It might be better as a shorter poem, but it might need even more in order to get to the point I wanted to make (on top of the whole I can't see God deal). I might revisit it again later.

I edited the "Church" poem to smooth it up, but I didn't actually change it to be actually satisfied with it.

I really want to write a short story, as I feel that was a cool part of my life, but I can't think of anything suitable at the moment, and I'm not even sure how I went about doing that. I guess it started differently every time, but this time I feel so lawed-out that I can't really think of anything other than court cases, and I'm not sure how much fun it would be to read about a lawyer or something filing for a jurisdictional dismissal of a case.

I've also been slowly bottling up little things I've been sad about recently, so there's probably another depressing "I'm lonely and I don't understand why my girlfriend left me etc." post coming soon. Don't worry, I'll let you know in the title if you should brace yourself. For now, I'm just staying busy trying to track down poems. I think there are a bunch on the computer I have in pieces at my parents' house, but there are also some that I emailed to myself for classes, and I'm sure I can find some saved somewhere... I just can't quite put my finger on it. Did I back them up somewhere? Anyway, I have a lot of them to keep me busy just from this blog in the meantime.

Nothing really exciting is going on as far as law school is concerned, which is probably fantastic news, since it seems some of my classmates are starting to feel overwhelmed already. Unless something changes drastically about the experience soon, I'm afraid "they" will have been incorrect again. Every single time I change educational "levels" I'm told I won't have as easy a time of it this time, I'm going to have to actually apply myself, I'm not going to have the free time I used to have, I will have to work carefully to balance life and schoolwork. The list goes on. And yet again, I'm feeling fine about everything, haven't put in any more work than I want to, finish my readings on time, have the relevant material in my notes, and have plenty of free time. I play handball for four hours a day two times a week for Elliot's sake. (I really need to meet a Pete, so I can say it for his sake. In this case, Elliot gets the honors as he's probably the nicest, smartest guy in our classes. He's already passed the bar in California!) And I obviously have even more free time on my hands than I know what to do with, as evidenced by the length of this post, if nothing else.

I've pulled two all-nighters already I guess. One because I don't respond to rejection well, and one because I took a nap in the afternoon, and I was just getting tired around 2:00 am when I got a phone call that a fellow classmate was in the library and couldn't figure out how to access his assignment materials. I wasn't quite done with mine, so I went and made sure he got everything figured out, then worked on mine even more. This turned out to be fortuitous for him, since he went to the bathroom and locked himself out of the library! So I was there to let him in, and just stuck around from 3:00 to 8:00 when class started. I'll admit, that day was a pretty bad day as far as information assimilation was concerned. So if my classmates are doing that sort of sleep-deprivation regularly, it's no wonder they are feeling overwhelmed. If you aren't operating with a fresh mind the text turns to gibberish and the professors might as well be asking you to translate enigma code. So maybe I'm just abnormally good at reading the material and getting the necessary stuff out of it, or maybe they are all drinking instead of putting even the (what I consider to be) minimal amount of time into the reading.

This post has gone on for a long time. I've been in the computer lab since just after 3:00. I was about to leave when I remembered I forgot to print off a thing due at 4:00. I also remembered I hadn't ever learned how to use the printers. So I reentered with a bit of trepidation, only to find this computer lab in the back of the library. It's delightful. I took the computer in the back corner, and I think I might never leave. I have my headphones in streaming commercial-free internet music, I have my Google Chrome account synced to my phone and iPad so I can pick up wherever I left off on any device, and I am loving it. And being able to type faster is exhilarating. Having an apostrophe key is only something you appreciate after you've been without one for years. And just in the course of this blog post I've stopped making the stupid typos that were requiring the backspace key, so that's not an issue anymore. If I was faster at thinking creatively, I'd be tempted to write things of substantial length, but even when I feel like I'm in "the zone," I think about each word I write, so typing isn't the limiting factor. For this though, I just think about a topic and the rest comes out.

I will undoubtedly write more soon. Probably as soon as my depression outweighs my new-found enthusiasm for typing. But I'm going to take advantage of this and put the photos in I couldn't with my iPad, and update my profiles places. Be back soon!

Thanks for reading!

Segue part 3

In yet another autobiographical foray into law school...

Oh wait, just kidding. I'm finally creative!

Church

The church is the biggest thing in town
Huge, hewn stone, hauled hundreds of miles
A testament to Christianity,
A monument in itself, to the rightness
Of righteous belief
For who could haul and hew
If they knew
Their questions would go unanswered
Their inquisitions, begged on bended knee
Fly out of flying buttresses,
Bounce off the belltower,
And bring nothing but silence
But belief needs no concrete
The tons of stone are enough
Their mere presence a testimony
To the belief of the builders

The unbending, balustraded nave
Brooks no bouts of doubt
It's physicality manifests harsh juxtaposition
To my infirmity
For my beliefs have have never sparked
Such superior structure
Such skyward-seeking symbology
Such arduous adoration
Never allowed me assurance to commit
Wholly,
To assert my authority over attention

You can't help but look up to it
Neck craned and cricked in stricture
You can't help but hear it
The ringing adulation of the bells
Extolling virtues in idyllic scripture
So who am I to doubt
The devout
As I wander,
Ghostly,
Unseen and un-momentous below?


I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The first stanza was written in my iPad as a note from when I was living in my car in Missouri. I remember when I was writing it I wanted to make an ironic transition from the devoutness and righteousness the people felt while they were building the church and their certainty in their religious and compare it to the pyramids. The pyramids were built by slaves, of course (and there are probably plenty of parallels I could draw to the mindless way people seem to follow religion today), but the sheer size of the task overshadows the churches completely. I was going to say something to the extent of "if the people who built this church did so as an exhibition of their belief and their authority in that belief, imagine how much more devotion and authority the Egyptians had. But then I wrote some other stuff that doesn't quite go with the first stanza. There are a couple of interpretations I am thinking of for how I wrote it, but I'll keep those to myself in case I want to revise it to more completely adhere to one of them.

I also found this in my notes from Missouri:

Last night was the first night it was actually cold, and my feet hurt for a while before I eventually got back to sleep. It wasn't until around 9:00 or 10:00 this morning that I realized they were numb when I tried to walk and felt unbalanced due to my lack of toes. All was well soon after, though, as the blood started moving and feeling came back. I believe I will break out the sleeping bag tonight, just in case. By the time I thought about it last night, it was too cold outside of the blanket to warrant trying to remedy the situation. I figured all that was really cold were my feet, and it wasn't worth the risk, so I'd just cut my losses. Yet another reason not to leave decisions to my tired brain. This comic pretty much sums it up:  http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2402

I'll write more soon. Just wanted to post before I'm off to my next class.

Segue part 2

I just spent a half hour or so reading old blog posts on my phone while editing a couple of them on my iPad. Then I looked up at something a person near me in the room I'm in said and realized my eyes couldn't focus at all! It was disconcerting to say the least. Then again, it did provide yet another occasion to appreciate having LASIK done. I've been taking that for granted the past couple of years, but occasional bouts of blurriness are exactly the remedy required. Not having to put in contacts every morning is still a huge deal to me when I remember to think about it.

So anyway, I found the sections of the document I had already posted, which didn't actually leave as much original material as I thought. Most of it is unfinished poetry abandoned because I wrote myself into a bit of a corner that I knew I could get out of but didn't have the willpower to think about at the time. I am decidedly less poetic these days than I was when I was blogging regularly before, and I'm not sure whether to blame it all on law school or not. I think it's mostly because I just don't read much poetry these days. The more I read of anything the more I assimilate the style. This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to writing for my legal writing class on Thursday, but on the other hand, it's sort of depressing reading my old poems and thinking, "Wow! That's actually pretty good; I wrote that?"

Further depression can be found in the subject of the poems (Rebecca in many cases, obviously, but also just being excited or thoughtful about things I no longer find intriguing). Like it or not, I have to admit I'm slowing down and settling in to who I am, which seems to be limiting my range on things I'm really willing to get excited about. Or maybe it's just my removal from philosophy, that field of thought that encourages taking the slightest idea to its extremes just for the sake of mental excercise. Right now the only things I'm really devoting that sort of thought to are finding loopholes and thinking about all the ramifications of particular legal procedure. Which is all well and good for my first few weeks at law school, but I can easily see this profession eating up my natural tendency to explore new areas of though. That's not quite accurate. Rather, my tendency to explore will by redirected solely to law, which is a big enough field that you can explore its particulars for your entire life and be quite content and stimulated mentally. But to anyone who isn't a lawyer you look single-minded, one-dimensional, and probably pretty boring. Plus, I'm not sure I'm willing to devote that much of myself to this yet, so I'm just a bit apprehensive.

With all that said, I'm hoping this will be my last purely autobiographical post for a while. I plan on rewriting a few of these poem scraps from my recovered documents, and I want to make at least a token effort to maintain some diversity in my writing style. My autobiographical stuff has always bordered on the technical and properly-phrased anyway, and being in law school will only serve as a reinforcement. If I don't try and do something creative soon, the self-perpetuating cycle of legal writing and autobiography will have taken their hold to an inextricable level.

That said, I have a story from class yesterday! I even forgot to tell my mom while I talked to her, so it's new for everyone. In my torts class we were talking about the difference between negligence and intentionally disobeying the law. The case involved a man whose horses escaped and one was killed as he was leading them all back home on the side of the road. The one struck by the car wasn't bridled, as he couldn't catch them all initially and two had simply fallen into line after he started leading the ones he had caught home. There is a specific statute governing the case that says a man can be held liable for damage in this scenario only if he placed the stock on the highway intentionally. The case includes indemnifying dialogue where the man admits being familiar with the tendency of horses to spook at cars, and he even says he has had horses killed in this manner before. Because intent is defined under a summary of law as having a "reasonable certainty" something will happen and taking the action in light of that knowledge, it wound up being a pretty open and shut case. When prompted for a way of defending the case, one of my classmates said the first thing he would have told his client was not to mention anything tht could be construed as intent. Frame the case only as "I took the horses I had secured back to my ranch, and I had no control or obligation regarding the ones that followed of their own volition. Therefore, I never intentionally placed the horse responsible for the damages on the road." This is actually a pretty reasonable line to pursue. However, when confronted with the dialogue, my classmate said, "Well, I would have told him not to spew any of that stuff about his certainty." This prompted the professor to say, "Now, I know you guys haven't had ethics yet, but I'm just going to caution you against advising your clients against 'spewing the truth' all over a courtroom." Laughter ensued.

Oooohhhhh noooooo! Curse my blind faith in updates being better than their predecessors! I updated an applications I use to watch people stream live games and now there are ads all the time over my videos. This is almost as bad as when I did THE EXACT SAME THING with YouTube. One day: ad-free, delightful viewing to my heart's content. The next: 30 wasted seconds on every video watched on my phone. I have an ad blocker on my computer, but my phone does not have that technology. As a person who could watch up to thirty or forty videos a day, this represented fifteen or twenty minutes of my life down the drain (on top of all those videos!). So I stopped watching. I didn't miss it much, but I was proud of having seen every single episode of sourcefed and a few other channels I followed closely. This is not nearly as bad as the YouTube update, as I watch these videos for a longer amount of time, so I'm losing less time as a percentage, but if I had only known...

One small step for me. One giant segue for this blog!

We only got through one case in my contracts class today. People just couldn't stop asking the most repetitive questions, which is frustrating because during orientation we were specifically told multiple times that anything we didn't get through in class would still be on the final, and that we'd just have to read hundreds of pages the week before we took the test if we didn't keep class moving along. Which brings me quite seamlessly (if I hadn't thrown this seem in, of course) to my next grievance: what was the point of orientation if we didn't learn anything useful and even the stupid little tips we did get are going discarded? I got an email recently asking me to fill out a survey about the usefulness of orientation. I really hope I win the random drawing for the gift card after putting "extremely unhelpful" or "no opinion" for every single response. Don't worry, I explained the reason I didn't have an opinion about so many things was because after realizing how useless everything was, I skipped as much of the procedures as possible. The short response section was challenging because I was asked to reflect upon something they did well. All I could think of was free pizza, but even that was sort of greasy. I doubt they're going to take my advice for how to improve it, since scrapping it will deprive the person who's ONLY JOB is to make sure this event is worthwhile and enjoyable.

So nothing interesting happened in contracts, and I have an hour to kill before my torts class. I already did some reading/briefing during my break and don't really feel like being lawyerly at the moment, so I figured I'd write a bit. But I don't have that much to write about. I guess you'll have to bear with me as I take a bit of stream of consciousness approach.

It used to be that I couldn't write very well with music on in the background. I had a couple of classical stations ready at hand for occasions such as this, but I've been listening to this station by featuring a rapper called Childish Gambino for so long at this point tht I don't even find it distracting any more. He has to be the cleverest writer I've come across, even if he's a bit too explicit for me to recommend to strangers. I never know what the rule is on explicitives these days. On the one hand, I hear elementary school kids throwing around the whole gamut of what were considered extreme when I was their age. High schoolers even swear around their parents on occasion, and frisbee tournaments are a whole conflagration of weird situations. On one side of the YCC fields the heckling and profanity rage wildly, while on the other the parents are trying to find tactful compliments that they cross their fingers and hope are relevant. So maybe there aren't inappropriate lyrics anymore, but the thought of adults (I'm obviously still not an adult) appreciating and laughing at lines playing on the concepts of ejaculation, chauvinism, "hood rivalry" and felatio still makes me grimace. But they are so clever! The artist's name is Donald Glover, and he starred on the tv show Community while also writing comedy for at least one other show. He had a brief part on the show Girls, and probably some other stuff if I bothered to look him upon IMDB. He also does live standup! It's weird, because he's a different person in each of these capacities, and yet another person in the interviews he gives.

We are starting to get into the definition of intent as it relates to tort law, and while it's not ll that different than I was expecting, some of the specific cases are a little interesting. The first we looked at was the one that was responsible for changing the definition from intending the harm to intending to commit an action that was "reasonably certain" to result in harm. This is a much broader definition. So if you intend to harm someone you are liable even if you don't succeed, and if you don't intend to harm someone, but you commit an action intentionally that you reasonably know will have that effect, you are equally liable. In case the second definition needs clarification, I found one case particularly illuminating:

A seven year old was playing in a car lot with two friends. One of the friends was on a ledge, and the little girl forced her off, after which she sustained serious injury. The little girl was certainly not thinking at the time "I want to hurt her;" she just wanted to take her turn on the ledge. But she knew that her actions could (or probably would) result in the girl being hurt. So even though we don't hold children responsible for the intent behind their actions (the reason we have an extreme aversion to assigning the death penalty), the girl was liable for the consequence of her action.

I started writing some poetry just now, but it wasn't coming out right, so I switched to classical. Then I gave up temporarily and moved it into my notes section. Then I realized I have many, many unfinished things in my notes section. Then I realized I have a bunch of stuff that reminds me of Rebecca in my notes section. Then I deliberated over what to do with all that stuff before moving it to the back of my notes section because I don't have any idea what I actually want to do with it. Then I compiled all the unfinished stuff into one big document. Then I remembered I might have actually posted some of it, but also that I have some drafts of posts on my blog site still in the editing phase. So my new mission is to put those into the same big document as well, figure out which things I've posted, delete those, and then put the whole thing into production. But for now, due to having wasted half an hour deliberating and collating, I need to go. So no creative fun stuff today, but steps are being taken, never you fear!

Speaking of steps, by the way, I got a reply to an email I sent about getting access to my scholarships from Magic six or eight years ago. One step closer! (included mostly for mother's benefit-one less thing to nag about)

Eclectic insomniatic recollections

Man, I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping any of these the entries. The first is a depressing pity party, the second is legal droning, and the third is unreadable gibberish! I apologize in advance. I'll get my act together soon, I promis.

My diet is not prepared for college. I don't eat carbs after five o'clock, but when I don't sleep, when do I get my first bowl of cereal? If I were getting up early to go somewhere, I would eat it now, I suppose.
I've lost ten pounds on my diet though, so I'm pleased with it overall. And that's even through a day at the fair where I went a little crazy. I was raised on the Iowa State Fair, or course, and I was always told it was the basically the best state fair in the whole wide world. Then it turns out that the Minnesota State Fair is even bigger by attendance! I consumed the following list of items (in order):
Mango milkshake from land o'lakes
Turkey leg from a barbecue tent
Deep fried cheeseburger
Deep fried macaroni and cheese
Stromboli filled with ham, onion, green pepper, and cheese
Deep fried cheese curds
Deep fried snickers
Deep fried Reese's

The winners were the Stromboli for quantity for price, cheese curds for best idea and deliciousness, and deep fried Reese's for novelty that was actually good.

There was an official drinking night on Thursday for my first year law class. They are cleverly called "bar review." Then last night was an official party for my class called 1L dis-orientation. I doubt I'd have fun if I went, but it sucks to see people walk into class laughing together about segmenting, knowing I'm not going to be quick to form bonds like they are.

The vuelta is going on this week in Spain. It's actually really interesting, especially if you're like me and like rooting for ancient Americans! In case you don't know, Chris Horner became the oldest guy to win a stage of grand tour and the oldest guy to lead the overall of a grand tour. Then he broke his own record a few days later with an astonishing performance, climbing away from the climbing specialists and putting a minute into his rivals. Unfortunately, he can't time trial, but he's still in it in fourth place. There are so many subplots in this race though! Tony Martin had what might be the single most impressive solo ride I've heard of during an early stage. In case you don't know, he is pretty unanimously considered the world's best time trials specialist, bit because there is only one time trial in the vuelta this year, he worked on his form by attacking by himself and going solo for the entire stage. The race coverage counted him out with about ten kilometers to go, but he was within a few seconds of taking the stage. They speculated that if Fabian Cancellara hadn't given chase, he might have don it. Cancellara is probably the second-best time trialist, though Bradley Wiggins might have a bit to say in the matter. Then came the time trial, and true to form Tony Martin led by over two minutes when he crossed the line. Cacellara was down over 30 seconds stthe first time check, but a wrinkle was thrown into the proceedings with a hill. Cacellara made up over a minute on Martin on the climb and stole the stage win! Other notable occurrences: Gilbert (reigning world champ) won his first race of the year, barely squeezing it in before the world championships around the corner. Nicholas Roche is having a breakout race, establishing himself as an overall contender. And some F1 race car dude bought a Spanish team.

Girls are weird. I'm sure almost everyone is willing to accept that at face value and move on, but let me elaborate just for fun. My close friend Sarah came back from the air force to visit last week and accompanied me to the fair. (those who know me are probably nodding their heads, saying they knew I wouldn't have gone to the fair entirely of my own volition) Sarah has been my friend since high school, and we have the ability to tell each other anything. After agreeing to that a long time ago in principle, it's gotten to the point where it's actually true in fact. It all started I suppose because of our fascination for each other and our mutual desire to have an outlet when things got rough. It wasn't immediate, but we both kept testing the limits of what stories the other person would find shocking, and we eventually ran out of stories before we ran out of tolerance. And now, because we feel like nothing we say to each other really has the power to shock the other person anymore, it comes a lot easier. Rebecca was always jealous of this connection. When Sarah's dad passed away last year, I made it my job to do anything I could to help her get through it, and seeing me care for someone like that wasn't easy on Rebecca, especially because we weren't sure where we stood after our relationship had taken its most recent hit (another stint with that teammate from before) and left us in limbo for quite a while. That is what it is. I'm not going to dwell on it here, but it was obviously hard for Rebecca to see me showing compassion for someone else at that point in time. That's not that weird. When I told Sarah recently how I was pretty sure my relationship with Rebecca wasn't going well, she mentioned how jealous SHE was of Rebecca and my relationship! She recalled specifically one time we went in to the restaurant she was working at and had a meal, and she thought the way we looked at each other was so profound (or something like that), and heartfelt that she almost couldn't take it (she had recently gotten out of a relationship at the time). So both of the girls were unhappy and jealous of what they thought the other had, and I was sitting there in the middle, almost clueless! Granted, I picked up on subtle things, and wasn't entirely surprised when they told me later, but in thinking back, it just makes so little sense. I was just trying to do what I could for each of them, and in doing so, I drove myself apart (at least somewhat) from them both.

Well, it's getting light out. I guess I'll try and take a nap to make my headache go away, and them get on with me day. I have a meeting with an advisor person today at their house (I have no idea why), and I'm still trying to figure out what impression I want to make.

Hopefully the disjointedness wasn't too awful. It's hard to tie things together when operating on half a brain. Thanks for reading!

Mundanity from Mondale Hall

I read my profile on here and I was happy I got to change a couple things! The first is that I'm no longer assured of never getting a job. On a career path and everything. My mommy would be so proud (I hope none of my readers mind baby talk). The second is that my location changed. I'm sure you probably know this, but I'm going to law school at the University of Minnesota! I've always considered this a real possibility, but I'm actually here, in an apartment and everything. I'm back to the minimalist student lifestyle I actually enjoy. I guess that's compared to the mostly minimalist part-time lab worker, which may not be much of a distinction, but it's sure different to me. A welcome change, especially after my first week of classes reassuring me I'm in a place I want to be. The only other real thing that changed is I added a "law (I guess?)" to my interests. It probably still falls behind those other things, but it's gaining steam. (Watch out, cooking, it's coming for you...)

So here's a bit about my life:
One of the things I missed about being a student is the sleep schedule. I sleep whenever I'm tired. I woke up this morning at 5:30 having slept a long time the previous afternoon and did my reading for my civil procedure class as the light started coming in my window. My reading for my classes consists almost entirely of interesting cases. In my contracts class we are examining what it takes for a contract to be binding. When examining a case I have already been trained to "brief" it, a process where you boil it down to its core relevant facts. The format I use looks like this:

Title: who is suing who, year case occured, what type of court
Rule: the question the case is trying to answer, the precedent that gets set
Facts: a summary of relevant facts
Verdict/relevant commentary: what the judges say about why they ruled the way they did

Each of these things is surprising in its relevance. For instance: the type of the court makes a huge difference. In one of the early cases we were looking at the court found that the disict court had made a mistake, but there wasn't anything they could do about it because they were only an appellate court, which doesn't have the authority to make rules or law, just to say whether a court should take another look at the case. So they basically said: yup, that was wrong, and the decision stood anyway. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but the smallest facts wind up having bearing on a case. The only thing that distinguished two cases I read for today was whether or not the defendant had mailed anything BACK to the plaintiff. In the case where they did, the state court was ruled to have jurisdiction because it had a reasonable expectation of being pursued in court. Basically, because they acknowledged the contract went both ways, they gave the court of the state they were mailing into the authority to hear the case. Because the corporation availed themselves of the protection of the state by directing their attention there, they give informal consent to the state's jurisdiction. The second case, where the defendant didn't respond to a client but only mailed them their monthly trust fund, they did nothing to direct their attention there in such a manner, so the court found the state (Florida) had no jurisdiction.

My first decision predicament came up today in a case where four judges thought the verdict should be against the plaintiff for one reason, two judges agreed with the verdict but for a different reason, and three judges thought it should have been a different verdict entirely!

The facts were such:
A foreign company sold a piece of heavy machinery though an American distributor, which was bought by a man in New Jersey. The man sued when he was injured operating said machinery. Naturally, be attempted to sue the company, but the company tried to get the case thrown out on jurisdictional grounds. (we are dealing with jurisdiction in my civil procedure class) The company denied it had the minimum ties required to be held accountable by the court of New Jersey because it had no offices or representatives there. The first four justices agreed with the corporation, saying they had not introduced their product into New Jersey specifically, and so failed the test of availing themselves of the protections provided by that state. The fifth and sixthjustices said that there was no reason to go so far as to provide that reason for denying compensation, but instead just stuck with strict precedent, saying no court had ever found jurisdiction in a case involving a single sale. The sixth, seventh and eight all thought the guy should have been able to continue with the law suit because the foreign company, in marketing to the entire country via a distributor, took upon itself the burden of facing trial in any state. It shouldn't get out of lawsuits just because it took the step of selling through a distributor instead of establishing an office in the united states. If this last option sounds the most reasonable, congratulations! You're on the side of the liberal judges on the court.

The interesting bit of this opinion is actually how we interpret the case as far as precedent goes. First instinct for me was to just say the plurality ruled and go with the decision reached by the four judges. This, however, is not how we do it. When there is no outright majority, the court uses the narrowest construction that agrees with the verdict. So because the two judges assert the least interesting thing, there's is the opinion we use when evaluating whether a future case will have a chance of success! Weird...

In what used to be the case for jurisdictional precedent (a case called Pennoyer V Neff) a man was only able to be tried by a court if he was served with a summons in the state or if he had property in that state. This led to a case where a man was followed onto a plane knowing the plane would be passing over the state in question at a given time, at which point he was served with papers.

Anyway, in case my yammering on hasn't given it away, I'm finding my classes engaging and pretty interesting. The professors are all pretty good. It turns out that because they all have probably been lawyers, they both know what they're talking about and want to be there. In case why they want to be there isn't immediately clear, it's because they've already made money! They're done with that bit, so they're not in it to get tenure and live out their lives on a measly salary. They are still practicing if they want money. A number of them still consult on cases, so they're current and invested in the field.

I had seven cases on the jurisdiction of courts that I read for today, and I only thought two were tedious. That is a much better ratio than most other topics I can think of studying. I haven't made up my mind about constitutional law. I really like studying the constitution because I think it's an incredible document to have been written to stand the test of time. The class is off to a pretty slow start though. The professor has a method of teaching where he calls on people for the answers to questions based solely on a roster, which is fine I suppose, except that he sticks with the person he called until they say the thing he was going for when he framed the question whether they know it or not. This process of him leading them by the nose can take a long time depending on how obtuse the person is being, to the extent that he sometimes tells them the specific passage he is thinking of and waits for them to read it through before moving on. Ugh. I've never had patience for this sort of thing, and watching a girl whiff on the judiciary branch as the one with the power to interpret the constitution for five minutes was almost more than I could handle.

The last class I have is called torts. The professor has a good teaching style, and the class seems decent enough, but I haven't quite gotten as into it as my other classes yet. I'm actuall in the middle of answering a question in that class though, since we had to stop due to time while I was talking about the barometric set by a court when it comes to the care a person needs to act with in order to avoid being sued for irresponsible action. In my case a man is beating two dogs (which are fighting, so it's not just plain cruelty; it's maybe almost justified cruelty) in an attempt to separate them. In doing so, the dogs move toward him and he takes a step back and in doing so hits a man behind him in the eye with his stick. The man sues him, and the first court says he should have acted with particular care given the situation. The supreme court disagrees, saying that the standard of care is one "any man would deam reasonable in the situation as long as the action was a necessary one." Under this revised definition the case is sent back for a retrial so the jury can use this new definition in evaluating the case.

That's all the case law you can stand, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I can already go on and on and on about this stuff. And it's only been a week!

Other than classes I have had two required lectures about citation already. Apparently it's a big deal around here, to the extent that if you italicize a comma after a citation they might not let you into law review. If you abbreviate the citation though, you have to italicize the period. Just so you know. Real important.

Another reason I was excited with my change of venue is the new group of people I have to play handball with. I showed up last week Tuesday and spent the day getting used to the courts and making friends. I made sure I didn't win a single game, and just got to know people and who was notable in the group. Most of the games were close (21-19, 21-17 etc), and I didn't feel like anyone was really better than me. The courts are nice. They have eight courts with glass back walls and two of those have glass side walls. They are fantastic in that they have tinting on the inside to make it slightly more opaque, enabling me to see the ball without looking straight through to the things on the other side of the glass. This tinting can't be seen from the outside. Shots felt a bit more dead off the glass than I was expecting, which led to me letting some shots drop behind me I thought I could get and then me looking like an idiot. But whatever, right? The worse I am, the easier I am to talk to, I hope.

Sure enough, I get invited to go out drinking after handball. I decline, and also decline their invitation to the fair Thursday afternoon. In what seems to be a theme for my experience in Minnesota, I pass on easy social experiences because of my personal restrictions. So no handball on Thursday because they are at the fair. Tuesday rolls around and I show up right after my class gets out, meaning I'm an hour early. I warm up and work on my shots for forty-five minutes, and I'm feeling pretty good about things. Sure enough, I beat the best player to show up (a couple didn't come for whatever reason) 21-12, 21-3, 21-6, 21-4. We stuck around after everyone else left because he wanted to play a third match, and then he was unsatisfied with the result and demanded a quick fourth. Neither went his direction. Thursday was a different animal. Four good players showed up in addition to the people from Tuesday. I played three of them, winning two easily and losing to the third 21-20. I have an excuse at the ready though, never you fear. I forgot my eye protection! So I borrowed someone's backup pair of glasses ( I never play in glasses!), which, as they were the backup pair, were scuffed and not quite transparent. And because they were glasses and not strapped on, they had an annoying tendency to slip off my nose and hang on like an annoying mustache during some of my more ambitious shots. This was not helpful.

I played a new style of three-player game, which was kind of cool. It's one on two, game to seven. The single player serves first, and if they win, it becomes a game to fourteen instead. If they win that it goes to twenty-one. If they lose, the next player plays one on two. I liked it. It's a hard challenge as the single player and as the doubles team you are fighting for your chance to play singles, so there's a decent incentive to win quickly.

Here's a picture of some of my notes for today:

Back and badder (worse) than before (skip if you don't like pity-parties)

I told some people this would start up again after I went to law school. Well, it just so happens that is is the first real chunk of free time I've had since that happened. And lo and behold! The improbable occurs. I'd bring you all up to date, but I'm not sure where that would even start, so let's assume that because you're reading this, you probably know me. (This isn't edited and it's typed on a laggy, autocorrect-happy iPad with bad Internet, so either comment or just tell me sometime if it's awful. Grammar-wise, that is. I already know the subject matter is nigh-unreadable...)

That only leaves current events. Surprisingly enough, I've got a bunch of those too! Unfortunately, one of them includes my official newly single status. It sucks having to say I told you so when I know it means I'm going to be in pain, but I have to say I called this shot a month or two ago. I even went so far as to tell her mom not to get her hopes up. (Wow, that sounds really weird and depressing when I think about it. Trust me, there's context: she was saying how she was glad we were working through things and I was in the middle of feeling rejected, so, knowing that Rebecca moving away would be exactly the impetus required for her to end things, I said I wasn't so sure and that I couldn't make Rebecca do anything she didn't want.) Her mom just said she was sure we'd make it.

I'm still in a bit of turmoil over the whole thing, not only because I don't handle rejection well, but because I still don't quite understand all of the issues cited by the other party (I think I used to talk that way before I came to law school? Maybe not? It will all blur together soon enough I'm sure.) I suppose the second thing might easily be subsumed into the latter, so calling it a different problem could be a bit overreaching. Anyway, when one of the two people in a relationship doesn't feel "the spark" anymore, there's really nothing you can do. I feel justified in saying I tried, though there are certainly two sides to every story. From what I gather, from her side I am frequently underhandedly insulting, incredibly obstinate (no contention there), and simply uncomfortable to be around. I'm not sure how much of this is a product of me as a person or simply the way the relationship turned out, but there seems little point distinguishing between the two. Whether it is our history together that makes it uncomfortable to spend time with me or a fact about me as a person makes no difference in this case.

The biggest thing I took away from our most recent discussion is a fundamental difference in how we go about our lives. I (as I'm sure at least a few reading can attest) tend to make a decision after thinking about as many of the facts I can under whatever time I have to consider them and then stick to that decision as hard as possible. If new facts present themselves, I might briefly consider whether they weigh in enough to change course, but having taken a particular path carries its own weight (probably because I hate admitting I did something wrong, more than anything), and I rarely change. One advantage to this is that I almost never regret a decision. Having chosen to do something, when I look back I know I did it for reasons that at the time I felt justified it. The action may, in hindsight, not have been the optimal one, but I almost never feel that there's a good way for me to have known that at the time. The only things that I immediately regret when thinking back are things I was unable to consider rationally when I decided them. One of those things is quitting tennis in high school. The other is yelling at Rebecca that she didn't know what the $&?! she was doing (half the time). I think I said half the time. I don't know for sure.

To be perfectly honest, I feel more comfortable with the second example. Not because she just broke up with me (I hope), but because I had even less time to think before I said it. We were in the middle of an argument, as I hope would be obvious. If I were to go around yelling things like that out of the blue, I could hardly feel justified in my current unhappiness. I was incredibly frustrated because from my perspective I was correcting her out of concern for her safety, and from hers I was overbearing as usual. Obviously, my line of reasoning should have been a bit more refined than the shouting of expletives, but in hindsight, I said what I felt and had reasons in mind for saying it. I later explained these reasons (because that was obviously going to help the situation). That actually didn't help the situation. Odd, I know. She was forgetful about wearing her helmet, she flatted her bike often, had recently ridden recklessly through traffic, and on this particular occasion she was riding rapidly at night right at the back of a person I wasn't sure she had seen as we entered a pedestrian tunnel (which said to dismount if on bicycles). I told her to slow down. She did not enjoy that, as it comformed perfectly to her idea of me as an overbearing individual. From my perspective, I had let the past three things I noticed slide, and just really didn't want something bad to happen here. She said she had seen the guy walking and I didn't need to treat her like she didn't know what she was doing. After a bit of back and forth, kabaam, I blew it.

This isn't actually that big a deal in the whole grand scheme of things, but it is the most-cited example of hers for how she was unhappy, so it is quite prominent in my brain. And I deal with things in my brain by writing them down and hoping that makes them less of a problem. It rarely does.

Tennis, though! I have profound regrets to this day. I almost never think about what might have been. I love that about my system. But I had committed to tennis. I was getting good, it had only been a few years, and then I came to the "realization" I probably wasn't going to go to school on a tennis scholarship. This deflated my enthusiasm. Then my coach told me something I didn't want to hear, and rather than doing ANY OTHER THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, I chose to say I quit. And because I had been thinking about quitting before the altercation, I let myself think I had made an informed decision (albeit impulsively), when in reality I just wanted to let everyone know I had other options and that they were lucky to have me playing their game. I ran varsity track instead of playing tennis. I was fine. I ran a 4:42 mile, cracked 4:40 once I think, and still felt like that justified quitting the sport I enjoyed far more. I sure showed them!

This is not unlike my decision to quit frisbee my senior year of college. Again, I wanted to show them a lesson. I wanted them to come and ask me to play, to offer to change something so I'd come back. Instead, they went on with their lives. I would have felt almost as bad about this as tennis except for the fact that Rebecca cheated on me over winter break with one of my teammates, and after that I wouldn't have been able to show up without doing something very irresponsible and likely would have quit anyway. So that mitigated some of the guilt for opportunity lost.

Perhaps this is why I can't handle rejection. It wasn't my decision. I don't carefully consider the factors and decide this relationship was over. I saw that it was over, acknowledged tht Rebecca wasn't going to be happy with what I had to offer but that doesn't make it hurt less, because it wasn't up to me. I just agreed to abandon the sinking ship, as any logical person would. Or in a more fitting analogy, I scrambled up the perpendicular deck of the sinking ship, perched myself on the bow, and kept waving and shooting flares until my toes, then ankles, then knees got wet, and finally found a life raft. Of course, I haven't quite gotten to the "finding a life raft" bit, but hey, I can tread water for a while.

All of this and I still haven't explained how my decision making is different than Rebecca's (again with the caveat that I operate with imperfect knowledge). She is much less confident about her decisions. And did you know the best way of remedying that ISN'T to tell someone to just do what you do and stop feeling anxious? Well now you (and I) do. Most recently this manifested itself when she said she felt like I was preventing her from being the person she wanted to be. I, of course, told her to be whoever she wanted and I would embrace it. She responded with the fact that she didn't want to do things she thought I would disapprove of because it meant I would think less of her. She knows I don't drink, for example, and being the frisbee player that she is, she attends a lot of parties where that is the norm. She has recently decided she likes alcohol. I have not reached the same conclusion because no new facts have been brought to my attention since I made my informed and logical decision years ago. Does this mean we could no longer be happy? I, of course, can say no, since I no longer have to abide by that assertion. I know plenty of people who drink copious amounts of alcohol, and I don't let that diminish my opinion of them. Of course I factor it into my opinion of them, but only to the extent that I know it's something they do that I don't relate to. What I did have a problem with was when Rebecca would lie to me about whether or not she had been drinking while away at tournaments or at other parties. Obviously she was trying to spare my feelings, but that only works when you can be sure I won't find about it.

The other thing she mentioned that she liked and I didn't was being part of a large group of people. I balked a bit at that, I admit. Strangers hold very little appeal for me. I was about to write that she could have just invited me along and I would have gone as long as she promised not to forget about me (true). But you know what? Perhaps she's right. Maybe I don't want to attend parties where I don't know people and everyone is drunk. If that's really the kind of person she wants to be, or is seriously considering that concept and not just looking for things that she thinks she wants to do just because she knows I don't want to do them and she feels I've been holding her back, I probably wouldn't be as happy as I would otherwise. I think in the back of my mind I wasn't quite giving her enough credit. I just assumed she wasn't going to be that person, that it was just an experiment she wanted to try before being the person I know her to be. But I obviously can't say that, especially after today. I have to accept I don't know her after all, and that it will just plain hurt for a while.

It's not often you get to see a person pass through the stages of their emotions on the written page, but I think it just happened in that last paragraph there. Now I'm just bitter. I'm bitter because I still don't know what I did wrong. I'm bitter because I'm smart, clever, ambitious, athletic, determined, responsible, logical, and hopefully one or two other things I can't think of at the moment, and I don't know what she's looking for if it isn't me. I'm the one who got her started biking, then playing frisbee. I had her read my books. I put myself into the relationship, like I do with everything I decide to try at, and I failed. And I hate failing.

So there's the bitterness. I'm bitter because I did try. It may not have looked like it. In fact recently she said she didn't like the fact that I wasn't nice to her dad when he didn't understand frisbee. The funny thing is, I was about to cite that as an example of when I was nice! See, he had no idea what he was saying, but he yammered on anyway. He said things like, "they can't let that guy throw, he keeps turning it over!" when the turnovers were caused by other factors (handlers not making good cuts, receivers dropping the disc, unexpected miscommunications, etc. Or "come on, don't let him throw that!" to throws on the force side when it was a breakdown downfield. The examples were endless, trust me. And I didn't chime in (as I am so wont to do) with a snide actually... You're an idiot, and here's why. I just grimaced to myself (I even made sure he couldn't see it! (though apparently Rebecca could)) and watched the game. The point is, my efforts at nicety were probably not obvious.

Wait.

Hold it.

That's it!

I think that's what she's looking for. After two years with me, I can't even blame her. She's looking for a nice guy. Not a guy who will do things for her because he wants to make an effort and likes to see her smile (how I flatteringly characterize myself for this self-pitying diatribe), but a guy to whom that stuff comes naturally. I honestly can say I can't give her that. Being nice isn't easy for me. I'm probably just too arrogant or something. What else, then, can I honestly not do? I can't overlook mistakes. I've never been able to do that. I can forgive them, but by golly do I point them out. I do this for two obvious reasons. The first is that I don't like inefficiency. If there's a way to do something better, I want you to know about it. The second is that I want to let you know what to change if you don't want to unwittingly repeat whatever mistake it may have been. A corollary to both of those things is that I know if I don't say something, it will only lead to more frustration in the future, because although I can bottle things up pretty well, I am pretty darn good at dwelling on them. Source: the part where I exploded about her bike stuff. Another source! This whole post! (Citing sources is very important in the legal profession. More on this later.)

So, and I've jabbed at her regarding this very thing, she just needs a nice guy who either overlooks her mistakes or doesn't realize she's making them. I'll do myself the nicety of imagining her with an unintelligent hillbilly for the time being. (This will naturally make it hurt all the worse when I see her playing frisbee with the best, most beautiful boyfriend the world has ever known, but I can only hope it helps enough in the short term to compensate.)

My sister just called and derailed my train of thought. Luckily, we didn't talk much about the current state of depressing affairs. We almost went down that road, and I actually felt myself choking up a bit, but she did me the good service of asking about school, which I was able to answer with only a minor hitch. (Sarah, thanks for calling. I know you mean well. Sorry I wasn't up for a heart to heart. I don't know if you could tell how close I was to crying, but that wasn't what I wanted to do, especially not on the phone with my little sister (big sister if you insist), so thank you.) It seems I can't quite muster up the bitterness required to maintain the velocity of this tangent. So without further adieu, or segue for that matter, here's everything about law school:

Just kidding! I didn't really realize how long this already was. So that stuff is in a new post. So you didn't even have to read this if you wanted to avoid depressing things and only here about my new life at school. Haha. Fooled you, sucker.

But really, thanks for reading.  It means a lot. Hopefully I'll gradually move back into some creative writing in addition to autobiographical angst, but this is what I needed at the moment.

No title for some reason

Skepticism

The clouds could open up
revealing the face of god
and I would attribute it
to a phenomenon of weather
an odd congruence of wind
and stratospheric distortion

So ready am I with explanations

"I feel Him when..."

When your endorphins kick in,
when you can't stand alone,
when mass reassurance
is the most volatile form
of peer pressure.

A man could walk across a lake
his glowing halo hazy
in the morning mist
arms outstretched as the blind
drop their canes
and the homeless cluster
around wine-spouting
water fountains,
and I'd say,
"just another copycat illusion,
a Criss Angel-style wannabe."

Poem:
Yep, I'm jaded. But also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQLq2VmZcA

What are you supposed to believe these days? What would the second-coming have to do in order to get people to actually notice? A few willing conspirators and some special effects, and you've got a miracle.

Observation:

There is a sign at our local food store Fareway stating they ID anyone under 40 years of age. I thought this was an okay idea at first. That way they don't have to actually ID the people who are obviously over 21, right? Like the ninety year-old lady who wants cigarettes. Sure, that makes sense. But think of the other complications. Like the prematurely balding 33 year-old. This guy walks up, hand in his pocket already grabbing his ID, which he pulled out from his wallet with the expectation of flashing it quickly, only to be rung up and sent on his way, no questions asked. The worst part? Maybe he's so focused on the sequence of events he's expecting that when the cashier jumps straight to asking for cash, he is thrown off, fumbles, and bumbles, and now not only is he feeling prematurely ancient, he's clumsy too. That's sort of the obvious drawback of the ID sign. It doesn't prevent you from offending people by asking them for their ID, it just shifts the demographic of people you upset.

I guess you have to weigh your options. If the sign says you ID everyone, will the old people be mad? And will they be more mad than the 43 year-old guys you make a mistake about and who aren't ready with their ID's? And the 37 year-old ladies you just implied looked older than 40 by not IDing? I think they should probably err on the side of universality here.

The best magic player in the world said:

I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of the outcomes. The ability to make a decision five straight times, lose because of it, and still make it the sixth time if it's the right play. Magic players have been developing that since their teens, and it's just so applicable to... life in general. I read an article... where they talked about it making you immune to bad luck. You just take the bad beats in every area of your life in stride and move on.

There is a certain truth in that. Of course, I'm not the best player in the world, and I might grow skeptical if five straight times the thing I thought was right turned out to have lost me the game. But I think it's true that if it's statistically correct to make the right play, I will make that play no matter what has happened in the past. There are so many articles that mention that the difference between a professional player for Magic: the Gathering and a non-pro is around 5-6% win percentage. The best players in the world win around 60% of their matches. That's not a lot. But over time, it sure makes a difference. And consistently making the right play is where those percentages are made up.

I wish I could say this attitude spilled over into my everyday life, but I'm not really sure. As almost anyone can attest, I hold grudges. Then again, if there's something I can't change (and I'm smart enough to understand that), I am often able to let it go. Like bad traffic, or bad weather, or something like that. Of course, in bad traffic, I'm often too paranoid about driving and being killed or something to actually come across as "letting it go." So maybe it's just the weather. My real problem is probably that I think I have control over a lot more than I actually do. I blame myself for a lot of things, and then get in a bad mood because of some "mistake" that I probably couldn't help. But I think I'm improving in this area too. It recently crystallized in my mind that people don't intentionally do "wrong" things. If someone could accurately ascertain the results of their actions, then they wouldn't be upsetting other people (usually me).

This could easily turn into thousands of words about how this perfect knowledge is a real reason I have a problem with the idea of God. I can't stand the fact that people claim God knows everything, and yet claim that he holds them accountable for their actions. If God knows exactly why you're doing something, and knows every fiber of your being, then He knows there isn't anything you could have done to change yourself at that moment to do something differently. Put another way, imagine there is a sinner (or you know, just a normal person, since we're all sinners) who is thinking about whether or not to ask God for forgiveness. The way I understand it, that's all that's needed to gain eternal salvation, right? So imagine this person considering asking for forgiveness, and then decided not to, because he doesn't actually believe in God. According to what I've heard, this person isn't deserving of heaven. But God knows this person was never going to believe in Him. He knows every reason behind his not asking. Say he was raised to not believe in Christianity. God is still going to blame him, knowing as He does there was never any hope for the man to ask forgiveness? I can't believe it.

Put a final way, and a way much more succinct: If heaven excludes Gandhi, Confucius, Mark Twain, Einstein, and all the other great men who deserve it more than an idiot who kills his kids and asks God's forgiveness, why should I want to go there?

I could, of course, go on, but I'm sure I'd disgruntle people more than I already have, and to no point. That is, of course, the frustrating thing about the topic. Dialogue is impossible. Dialogue, of course, is the meaningful back and forth between two people. Nothing of meaning is ever heard when this topic is presented. This is not to say nothing meaningful is said. But nothing closes the ears (mind) faster than bringing up religion. I'm beginning to think everyone is as ridiculously terrified of death as I am on some level. They just find so many reasons not to acknowledge it. They cling to religion, the equivalent of a child covering their ears and yelling "I can't hear you." It's even followed by the same lilting sing-song. That's a church service, from what I can tell. I've only been to a couple, but what I heard was a man telling people it was okay to cover their ears, followed by a bunch of songs

Wow. Okay. I should really get off this soapboxy-thing. I have a lot of frustration here obviously. And since it's something I really can't change, I should really let it go. It's the right play, right? Or is this one of those times where the right play has been to speak up, and it's lost me the game five times in a row. Should I keep going? That's the problem when there are no statistics on either side.


I heard a guy in Beyer Hall the other day asking his friend what he thought dying would feel like. His friend responded he was trying to avoid finding out. Of course, that's the smart-alecky thing to say, but the guy pressed on, saying he was actually really curious. That made me a bit curious, but also made me think about my generation. We are the biggest group of non-believers in history, I think. I'm not sure how we got here, and I'm not sure whether it's the right or wrong place to be, but it could very well result in chaos. Religion, for all the things I hate about it, plays an important role in keeping people in line. Threatening people with an eternity beyond what they experience in the here and now is the only way to get them to do what you want. If we all start thinking that nothing matters because we're all going to die anyway, society could be in for quite a swing. And it's everywhere these days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARlTV1ZGJk8&context=C44da71dADvjVQa1PpcFNlv3U8_zLTMfbEDvhh3X7oRa7Zga_Nq0E=

That's from a couple of days ago. I would have laughed a lot more if I wasn't so busy nodding. I don't like the Pascal's wager bit, but everything else was pretty good.

I'm not sure whether it's more normal for my peers to believe in God or not. About the only thing I can figure out is that it's not something you're allowed to talk about unless there's an incredibly blatant segue. Like, I found a book on atheism in my friend's car, so I asked. That's about the only situation I've found where questions on the topic are allowed. So maybe I need to start carrying around some literature to encourage discussion. Because I do like talking about it, even if I do wind up depressing myself (and frequently others) with my negativity.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll lighten up soon. No promises, though.

A further defense of Magic: the Gathering

My hobby has been compared to gambling (more specifically, slot machines) which is something I can't abide. So I will attempt to explain why it transcends other games dependent on chance, while perhaps further explaining it to those who don't quite understand why I find it so compelling.

First, magic is huge. This is not speaking to its popularity, which is seeing a significant increase as well, but rather to the sheer number of cards in existence. There are over 12,000 cards in print. Their ability to be played depends on the format of tournament you are entering. At the tournaments I've been attending recently, over half of those cards are legal. Just knowing the possibilities available to be played against you is a significant endeavor in and of itself. Granted, a much smaller number of these cards are actually of a high enough quality to see play in a tournament. With the rise of the internet as a way of gathering information, "stock" lists of certain decks frequently make the composition of your opponent's deck a known quantity. But the people who truly enjoy the game are willing to sift through the thousands of options and emerge with interactions and strategies that are unique and powerful all the time. The constantly changing landscape of the game, as well as the potential to find new things to do make the game incredibly complex.

So deck-building is something that differentiates the game from other games with outcomes that depend on chance. Some decks are simply better than other decks. Things usually function in a way such that there is a rock-paper-scissors sort of effect. One type of deck beats another type, but loses to a third. Of course, there can be five, six, or seven types of decks, which make it a much more difficult to predict what's headed your way, but things are only random to a certain degree. If you have a particular type of deck you want to defeat, it is not difficult to build a deck that will do so. The trick lies in making it resilient to the other ones out there. So chance plays a role in which type you get paired up against, but skill comes into it in your initial decision of what deck to play based on what you're expecting to be popular and do well.

So magic is not at all like pulling the lever on a slot machine and crossing your fingers. Sure, there is some amount of luck involved, but when skill enters the equation, you'll find some patterns. For example, compare slot machines to poker. Both are theoretically based on chance. And yet you don't see any professional slot machine players. (well, maybe there are people who consider themselves as such, but let's not give them credit.) There are, however, people who do reliably well at poker. Despite the fact that there is plenty of chance involved, the same people rise to the top. Obviously, then, this is a game determined as much by skill as chance, and the same is true of magic. There are professionals who consistently do well in tournaments. It's not always the same eight guys in the top eight of a tournament, but I would venture to say that the top eight is usually comprised of 50% professionals (the top 30 or 40 guys). This wouldn't be possible if the game were based only on luck. Sure, the best players can have a bad run. The (arguably) best player in the world went 1-5 in the last pro tour. But in the top eight were three of his teammates and two other players from the hall of fame. (Yes, there is a hall of fame.)

Then there's the actual gameplay. Sure, you've controlled what went in to your deck, but how can you say that you'll draw the cards you want in a 60 card deck? There is a huge difference even between magic and poker in that regard. In magic, there is a mulligan system, where you can shuffle your opening seven cards into your deck and draw a new hand with one less card. This significantly reduces the variance with which you have to contend. It is perhaps the hardest part of the game trying to decide which hands to keep and which to return for one less card, because the cards you start with so drastically determine the course of the game, your early strategy, and therefore, which player establishes control. But again, this is a skill, not a random effect. There are obvious decisions, of course, but the subtle ones are where the good players make up for the fact that chance is a factor. If you play enough, the fact that neither player knows their next card results in a parity which is broken by good and bad decision making.

So when I say I did poorly because I played against decks well-designed against mine, that doesn't mean I had bad luck. It means I likely chose the wrong deck. And when I didn't draw well, that is something that can happen to anyone, but something that only prevents the less-than-professionals from winning. I saw my favorite player reduced to keeping a sketchy five card hand, but he played his way out of it and won through good anticipation and correct decisions. All in all, the game is made fun by the variance far more than it is hurt. Chess has no variance, for instance, and while it is a fun mental exercise, I can't play it long before I get tired of the same old, same old. The sheer size of the card pool, the fact you get to pick your weapons, and the huge branches of the decision tree during the actual game make magic the most fun I've had in a passive hobby. Granted, if they incorporated physical fitness somehow, I'd be on cloud nine, but I'll take what I can get.

Hello there

I feel a little silly writing about some things these days, but I guess I might as well get all the stuff on my mind out there. Maybe it will make more sense if I can see it written out.

I'm not sure whether it's seasonal affective disorder or what, but I've been having these bouts of overwhelming sadness at the oddest times. The other day I was driving back from Minnesota (having a really great time talking with Xavier), and I went in to a gas station to use the restroom. All of a sudden I got swept up in this wave of dread, which concluded with me basically running out of the gas station, getting back in the car, shaking this kid awake and forcing him to talk to me so I could be distracted. It sneaks up on me sometimes. Usually it's just at night, right before I go to sleep, and it's always while I'm alone. I don't know how my mind gets turned, or tweaked, or obsessed, or whatever it is, but I've been on a bit of a binge recently. If it's not my own death I'm concerned about, it's my parents, or even just a random person on the street. Yesterday I was sitting on the bus watching some people talking, and I felt sorry for them solely because they were going to die eventually.

I had a dream last night where I was a passenger in a car, and from the back seat someone told the driver that this highway driving wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the stuff he used to do back when he was a kid. So the driver grabbed the parking brake and we started skidding. A car passed us in the right lane (going the same direction), and I could see the faces of the people in the car looking really confused. We fishtailed, spun 360 degrees, and continued a ways up the highway, eventually sliding gently into the ditch, only to see that the other car had run into the side of a bridge. I jumped out and ran over. Somehow, there were already paramedics there, and the two people from the car were stretched out on the ground. One was being immobilized, and the other was just being given up on, dead. I went back to the car and remarked that it was funny, because the dead guy looked so much healthier than the guy with all his limbs strapped down. I followed that up with a joke I don't remember the punch line to, but I do remember thinking at the time that it was really inappropriate. Everyone in my car laughed, though. I couldn't tell whether or not it was because it was funny, or because it was just easier to laugh and not actually think about what happened.

There's probably something to that dream, but I don't really feel like thinking about it too hard. I rarely remember my dreams though. Usually I don't sleep long enough in one go to actually get to the point of dreaming, but a couple times this past week I've just felt like staying in bed. I have a really hard time falling asleep initially, but once I'm asleep, I can wake up and fall asleep again really easily. So I just went back to sleep instead of getting up as normal, and was rewarded with some interesting dream material. There were a couple of other ones, but I don't remember them any more. I think this is one of the reasons I don't really like operating on a schedule. Left to my own devices, I would probably sleep at the randomest times. I could definitely see myself falling asleep at three in the morning, waking up at eight, doing something for a couple hours, going back to sleep, waking up to do something outside, and just scheduling my day around whenever I felt tired. As things are, the nights I don't fall asleep result in a tiresome day of me being slightly frustrated by everything. I have to hope that I coincidentally happen to get tired by eleven at night to have any shot of getting a decent night's sleep, but that rarely happens.

This segues very awkwardly to the next thing that's been on my mind. I need to find somewhere to live that isn't my parents' house. Opinions seem to fluctuate between "we're happy to have you around, ride bikes, lift weights with you, etc." and "I can't stand how you spend your time; we both have real jobs, and you need to get a life." While it's certainly nice to imagine the former is the majority opinion, it seems to be losing ground. Recently, I've been likened more and more often to a parasite, a slacker who isn't living up to their potential, and a general disappointment. Sometimes this is accompanied by a sad tone of voice lamenting the fact that "good parents need to promote independence and make sure their kids can make it on their own." I guess I don't strike them as independent. Or capable of figuring things out for myself? I'm pretty confused, actually. When I asked what I should do to live up to my potential, I was told I should get a job. When I asked what sort, my mom suggested Walmart. Because that's the place well-known for fostering potential...

One of the things I remember most about my childhood is my mom constantly saying all she wanted was for me to be happy. I guess I've been a pretty reticent person for quite a while, to the point where she took me from activity to activity all day every day just so I would be happier. I appreciate that still. But I'm really not a naturally happy person (in case that's somehow not clear). I'm still only happy when I'm engaged in an activity. Right now those activities are handball and magic the gathering. Occasionally I feel good while on my bike. I certainly feel alive when I'm on my bike, which in turn makes me feel better about the rest of my life. But I'd rather live in my car than work forty hours a week at a job I don't like. So yes, I'm sure it's irritating to see me spending my time frivolously. But it's a choice I'm making consciously. If we're talking about living up to potential, I'm honestly not sure how to go about doing that. Potentially, of course, I could do anything I want. The problem is quite obviously that I don't want to do anything. I don't object to going back to school. I enjoy school even. But I mostly enjoy it because it isn't work, and I get to spend my time how I want. When I was in college, I think I spent an average of four hours a day on the internet. At least. Certainly not living up to potential. The thing was, not very many people knew it. I got good grades with the rest of my time, did the sports I do now, worked a similar amount of hours. Just substitute a few more all-nighters filled with homework for some of the all-nighters filled with insomnia and my life there was the same. So the real reason I need to move out is so I can keep doing the things I'm doing, but have fewer people know.

To tie this all together, one of the biggest reasons nothing excites me as a career is that I'm growing to be more and more of the opinion that if I'm just living on this planet for a relatively short amount of time, it really doesn't matter how I spend it. If I get by while being broke, from paycheck to paycheck, nothing is significantly different from working 40 hours a week, except that if I don't have money, I'm sort of screwed if something bad happens. But if I'm happier doing that, maybe it's worth the risk. This is probably offensive to a lot of people. I don't mean it to be. But consider it from a bunch of different perspectives. Biologically, the imperative is to survive long enough to reproduce, and be successful enough to ensure your offspring have a chance to meet that goal. I have no interest in having kids. In fact, the only reason I've ever considered having kids is that I've heard it gives meaning to life, and I frequently wonder what that meaning could be. Anyway, because I am not going to reproduce, biologically I have no significant pressure to push myself to my "potential."

Economically, our system is based on capitalism. The basic idea as I understand it is that in a free market, those with the most desire and best set of traits rise to the top. I won't go into the flaws that prevent our system from realizing those goals, but it's certainly worth noting that there is plenty of room for people to just coast though the "system." It rewards consideration and thought as much as effort. If you work really hard, but spend your money at the roulette wheel, you will find yourself behind in the system. Conversely, if you make very little money but spend a lot of effort investing it wisely and maximizing its use, you can probably get slightly ahead. But there is a middle ground. The people who make almost nothing, but who can be smart about it. I won't be raising a family on my almost zero income. I won't be drinking, doing drugs, or frequenting casinos. I'm capable of being a careful consumer. Yes, I will be below the poverty line if I continue with my present course, but is it worth deviating to live up to my "potential?" I'm not sure.

Morally is where the real debate might occur. The whole parasite thing is bound to come up again. As a person with a heavy leaning toward atheism, I could attempt to sidestep the debate entirely, denying the existence of an objective set of morals, and rerouting the debate to one of the social system. But even people with a heavy-handed morality have cause to think seriously about the rightness or wrongness of my actions. Am I causing undue harm? Probably not. So the question becomes one of whether or not there is a responsibility to live up to potential. What is the value of being a complete human being? Is taking an active role in the economic and social circles of civilization a necessary part of being a good person? I would obviously argue to the contrary. I feel as though I am generally a moral person, though of course I don't usually think of my decisions in those terms. I further believe that my time is for me to decide how to spend, as long as that decision doesn't adversely affect the people around me.

So I wound up rerouting the debate to the social system after all. I'm just not good at thinking about things from a purely moral perspective I suppose. If there is an objective system of morality, I might be hard-pressed to justify spending my time how I do. Then again, anyone who believes in this objective morality is pressed even harder to justify their opinion, so I am comfortable with the standoff. Anyway, the societal component of rules generally falls in a couple of major camps. There are the people who think that people should be free unless that freedom infringes on the freedom of another, and those people who think that people should be forced to follow rules that, in general, promote the well-being of society. Either way, I don't see any conflict. If the first group is correct, it should be obvious I'm free to get by doing as little as possible. If the second group is correct, I need only conform to the rules set out by society to ensure general happiness, something I'm willing to do, but only to the absolute minimum degree.

So basically the point of this whole things was:
Life is futile, so I'll do what I want.

I hope my next posting catches me in a bit of a better mood, or that I at least have the sense to hide it as I usually do. I'm pretty tired right now, so my train of though just kind of made its way into the computer. Thanks for reading.

Grand Prix Lincoln

I was going to write a tournament report about this past weekend, but then it went incredibly poorly, so I figured I'd just blog. It was at that point I realized they are exactly the same thing, since I'd be focusing less on the game play and more on the whole experience and the mindsets and whatnot. So without further ado, here is my tournament report. Or, you know, just another blog entry.

I spent the week leading up to the grand prix thinking I liked my deck but not sure it was the right call because people would be prepared for it. Unfortunately this assessment was spot on. I seriously debated switching to a different deck the day before we left, but decided that without any games of practice, it would actually be worse than staying the course with a worse deck that I knew well. I expected a decent matchup against everything for the first game, and then varying degrees of preparedness to make the second and third games of each match more difficult.

We had planned to leave Ames around 5:00, so I went for a bike ride at 3:30, got back at 4:30, showered, and was ready to go. It turned out that a guy named Casey had his friends bail on him last-minute in Cedar Falls, so he drove to Ames to ride with us the rest of the way. This meant we left after 7:00, since we had to wait for him to show up, but it wasn't a big deal. The three and a half hours in the car were pretty easy considering that all magic players by default have enough in common to converse for days, and the drive was pretty short compared to many other car trips. All in all, the traveling experience was great. One of the guys in the group here in Ames has friends in Lincoln, so we crashed at their place for free. Plus, they knew good places to eat, how to get around town, and were pretty cool in general.

We spent much of the night before the tournament making last-minute changes to things. I only really wanted some advice for my sideboard, but some of the guys took that as an invitation to examine my whole deck. One of the many things I regret is listening to them as they criticized some of the choices I made. I wound up switching a couple of things because they made sense when people were explaining their thoughts to me, but I was the one with the most testing in, so I really should have stuck to my guns. We all went to bed late, but I figured since I had three fewer rounds to play than everyone else, it wouldn't matter as much. That was another mistake.

We go to the event site early the next morning to register and meet up with the rest of the Iowa contingent. I loaned out a bunch of stuff to complete some lists for friends, and then waited for the first rounds to start. Once they did, I looked on as almost every person I knew got off to a terrible start. One exception was Xavier, a guy I only met recently. He was playing a dedicated combo deck which had the sole purpose of taking the entire 50 minutes to win the first game, at which point the other two games are a draw and he wins the match by default. Needless to say, this frustrated many of his opponents. He wasn't breaking any rules, but it still isn't fun to sit down across for someone and watch them take 30 minutes on one of their turns while you sit there unable to do anything. After his third round his opponent was so frustrated he signed the results slip with such vigor that he ripped a huge gash in with the pen. And it turned out he had signed in Xavier's spot, so Xavier just scribbled something sort-of illegible in the guy's spot rather than let him know. It was pretty amusing.

Then it was time for my first round of play. I was paired against Gerry Thompson, a popular writer for a major magic website and fresh off a top 25 finish at the pro tour. I won the first game easily. I was riding high. I lost the second game. I changed a few cards because I was going to be going first in the third game and wanted a slightly different strategy. At the crucial turn he cast a spell his deck is known for, and I cast one that lets me search for a card in my deck and put it into play. I had switched it out because I was playing first. I lost. And I looked really stupid doing so. He probably won't remember it for long, and maybe he had a good laugh with some friends about it, but it was pretty terrible for me.

Had I won that match, I would have been playing other undefeated players, giving me a much higher likelihood of being paired against good decks. And because they are good, chances are I have a plan against them. As it was, my next round I played against someone piloting a really off the wall strategy that just happened to be really good against me. I made a minor mistake in one of the games now that I think about it, but I wasn't going to win that match.

My third round was against a deck I knew might be a possibility. It's pretty even, and it came right down to the wire, but I lost, ending my tournament as rapidly as was humanly possible. I watched my friends finish up. It turned out that nobody I knew made it past the first day of the tournament. We were all pretty worn out, so although there was still plenty going on, we left to get some food. Another great thing about knowing people in the area is that we get good restaurant recommendations. We didn't really want asian food, and the first place we walked into had over an hour wait, so we wound up at a place called Buzzard Billy's. The name was a little off-putting to be honest, but they served Cajun food, and that was on-putting enough for me to be looking forward to my meal. The five of us who went split two appetizers, one of which which was breaded alligator, while the other was bacon-wrapped chicken. Both were delicious, but the bacon-wrapped chicken things were definitely superior. For my main course I ordered a plate with blackened chicken, beans, rice, gumbo, and hushpuppies. The chicken was dry, the rice and beans were bland, and the hushpuppies didn't have much flavor beyond the taste of cornbread. The gumbo was good, but not enough to make up for the rest of the meal. Luckily, Xavier didn't want all of his steak, which was quite tasty.

We went back to the house, where we discussed a bit of magic, played some mental magic, and then went to sleep. Mental magic is where you take a random stack of cards and can play them as they are any card in the game as long as they have the same property for casting. There is limit in that you can't play a card that's already been played that game. It really rewards having an extensive knowledge of what cards have been made, and takes a lot of skill to play well. Luckily, none of us are very good, so it was still fun.

The next day I found out that I had managed to sleep through the somewhat triumphant return of a bunch of the lincoln natives from the bars. I say somewhat because while they had some pretty good times and stories, one of them did wind up falling down the stairs and throwing up on himself. I'm not sure if that's the order things happened in or not, but I am sure they both happened. I'm amazed I slept through it actually. The best story I heard about the events of the previous night was about a confrontation one of the guys had with another guy on the street. He was being his usual loud self, and somehow got himself into the situation where the second guy was quite annoyed and ready to do something. So he threatened our protagonist with a knife. Now, our protagonist, being quite intoxicated, did not take offense at this as one normally would. Rather, he just enthusiastically said, "wow! Cool knife! Can I see it?" and before the antagonist could construct a response, he grabbed it and started looking at it. The guy said something to the effect of "I have another one," and, indeed, pulled out a second knife. To which our protagonist responded, "no way! Really? Let me see!" and grabbed that one too. So here our protagonist is, with two knives in his hands, but still not quite realizing he might have been in danger, while the antagonist is a bit bewildered, less angry, and probably wondering if our protagonist is in a state where he should be having two knives. The situation concluded with the knives returned to their owner and our protagonist on his merry way.

We got a late start to our morning what with all the drunk people and figuring out transport and the locations of our bags and such. We ate a brunch-style meal at a Mexican place, and got to the tournament site at noon. That's when we heard the announcement that it was last call for a side tournament. Xavier and I scrambled to get registered and submit our decklists barely squeaking in. It was going to be a six-round tournament, with cash prizes to the people who finished with only one loss. I won my first round, and was called over by a judge right after. It turned out I had only written down 13 of the fifteen cards in my sideboard, so I had to start the next round with a game loss. I won the other two games, though, and was undefeated. The next round my opponent and I were picked to have our decks checked. This means they go through the whole thing and make sure you wrote down everything correctly. In my rush, I had switched a card. So I had another loss to start. This time I lost again, so I had to win the rest. I didn't, and wound up with nothing. It was nice to get some wins with my deck, though. I felt pretty bad that I got two losses for such similar things. I wish they had checked my deck the first time, because once I turn in the list, it's out of my hands, and it felt like I was being punished twice for the same thing.

It was a fun weekend, and between splitting gas and staying with people, it wasn't very expensive. Of course things could have gone better, but it's all on my shoulders that it didn't. I think I'll try again soon.