Law school downtime (YouTube finale)

So, it's my birthday. I propose postponing it to some more appropriate day, since I won't actually have much of one today. I guess if you count the time since midnight I got to watch a movie, but other than that, I'm just going to be here at the law school. I woke to an alert on my phone saying there was low visibility due to snow. Awesome. So I biked/walked to my 8:00 class. Luckily, I knew the lady who gives us powerpoint presentations on legal writing always brings cookies, so I skipped breakfast. So maybe it is like a birthday. I had like six cookies because there were leftovers. It's a bit unfortunate that the highlight of my day occurred so early, but hey, at least there was a highlight. I plan on making a foray to the cafe around 3:30 to scope out possible pickings there too. So there's at least a chance I wind up eating sugar for the majority of my food consumed.

All of my classes today were incredibly boring. Also, in legal writing we are discussing statutory interpretation, in criminal law we are discussing statutory interpretation, and the title of my last class: Statutory Interpretation. Go figure. The fact that they don't know how to clear streets here means it's not worth it to go home between now and my last class. And I'm still a bit bitter about missing handball for it, but like I was discussing with David at league, it's not like the club at the university is making me better at handball. I dread admitting it, but I really only go for the social aspect. Brrrgh.

So in the meantime, I suppose I'll finish up this tripartite post. And since I saved a lot for last, it might take a while. I might trim and post another entry of leftovers/amusement in a bit. Actually, let's plan on that. It will be a postscript post. Also, now I have a title for that post. And the entry after that will, naturally, be my "post 'postscript post' post." Awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkbWIfP3mLw
This guy is from South Africa and realized he was racist. He says that sharing secrets is a great way to get back to living. Share your big secrets and get on with your life. I don't know what my biggest secret is. I'm not opposed to sharing secrets, but I certainly feel more comfortable sharing one on one than on the internet. That being said, I totally get what this guy is saying: sharing them does make you feel more alive. I have shared secrets. And by that, I mean I have shared things I wouldn't normally consider sharing with people to whom I don't feel really connected. They might not be secrets, I suppose. There's a fine line between private and secret. Obviously the stranger I meet on the street has no desire to hear about how my night was last night, much less the inner turmoil I feel. So am I keeping a secret by responding vaguely? (The secret-sharing "point/lecture" of the talk occurs around 16 minutes in.) All in all, a pretty decent talk, from the beginning anecdote to the main point. I have started another post that will go up along with this. I'd include it here, but I started it and it got too long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjlsW1MDmc
This man's introduction starts with a confession: he did drugs, killed a man who tried to molest him, and wound up in prison. His personal story is about how he went from no high school degree to a post-graduate degree while in prison. But the bigger point is about figuring out what your "personal prison" is and breaking out of it. He has five steps that aren't that interesting. So skip from minute 3:00 to 6:00. The only thing he says is that his eyes were opened when a safe-cracker demonstrated that a tennis ball and a heavy ash tray his the ground at the same time when dropped. So he wanted to educate himself. His story resumes at 6:55. Significant things he says: figure out why you want to change, not why others want you to. Pretty basic, right? But finding a personal impetus has always been a challenge for me. He goes back to his 5-step description at 8:45. His point at this time is that you need to actually make a change. Surprise, right? But as a procrastinator, I again sympathized. He even discusses wanting to be a writer, setting specific goals, of page numbers rather than "writing a book" which is too general. He resumes his narrative at 10:15 for those not interested in the silly steps. While this speech is a bit cheesy (he relapses into his 5-point program again at 11:15, coming out at 12:15) and accompanied by stupid generic slideshow images, I suppose my desire to find something I'm happy with has compensated for my normal lack of interest in these sorts of speeches. I still think his story is cool, though. He still doesn't sound like a guy with a doctorate. 14:40 relapses back into cheesy motivational speech stuff for the remainder.

If you're wondering, my intense need to justify linking these videos was prompted by my mother, who said she watched one of the ones in a previous post and thought it was bad. So now I'm watching them with a more critical eye, and yeah, they are "bad." But you know what? They motivate me anyway. So I'm sharing them anyway. And the stories behind the cheesy things they are saying are interesting. And I need to ingrain the cheesy things. So for me it's like killing two birds with one stone, while for the people reading this who don't have the same stupid problems I have it's like watching a cool-looking bird (the interesting personal story) trying to fly while carrying a heavy rock (the cheesy stuff) for no reason.

So as a result of that video and others provided in the previous posts, I have decided to cling to my creative side (what little of it there is). I want to write, but I know I might not have time for it during law school. This makes setting goals hard. I plan on writing here, of course, so maybe I could make time for it. I'll think about it. Nope! I can't procrastinate any more. I'm going to write for sure. I just need to figure out my goals. I am trying though. It helps even more when people request me to write. (Hint hint.) I included the result of a request in an upcoming post (check tomorrow, I think?)

I just got back from the cafe. I grabbed a doughnut and a muffin, continuing my free sugar streak (much different than a sugar-free streak). They also had soda that had expired. It turned out to be the one kind I would consider drinking (Coke Zero), so I grabbed a couple. I'm very gradually making my way through one right now. So fizzy! It says it has caffeine, so I'll probably be up late tonight. Which will be good, since I want to type even more. I'll save the second for a time when I need to get an assignment done late at night. It shouldn't last long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgMbUj-FqBg
This guy's talk starts out awesome. Again, this is relative. It reminds me a lot of myself (surprise), in that when I was writing my resume, I realized I sounded pretty good on paper. Then it continues, and I thought 'I had struggled in a similar way. He says his realization that the universe was unintentional is what led to his depression, which is pretty much what I feel. Of course, it wasn't me giving up closely-held ideas that triggered my "depression," but I sympathize with the sentiment. What I liked most was his psychiatrist's response to his request for medication. "You want me to put you on medication because you're intellectual?" He said that he was engaged in a process that would only be slowed down on drugs. I'm not sure that I'm involved in this process, but perhaps these recent entries are my attempt to break out, to go on with the process. I can't imagine ever thinking I've figured things out, and I certainly don't think I will be hearing voices like in this guy's illustration. This seemed to be his way of putting meaning back into life, while I don't have that compulsion. Perhaps this is because I didn't undergo some extreme "giving up" of this belief like he did. So the stuff after XXXXX becomes irrelevant, and he goes off the deep end a bit sometime around the ten-minute mark. I don't mind his idea of conflict between the conscious and subconscious, but he makes it sound a bit weird. He concludes by saying that depression is necessary, because it lets us know when our lives are insignificant and motivates us to make them significant. This is a pretty bold claim. I'm not opposed to believing that my life to this point has been insignificant, but like I said, I don't think that anything I do will magically solve the periods where I'm struggling. Also, I don't think there has been much correlation between the "level" of life I'm leading and when I struggle. I've gone weeks without a problem while being lazy, been freaked out for days at a time while being productive, and vice-versa. It occurs to me around this point that I will probably find some aspect in any person with which to sympathize. I should be more discriminating in the criteria I use to select a link to share. Also, I want my mother to approve.

That said, I watched another video that didn't even make the cut these other ones did. There was an interesting quote though: you don't change things by fighting the current system; you change them by coming up with a system that makes the current one obsolete.

That's pretty cool. I have no idea if it's true or not, but it sounds awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Xw76SsHOM
Back to finding people with which to sympathize: this lady totally did what I did! Went to grad school on a whim, searching for meaning, putting herself on a path rather than living with her parents. Like me, she hasn't found some mystical path. She reached the conclusion that "finding yourself" is a myth and we should focus on the moment. Her biggest fear is dying without living in the present. There's really no need to watch this. I'm just supplying the link in case you don't believe me when I tell you what it's about. Will I reach the same conclusion she does? I doubt it. I already feel like I am trying to appreciate the present. I pause frequently to look around and take stock of things. I'm just always sure there's something I could do to improve it, so I press forward again. Even today, while eating sugar-crystal-coated blueberry muffin, I paused and just looked out the window thinking about a variety of things. Snow can be pretty, you know? So yeah, to sum up, don't watch this, but I'm not alone in my (maybe foolish) decisions!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLg46AVDD_Q
This person's search for passion led her to realize that failure was her passion. At least her temporary passion. (She worked on a four-year project and made it work through some difficulty, which she realized others would think was an example of passion, but never felt the stereotypical "passion" emotion.) As with any research, it's good to get all sides. These last two contrast with the ones before that assert firmly (inspiringly!) that passion is a real thing, but all of them are cliche
Around 6:00 into this video she discusses "dabbling," excelling at things initially and then switching when people start catching up. It rung a bit of a bell with me. That's about all that's relevant here. The book she cites about "dabbling" has a solution: learn to love the challenge. Which is obviously not helpful. It just restates the problem. The solution to every problem is "solve the problem." So she says to make failure humorous. She imagined the worst-case scenario and figured if she could laugh it off, failure couldn't be that intimidating. For me, that would be "drop out of law school, start writing, fail at that... then... ?" There isn't really a tangible downside to failure. It just puts me back to square one. Of course, by waiting a couple years, I will have a law degree to fall back on, so I still intend to finish my classes while trying to pursue as much as I can outside the classroom. She took her failure a step further to illustrate the failure: event a failure, friends read about it on the leading website and stop being her friends, becomes broke, moves back in with parents, etc. and then demonstrated the ridiculousness: her friends don't read websites, they would still be her friends, she gets along well with her parents, and she has her old job to go back to. Well, yup, all of that applies to me (assuming I can sneakily move back into my parents' house while they're not looking). So there's literally nothing holding me back. There really hasn't ever been anything holding me back, of course. And there probably never will be anything holding me back from anything. But it's good to remember that occasionally.

So I just got done with class and biked back to my apartment. Here are some things that seemed blog-able from that period of time:

I was going to make some snide comment about how not having my birthday on Facebook really shows you who your friends are. Then I realized that all my friends are smart/lazy enough that they know they don't have to remember, because Facebook does that for them. So never mind.

I discovered this really cool thing today. Don't worry about the circumstances. So if I don't brake at all, I can just dismount my bike from (nearly) full speed. This is because the streets are so poorly cleared that what happens is I wind up sliding on my feet. It's like an even more awesome version of taking a running start at a patch of ice. I'm taking a biking start, and the whole road is my patch of ice. (The circumstances were: I was biking, I don't have a light, I looked back and saw headlights, I wasn't sure if they saw me, I am a very defensive biker around here (especially in snowy conditions), I hopped off thinking I would run next to my bike, I slid instead, and it was awesome.)

My classmate was talking to me about the six people from our section and said he was quickly figuring out our roles. I said "Yeah, Greg's the outgoing nice jock-y guy, and I'm the confrontational asshole!" He didn't disagree.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. I am going to make time to be creative, write, etc. I'm going to commit to it. I'm going to set specific goals. It's going to be scary, and I'm going to do it anyway.

The thing that really drove me to decide this is a thing I need to do is actually sort of silly. It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that it's competitive at its root. So this youtube-r Alex Day wrote a book last year. He says he doesn't even remember why, but he chose the topic of the London Underground (subway system) and wrote a book about it. And he got an agent, and it getting it published. My first reaction was: if he can do it, I can do it. He's writing about a train system for god's sake. It's nonfiction! Surely I can write a more interesting thing than that. Now granted, he has a million subscribers on YouTube, so finding the agent/publisher was probably a lot easier for him than it might (will?) be for me, but still, he WROTE A BOOK! He was describing his process, and he said he wanted to write six pages a day. He further said he usually started early in the morning and finished by noon. He further said that his rough draft pages were crap. I think that's the part I might be hung up on. I don't like writing bad stuff, even if I know I'm going to go back and make it better. I'm afraid I'll get too detail-oriented and be left frustrated when I can't get the small stuff out, and it will discourage the big picture from being realized. I can't decide whether I want to outline. I have never outlined anything, but I want something to fall back on if I feel lost as to what to write about. Referring back to an outline and being able to write different sections in different moods sounds really advantageous. So here's the goal: five pages by Saturday night. This is my birthday present to myself. I'm setting this goal, starting it in motion, and I'm going to write something. I have no idea what yet. It might be short story. It might be a long poem. It might be two medium poems. It might be a chapter. It might be train of thought style description if I really can't think of anything. But I will have written five pages by Saturday night (let's say by 11:00). I will link to them in this blog. I will hold myself accountable. You should hold me accountable. I'm going to do it. I'm not kidding.

Thanks for reading.

PS: I realized a lot of the videos I liked had nothing to do with being inspired other than the people talking were interesting and motivated me to be interesting also. They will be in the upcoming post along with a bunch of other random stuff. So this turned out to be a lot less YouTube-y and more me-y, but I think that's fine. Also, the reason it's not up yet is because I wanted to get all the related posts up together. I reference my "secrets" post here, and I reference my relationship-oriented post in that one, so it took a while. All in all, I have written around 6,000 words so far today, and I haven't really started the last post yet. So if it's not up as you're reading this, cut me some slack.

PPS: This uncharacteristic level of activity brought to you by: sugar. And my determination. My determination mostly to do something I wanted to do during my birthday, but more than that, my determination to finally be in pursuit of writing seriously. So I'm serious. Hold me accountable. If I'm not at least telling you I have been writing, text me or something. If I'm making excuses, call me out on it. If I give up? Well, I hope there's some way you can force me, but there's probably not. Try not to let me give up. I really do want this. It's weird committing without a subject to write about. But I've been trying to come up with "the idea" for years. It's not happening. So I decided to start with the writing and let the idea come second. Let's do it.

YouTube (part 2)

Okay, back at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzGkqG9BtYA
This guy starts his actual talking point around 2:40 in. Before that he is sharing a bit about himself, which isn't totally worthless, but not really why I watched.
The basic idea is that 25% of people feel fundamentally different than others. Oddly, he says both groups feel like their view on the subject (whether people feel the same or different than each other) is universal. I thought that was interesting. Also, I liked his quote from George Bernard Shaw: "...The unreasonable man persists in adapting the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." He then goes on to discuss how the two groups of people can communicate more effectively with each other, which becomes the main point. So overall, the video isn't that great, but I liked those couple quotes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUh3wNnFrw
Again, this speech wasn't fantastic all the way through. He begins by talking about his grandfather, how he died early, prompting him to really focus on living a good life, because people don't always live to 80 or whatever they think they'll live to. His points are:
1) Thinking about ourselves as innately special (how parents raise their kids these days) leads to entitlement, separation, and makes us scared of failure (because it means we won't be living up to our "special" categorization). Furthermore, specialness isn't enough without hard work, so we shouldn't worry about it.
2) We are all seen as crazy to someone. Also, officially, 46% of people get diagnosed with mental illness. But crazy people make good leaders in times of crisis, because they're so used to shit hitting the fan that it doesn't faze them. Depressed people are better at sympathizing. Manics are productive because they don't sleep. MLK Jr. and Gandhi both attempted suicide. So we should be proud of our craziness.
3) Confirmation bias is bad. An interesting study shows that people are so desperate to have made the right decision they will down-vote the alternative they didn't choose for no good reason (little surprise there).
4) We worry about the wrong things. Common activities are more likely to kill us than extreme things that get news coverage. We are terrible at risk assessment. Again, Nike has it right. Just do it.
5) 27% of americans have a bachelor's degree, 42% never read another book after graduating, 80% of households don't purchase a book in a given year. Stupid in, stupid out.
6) After $75,000 per household, happiness is not increased. Having the means to live is different than having meaning to live for.
7) Humans are twice as upset about a loss as they are happy about a gain, so we make excuses not to pursue dreams.

I like most of these. Also, now you don't have to watch the video, because I'm pretty sure I covered just about everything. I don't know if you're catching on, but it really seems like there's this theme of just getting off your ass and doing something. Also, not being afraid of messing up recurs regularly.

I'm going to go out of order to avoid the ones I feel will force me to write things I'm not sure I'm ready for. So here are some cool Ted Talks. It's too late for me to think about the serious stuff right now. (Excuses)

For those interested in cycling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY
This guy investigates the ramifications of helmet requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhey6x8CRe8
While I'm in North Carolina, maybe I should pick one of these crazy trikes up.

For those interested in being inspired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0td5aw1KXA
This woman was born with a brain problem. She was able to design exercises to overcome it. It's called neuroplasticity, and it is awesome.

For those interested in people who are great at speaking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ln-TNw6zt4
This guy is hilarious. His talk is great. There's not much more to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX2btaDOBK8
Same with this guy. I'm not sure I really agree with everything, but he's so good at talking! I also feel like the point he's making is so generic that he could have applied it to anything. It seems to me like he might be just jumping on the nutrition bandwagon because people are concerned about the obesity problem.

For people more interested in poetry than Ted Talks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwNiYFlHmWs
The mic is a bit distorted, but oh man, was this a powerful performance. Sometimes I wonder if I could write this sort of thing if the experience hadn't actually happened to me. I'm not trying to say this guy did. It certainly doesn't feel that way. But I am always looking for topics, and stuff like this just doesn't occur to me because I have so little experience with it. Am I even allowed to try? Would that make me a liar, or just a writer? I can't make up my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-F_Pu8Yyd8
Some of this seemed really good. I like the self-reference and honesty for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEGaNSWc0jY
How could I not include this here after hearing it? I mean, he talks about trouble sleeping and how a girl helps him out. I can sympathize. Man, do I miss that.

I'll probably pick up on this similar note tomorrow. For now, I'm going to try to fall asleep. Thanks for reading!

YouTube interlude

If I'm not mistaken, this is my 150th post on this blog! While that's not that impressive considering how long I've had it, it still feels like a bit of a milestone. Speaking of milestones, it is also my sister's birthday! Happy birthday Sarah! And with that, off to the races (or some other cliche, if you'd rather):

Today I did something foolish. I tried out for the Minnesota Wind Chill. I figured "It's only a couple miles away, and at the very least, I'll get to play some high level ultimate." Nope. Well, it wasn't any further away, but so many people showed up that by the time we were done with the fitness testing, we only had time to scrimmage for an hour. So it was a bit of a waste, since there's no real way for me to stand out from a crowd that big when the team will obviously be returning a good chunk of their players. I was almost exactly average when it came to fitness. Which was cool, since I haven't been doing anything to get in shape for these things. I broad jumped 8ft 4.5in, ran my 40 in 5.25, ran my short shuttle in 4.33, and had a 24in vertical. The worst of these is obviously my 40, but don't worry, I have an excuse. I missed a step in my start. Man, the start is everything in that drill. Also, I'm slow. I might be able to break 5 seconds on a great day, but I'll never be fast. We then did a throwing drill, which was pretty generic. I didn't throw particularly well, but I never saw anyone looking my way, and I certainly didn't throw badly. I mean, it was indoors! How are they going to judge throwing ability? We did a three-man mark drill to focus on handler defense. I handblocked my man more than 1/3 of the time, while only getting handblocked twice myself. Again, I never saw anyone looking my way. We scrimmaged for 40 minutes. I threw no turns and played very conservatively, because they explicitly told us to. It was unremarkable. We ran the pacer. For five minutes, we jogged back and forth. Then it accelerated ridiculously quickly, catching everyone unawares and I was one of like six people left. Then I was one of two people left. Then I failed, and either the other guy failed at the same time or one increment after. But again, it felt like nobody took it seriously. Then we scrimmaged for ten minutes. I threw a turn because 1) it was the right decision, 2) I felt like I hadn't been noticed and I didn't want to swing the disc again, and 3) I executed poorly because I hadn't thrown deep in hours. Excuses, excuses. Basically, I was frustrated, because I felt like I fit in at that level of frisbee, but I am quite sure I will not make the team. There are what, like five spots available to be filled by 45 guys? I don't like my chances.

I can brush that all off. I can say that it doesn't matter, because I'm better at handball anyway, and frisbee would just be distracting from that. But the truth is that I cared. I will no doubt shrug and say it's no big deal, and in the big scheme of things, it really isn't. But I cared while I was there, and I'm frustrated. I know I didn't condition for the combine, that I haven't played frisbee anywhere near regularly, and that if I was amazing I probably would have been noticed. I really do know all that. But to feel like I could play with the rest of those guys and still know I won't have the opportunity to prove myself further is frustrating. On my registration form I did say I would be okay making the practice team. Maybe I'll have that opportunity., I don't know. I also don't know what that would entail. These are just my initial thoughts on the topic. And since I've droned on so long, I'll get back on track with my originally-intended YouTube stuff in my next post.

Thanks for reading!

Procrastinating, take two (thousand)

So this interesting thing happened. I was feeling pretty terrible about my life, so I did what I usually do. I wallowed for an hour or so, and then I looked things up. What had other people done in my situation? What did people say about the problems I'm having? What interesting things are vaguely related and pop up in the YouTube sidebar that will distract me from wallowing? All part of a fairly natural progression for me. And then, having watched all the videos I could conveniently find, I started watching random stuff. See, I had made up my mind to write a post on here explaining my reaction to the interesting (and motivational) videos I watched in the wake of feeling bad. But then I realized that when I wrote that post, I was going to be sharing a lot of stuff. And that I was going to be making some real commitments. And that scared me. So for the past two hours I have been watching drivel. Well, what feels like drivel after the stuff I spent all of yesterday watching in an effort to figure out what to do next. So this post is itself procrastination. Unless I just start off on the post I had intended to be previewing here. How about that? Let's make this part one, and break the pattern of procrastination? So without further ado, YouTube: Part One:

A Girl Who Reads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmEbF2uhsZk
I favorited this video a while ago. I love the rhythm. I don't necessarily love the adherence to rhyme, but the poem is good enough. And by clicking on this as a distraction, I was off to the races. The sidebar yielded this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Ks06Al8c0
Not directly, of course. I heard some other poems in between the two that I didn't include here. I wasn't sure I was going to include this one either, just because his emotion makes me uncomfortable, but again, the poem passed the test. The "I wish you were here" postcard transitioning into his lecture about how war sucks was amazing.

That transitioned into this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz630krJWoE
Which is just hilarious. The guy's poem doesn't quite stand on its own, but man, his presentation is superb.

And lo and behold, the name Ted Talk was in the sidebar. And with that, I transitioned from seeking distraction to an interest in discovery. I spent the next four hours straight watching 20-minute talks about anything that might seem relevant to any trouble I'd had recently. And boy, were there a lot of them. I don't know whether that means I've been having a lot of troubles, or whether that means I'm insecure, so I only think I've been having a lot of troubles, or if it just means that there are a lot of videos out there and YouTube is just that good at figuring out what a person might want to watch next. But it's possible that the following videos could change my life. Undoubtedly, if I let them change my life, they have the power to do so. But enough of that. I'll be responding to them individually anyway. Let's just jump in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKHTawgyKWQ
This is awesome! I like the first two to ten minutes the most, in case you want to conserve some time. It's too easy to relate to this, obviously. I particularly like the part where he says that people come up to him all the time and say they have an interest. He says "That's wonderful... now find 20 interests. Passion is more than that. It's your greatest love." (The anecdote about the sweetie is hilarious!) It moves on to hiding behind excuses. I don't know if you know this, but apparently this is a theme for motivational speakers: A large amount of people who attend motivational talks lack motivation! So invariably these people talk about being afraid of failure, hiding behind excuses, etc. So immediately after hearing this, I swore I wouldn't hide behind excuses. And then I clicked on another video... Because that's totally not an excuse... And then I wrote this very entry as a sort of segue into the real post. But I'm trying to get to the point; I really am. I just need to describe all these videos first...

Damn. Well, I'll indulge my fears a little longer. On with the show!

In the sidebar, I saw a caption about suicide. Still fascinated by the topic, I clicked. Here is that video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1QoyTmeAYw
And you know what? I'm not like this guy at all! That was encouraging. He describes his suicide attempts as an attempt to gain control over a life he felt was beyond his ability to affect. I have always felt very in control of my life. While I know what he means when he talks about his perception narrowing, I'm glad that my reaction is different. Encouraged that at least the point of my life wasn't to commit suicide, I continued clicking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVsXO9brK7M
80% of Yale grads were unhappy at the speaker's 25 year reunion. It turned out the humanities people who studied classes for the joy of learning were the ones that were happy. So I think I did something right! This may be a prime example of confirmation bias. I mean, there are probably a ton of videos I've ignored that say the opposite, and I'm just pulling this out as an example because it makes me look good, but I'm actually still happy with how I spent my undergrad career. The things he says are important for discovering your life purpose are knowing yourself, what you do, who you do it for, what they want, how they change as a result? He emphasizes focusing on being outward-facing, not focusing on what makes you happy, but on what makes the people around you happy. As you may have guessed, this wasn't quite what I was hoping to find when I was looking for a way to ascertain my life's purpose. I mean, I certainly don't mind doing things for other people (most of the time?), but it's hardly a basic part of my decision-making process. Also, I didn't quite like how the first part of his speech talked about how people were happier with their majors when they focused on what they wanted (a thing I was totally ready to sympathize with), and then switched over to thinking about what they did for others. I mean, shouldn't that logic have applied to their choice of major, then? I don't know, it just felt like something that didn't mesh with me naturally. So I kept looking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLt_yDvdeLQ
This was about a writer! I was interested, but it turned out that his process involved working over 50 jobs while wandering the globe, and that it all just "fell into place" eventually. This was not that helpful. I have no inclination for that. The second part of his talk focuses on an innate inclination that we are aware of from birth. This was also unhelpful. Sure, he said to trust my instinct, and if I didn't feel right, move on immediately. At least he was focusing on being internally driven as opposed to the guy before, but it still wasn't helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0h8ZKvJW4
Finally! Something useful. I actually seriously considered doing this, but I really hate the shower here. Also, I have this delusion that I am capable of mentally grasping the point without having to put the theory into practice. Of course, this seems ridiculous when one considers the whole point was that you have to condition yourself through repetition, but I'm egotistical enough to think I can get it anyway. See, the thing is, when I have to do something, I do it. Sure, I hate talking to strangers in forced environments. I hate calling people about things. I hated my client interview. But that doesn't mean I am scared or lack confidence. On the contrary, I know I can do these things. When it comes to things I don't have to do, however, I find no trouble rationalizing my way around whatever it is, even if I know on some level it is the "right" thing to do. The project for myself, then, becomes looking at personal happiness (in my career, as well as my day to day life) as something necessary. I feel quite strongly that once I take this to heart, things will improve. Law school is helping, for exactly the reason I don't like this semester much: it is forcing me out of my comfort zone. I will be conducting interview-style situations many times this semester, even arguing in front of a real judge on two occasions, and I am dreading it. But I will do it. And I will do it well. And on the other side, I will be ever so slightly less averse to the things I find uncomfortable. So I'll skip the cold showers until I have a bathroom more to my liking. (Yup, still procrastinating) Having braced myself that things were going to be uncomfortable, I forged ahead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWxMDdLey0E
This started to get relevant at the 6:50 mark, where she starts talking about tests for general life happiness. The obituary test: work backward from your death; what do you want to be known for?
Get comfortable with discomfort: sing in public, go to a restaurant alone (without distraction), backward elevator (face inward instead of at the door).
Evaluate goals, what you do, and why you do it (same as that guy with his Yale alumni).
Income volatility: figure out how much you spend, try living on different percentages. (not relevant for me)
Problem solve for others at their jobs.
Announce your farewell party from your life to make yourself accountable to your friends.
This blog is a way of holding myself accountable. I would try the money thing, but I think I'm almost living at the minimum as it is. But looking backward from my death, it's even more clear to me that I don't have any desire for being known as a good lawyer. I mean, I guess it might be cool if I were a great lawyer, arguing before the Supreme Court, but that's still not a passion as much as it is a desire to have status. When I think of being an author like the ones I love (Heinlein, Pratchett, Stephen King (currently)), it's a different story. Even being known as a great handball (or frisbee, in some weird universe where that's possible) sounds more appealing to me on a visceral level than arguing about the law. So at least on a relative scale, I need to be refocusing. This isn't to say that I will be dropping out of law school. But I plan on changing some things.

I went on. I will continue with more videos in my next post. But in between the ones about my "passion," "life meaning," and other topics we'll get to shortly, I found some that were great just because they were great talks. Here is one example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc
The first 10-15 minutes of this are really good. He's got a great story and tells it well. While not great in how it relates to me, this is a great illustration of a guy acknowledging how wrong he was. And he's quite funny, which never hurt anything.

Here's one that I watched in case it said anything relevant for my now-retired dad (congratulations!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgoCm1hofM
It didn't say anything that wasn't really common sense, but I hope my parents have a plan that accounts for these things. Mostly for selfish reasons, of course. Stick around you guys! I love you.

And with that, I will sleep a bit before the next installment of the Australian Open (gosh darn that Federer guy not being able to play tennis against Nadal). Thanks for reading!

Complaining

I had a bad day yesterday. This was not optimal, obviously, but made even less so because it was the first day of the semester. Not a great time to be incredibly unhappy with your lot in life, to be sure. So let's review:

Monday I played frisbee. This, actually, was awesome. I got handblocked on my first throw as a handler (on an easy swing, no less), and was assigned the role of cutter thereafter. It turned out we had too many handlers anyway, so I would have been cutting a bunch no matter what. I spent the first two games doing pretty basic things. I threw a couple scores, floated a sweet high release forehand over my receiver's head and landed it in his hands, and that was about it for memorable occurrences before our third-round bye.

After the bye, everyone was stiff. That included me, but I wasn't about to let a little thing like that stop me from being able to run around for the first time since intramural frisbee, which seemed like ages ago. So run around I did. As I've always thought, the longer a day goes the "faster" I get (in relation to everyone else). Oh, and my captain was James Hron! That guy is pretty cool. He refused to cut deep for me when I caught the disc under, though, so I called him out on it. Sure enough, the next time I caught it, there he was, running toward the endzone with the other team's tallest player (and best receiver) on him. I floated the disc to his back shoulder and he didn't even have to jump. Sort of anti-climactic, actually, since he's one of the better receivers in the area and it would have been cool to see him in action in the air. In our third game I got a layout D! It was actually legitimate, and because it  was against Greg's team, he even said how cool it was again yesterday in class. I get to wear my scabs with honor for a while. I also threw a pretty cool score. See, there's a cable running about frisbee-throw-height across midfield (for a curtain they can slide across), and I caught the disc on the sideline only to see my receiver cutting deep. I heard someone on the sideline yell "No!" so naturally I threw it. But because of the clothesline, I had to throw it higher than normal, so I threw it with a little more outside-in and hit him in stride. People were impressed. Then in the fourth game I became our primary receiver. And our secondary receiver, actually. See, I was the only one left running as hard as possible. I had cramps in both calves by the time the game was over, but it was worth it. I would make the initial cut, catch it (under, usually), look around, see everyone standing, dish it, and cut deep. I caught four or five scores that game and threw another three. Overall, it was pretty awesome, especially for me being in the cutter position. And I got another D that game too, making me wonder if I could actually play this game. After we finished we had half an hour before the field closed, so I hung around and threw with a teammate. We were practicing hucking, and when we finished up I threw a couple full-field lefty backhands,  which made him yell that he was impressed. I went for broke and tried a lefty flick, which made it the forty yards or so to where he was standing. He asked if I had broken my arm at some point. I said "no, I just play handball." We talked for a while and he said he was sure there were plenty of teams that would be happy to have me in the area. I'll have to see what my plans are for the summer, but it's not likely, since I need to make money, not spend it, to further my ability to exist in Minnesota. But it's awesome to feel wanted, even if he was just being nice.

But that was really just a preface to explain why, when I woke up, my day was already off to a bad start. My legs were so stiff I had a bit of difficulty biking to school. Oh yeah, and it was like eight degrees. My first class was Corporations, where I was told there weren't any jobs for lawyers, that to make partner I would have to work from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day, and that it wasn't a good job anyway. I also learned about LLC's, Partnerships, LLP's, C Corps, and S Corps, but that seemed a bit less important than the extreme ennui that was setting in. He stressed that being a lawyer was all about working with people and playing the social game. I was not enthused.

I ate my apple and cashews for lunch. That was the only decent part of the day.

Property was an odd juxtaposition. On the one hand, my professor is incredibly enthusiastic about the material and is obviously trying very hard; on the other hand, the material is so boring I almost fell asleep anyway. Then came Law in Practice. It started off with assigned seats. Fine. I can deal with that. Our seats were assigned by placing our schedules at our designated area. Sure enough, my small group meets at 6:45 on Thursdays. So I can't play handball on Thursdays anymore. This is a "big deal" for me, even though I can look at it rationally and say that the people I play Thursday are rarely the opponents that make me better. And for the kicker: I'm the primary attorney for the first assignment. Oh yeah, and that assignment is due tomorrow (today), with a live client interview I will be conducting alone on Thursday (tomorrow). I do not want to be this sort of lawyer.

The professor is actually pretty cool. We start each class with two minutes of meditation and at least one poem (yesterday it was two poems). But all that did was remind me how much I'd rather be writing or reading poetry. The meditation was good though. He emphasized that meditation isn't about clearing your head, as in forcing things out. Rather, it is about letting things come and go and not actually focusing on them or pursuing them. Just letting your ideas flow through you instead of attaching to them. It was actually really helpful to think about it like that.

So I stuck out the class, feeling as though law school was the worst idea in the universe. I didn't want to work at any of the jobs I'd seen, I didn't want to talk to clients, and I didn't have a backup plan. Law school was my backup plan. It was always, well, even if I don't get things figured out, I can always go to law school. And sure enough, here I am. And when I was lacking a backup plan in the past, it was always, well, at least I have someone I love to lean on and know we will be there for each other. But now I'm in the position where I feel like I need a backup plan or I'm not going to be able to deal with it all. Because it's becoming clearer and clearer that just having a law degree probably isn't going to be enough. To prosecute patents I need a science degree (or equivalent course work), to be a tax attorney I need to murder my inner child and resign myself to never having fun again, and to do anything else my goal will be to talk to people every day and secure clients for my firm. None of these are viable options. And as may be obvious by now, I don't deal well with the unknown.

I've been trying pretty hard to take the meditation approach to all this and just let the ideas come and go without getting too stressed out about the fact that none of them seem any good. But when it's my entire future, it's not that easy. So to compensate, I ate three doughnuts. The apple fritter was delicious, the glazed with chocolate frosting was delightful, and the cream-filled chocolate was sublime. And then I was sick to my stomach and still wondering what the hell was going to happen to me. So naturally, I climbed on my bike and sallied forth into the snow that had started to fall in the zero-degree air, headed to handball league on my legs that still didn't quite work. Our team looked at the lineup we would be facing and decided we had the best chance of sweeping if I played doubles. So I did, and we lost horribly to two players I'm pretty sure I could beat on my own if any one of at least three conditions had been changed (slippery court, partner miscommunication, glass back wall). Luckily, we still swept singles (staying undefeated as a team), but I felt awful. I played singles with David and tried until I hit an amazing no-look behind the back shot. Then I stopped trying and he won easily. It got to the point at the end that I was yelling at myself to run and still just wasn't moving to relatively easy shots. I got a ride back, ignored my homework, and fell asleep rather than give myself any more time to feel sorry for myself.

Oh yeah, and during my doubles match, I got frustrated and kicked the wall. As usual, the wall didn't give much. I bruised my heel. That didn't help me play any better, which made me more frustrated. So a couple points later, I punched the wall. It prevailed yet again. So my knuckles are bruised again. Perfect.

And that is where I will stop the complaining. I woke up around 2:00am and watched tennis. That is where today began, and it has been a bit better ever since I saw the majesty that is Roger Federer in action. That guy is a wizard with a racquet. He is apparently healthier than he has been in a while, and has switched racquets and playing styles. I still think the thing that has changed the most is his mental game, but whatever the reason, he played beautifully. My classes today weren't much better than yesterday, but it turns out that just being busy and unhappy is distraction enough from the big-picture-unhappy that I got through the day without any more major drama. The angst is at bay, at least for now. I'll dress up pretty, do my client interview, and I'll deal with it. Thanks for reading!

Break Highlights/Summary

You might think that tons of free time would have enabled me to update here a lot more. However, I don't really have much to say about watching five or six movies a day for weeks at a time. So here are the highlights:

Finishing the Semester (Grades mediocre, aligning appropriately to my effort compared to my classmates)

Puzzles! (More specifically, all-nighter puzzle dedication with my sister)

Handball! (Trying to squeeze every game possible in while back home)

Movies! (Machine Gun Preacher, I Am Number Four, Princess and the Frog, Silence of the Lambs, Coraline, The Illusionist, Warrior's Way, Friends with Benefits, Real Steel, Tangled, Equilibrium, The Grandmaster, Thanks for Sharing, Fergully, Benny and Joon, Braveheart, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Hitman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Willow, Wall-E, As Good as it Gets, Stand Up Guys, Sunshine, Book of Eli, Hesher, Easy A, How to Train Your Dragon, Sucker Punch, Bronson, Rango, Quest for Camelot, Brave, Yes We're Open, Inglourious, Basterds, The Waking Life, Warrior, The Wolverine, The A Team, The Dark Knight Rises, Kick-Ass 2, Man of Steel, and a few more foreign ones/ones I can't remember)

Handball! (Playing with my dad! And doing well!)

Great Food! (Three for three on restaurants while my parents were in town)

Seeing Sarah S! (Quilt delivery successful, food sharing as well (pickled herring, even))

Longer things:

One day I started off with Silence of the Lambs, as it was early afternoon and I knew I didn't want to watch it late at night in case it was scary. It turned out to not be that scary, but I wanted something different anyway. I had heard Sunshine was a good movie. It's description was basically "astronauts have to nuke the sun to save earth." I was skeptical, but hey, it's science fiction, so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be the most intense psychological thriller/scary/head-wrenching movie I have seen in a while. That was hardly what I was expecting when I sat down for a movie called Sunshine with the aforementioned description. Good movie, just way to intense for me at that point. So I looked for something else to fit the bill. I found a recent movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and gave that a watch. Turns out, that movie (Hesher) was pretty out-there too (more on that later). In a last-ditch effort, I turned to another source. My friend on Facebook had recently raved about a TV show called Helix, which has recently started on the SyFy channel. I found the first episode and gave it a go. Whoops! Turns out that these generic names are really just disguises they put over crazy death-filled insanity. Helix, it turns out (in case, like me, you didn't read anything about it and are just about to watch it based on a friend's recommendation), is about a mutated virus-thing that has broken out at a research facility (either intentionally or unintentionally), causes people to either turn to bloody mush, or makes them crazy infect-other-people-at-all-cost-machines with weird abilities. So people are dying, sabotaging, turning on each other, and getting attacked by zombie-like coworkers for the entire thing, and I'm just left shaking my head at the choices I've made.

I was really happy with how this weekend went. My dad and I beat a decent local doubles team after dropping the first game, and we actually wound up giving Andy Nett and his dad a decent go of it in our match against them. We were leading 16-15 in the second game, but my serve let me down a bit and they played well (as always) to put us away. We still got more points off them than any other team, though! They won their finals match 21-7, 21-10 (or 11). So I'm considering our debut a success.

Movie notes for movies I hadn't seen before:

Best movie I watched: Warrior
This movie was moving, full of action, complex, and well-acted. Pretty much aces in my book (though my book has always been partial to guys beating each other up). Sunshine was also really good, but it just messed with me too much to rank it as highly as this one.

Weirdest: Hesher
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a weird old-ish guy, Natalie Portman plays a generic, (nondescript, mundane) grocery store worker, and a little kid's life gets temporarily really weird as a result. JGL (as his friends probably never call him) vandalizes his way through most situations (with no consequences), Natalie Portman never looks attractive, and Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute) nails the role of uncaring widower, and the movie just sort of moves along.

Worst: Brave
This wasn't the absolute worst as far as quality was concerned (I stopped watching a couple others, whereas I finished this one), but it was the one that under-performed the most. It looked like it could be decent, and it just wasn't. Maybe if at any point I had known that the movie was actually about a girl's mom transforming into a bear, and not about something interesting, I wouldn't have been so let down.

In an interesting turn of events, I am playing frisbee tomorrow. More on that after it happens.

I was thinking about not writing much about some thoughts/conversations I've had recently. Beating a dead horse, at all that. But I've been mulling it over ever since my last entry, so stay tuned I suppose in case the draft of a post I've started ever actually materializes...

When I was watching the new Superman movie, the only thing I thought stood out was that in one scene, when Zod grabs him and swings him around, the path Superman takes when released is an outward spiral instead of a straight line. This bothered me an inordinate amount. To the point that, because the rest of the movie was so blah, all I recall when thinking back on it is that mistake.

Digging into my phone for topics:

My professor was explaining the guidelines for taking our exams and telling us we couldn't use the internet. One student started to ask if they could use an app to write, then hesitated, backed up, and asked "wait, do you know what the cloud is?" The professor got the funniest offended look on his face, the class laughed uproariously, and he nodded. The student finished her question. The professor responded, saying, "No, that should be fine, but if you're going to use your computer, I would say you shouldn't have to open what's called a browser, (you know what that is?) for any reason." It was fantastic.

I'm just stalling right now. Nadal is being taken to a tiebreaker by a Japanese guy in the first set, and my internet at my apartment is unreliable, so I'm obviously stuck here indefinitely. Very sad...

Okay, okay, I'll get on with my studying (depressing that it starts before school does...)

Thanks for reading!

Allllll byyyyyy mmyyyyyssseeeeellllfff (plus a handball recap)

As if I needed additional incentive to never leave my apartment again, this is what happens when I inquire what is happening outside:

So the law building wasn't even open today. I didn't check on the rest of campus. I just assumed that the rec would probably have followed suit, and if not, it's still ridiculously cold.

So another exercise in being a hermit ensues. And then comics like these appear:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3088#comic

A bittersweet win/win indeed!

But then there's this one:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3063#comic

But then there's this one:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3080#comic


What a productive day I've had! My motto for the next two weeks is: if there's something to be distracted by. embrace it! I figure I'll have plenty of time to be depressed and lonely as my infinite break progresses, so today I watched a couple movies, watched the bowl game, which was actually pretty good, and read a bunch of old emails. The last activity was a continuation of my time sink yesterday: relationship investigation!
(With special guest star Sarah Schreitmueller!) We had a really good talk that covered an amazing number of topics, but a decent chunk of it revolved around where things have gone wrong for us in the past with our significant others (and by us I mostly mean me, since I was obviously overly dramatic.) Anyway, it was awesome. Now that she's back to full-time class though, I'm afraid I will need other sources of boredom displacement.

Weather update: currently -16 F, predicted to hit -20 tonight. I have a ride set up for handball league tomorrow (see mom, I CAN be responsible), though that deprives me of my opportunity to try out my new fenders. I am actually really happy to have those. The streets here are not cleared well at all (a fact my dad got to attest to after giving me a lift up here on Saturday. So I'm spared needing to brave the elements until Thursday (unless I feel motivated to work out before then). And low and behold, the forecast for Thursday is 20 F (positive even!). I am really happy with how my return to the MN crowd went on Saturday too! My dad and I have entered a doubles tournament together for later this month, so part of the way I convinced him to drive me back Saturday morning was with the opportunity to play with the local crowd at the Y. We got in a bunch of doubles games against a good selection of ability levels. We easily defeated a B doubles team to start out with. I wasn't quite as ball-hoggy (that's a term now) in that one, as we could rely on their errors a bit. Then we played against a solid A doubles team, and I got a lot more competitive. After a rocky start (down 3-13), we came back to take it 21-19, I think. I'm not sure my dad had ever really played at that sort of pace, so it was really good to get some experience in. We had gone to the gym in Ames the day before to talk about strategy, serves, and what our goals/roles were going to be, and I think putting them into practice so soon after talking about them really drove some points home. The major one is that a decent shot in Ames, Iowa is not the same thing as a decent shot in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There are really only three options: defense (pushing the opponents back past the dotted line on the court), kill shots (so they can't even touch it), or aggressive shots right at them/past them (so they can't step into their shot or collect their balance). Anything else enables them to hit one of those three shots types, and then we are back on defense, off balance, or scored on.

After our comeback we played against the best two other players there. That combination is probably as close to open doubles as we will need to face in the tournament (unless local people surprise us out of the woodwork, which is a very real possibility in this area). It was exhausting. Of course, it didn't have to be. I suppose I could have let my dad hit a ball occasionally... At one point they left a ball hovering off the right wall and I called it, but my dad stepped in and took it (as is usual in Ames; if you have the shot, you take it). Well, he left it a couple inches off the ground, and they just stepped up and rolled it out. It's just a whole different level up here when everyone has good shots. But I was really happy we had the experience, because we figured out a couple of minor things (when he stands on my side to serve we need a plan to space out into the court again, otherwise we just get passed or hit at, for example), and we actually emerged victorious. And this was on one of the harder glass walls I've experienced playing on, a trial we will not have to deal with for the tournament, since the St. Anthony Athletic Club has courts very similar to those in Ames. We won the second game against those two guys too. I had to call it quits due to a developing bone bruise, sore shoulder, and loosening toenail (all of which have since made themselves scarce), but we were at the Y for three or four hours, so it was a good chunk of time anyway.

I think we are both excited. I know I'm looking forward to it, and my dad must be too, since he has decided to push my mom's officiating paperwork through so she can take his place at a bike race and he can come up for another doubles tournament in February! That one even has a father/son division. (It turns out I won't even have to be put up for temporary adoption to play!)

Hopefully league goes smoothly tomorrow. The last time my team played this team I didn't even play and we only lost one match, so I'm not very worried, but I'm going to take it seriously because I have collegiate nationals coming up in February (about a week after the father/son doubles tournament), and I have been really focusing on a couple of aspects that I feel have been improving recently. The main one is my serve. I've been adding a bunch of spin to it, to the point where people have been flat out whiffing when they swing on occasion due to the movement I can get off the first bounce. I especially practiced my serve to the left, which I feel is an area of mine which will most benefit from improvement. I have always just relied on my opponent's left hand being weak, and never focused on perfecting my serve because it usually results in a poor return anyway, but after jumping into a higher level, I feel like I need a weapon to go to on that side as well. The other thing I've been working on is my left hand mechanics. When I was watching the video from my Wisconsin tournament I noticed I still don't step into my left side shots the same as my right. And I also know that my wrist motion is a bit lacking, as is my ability to keep my eye on the ball when I'm trying to hit it as hard as I can. See, when I want to hit it harder, I tend (as most players do) to try and put my whole body into the shot, which results in my head being turned at the moment of impact. But that's not actually necessary. Most of the power in a handball shot should be derived from the wrist and the hips, so just increased focus and paying attention to fundamentals is much more beneficial. It does require a lot of willpower, though, since I can get away with not executing at a high level for the most part. So for the next month I will be trying to develop good habits.

If you don't like handball, this post probably took a turn for the uninteresting. However, I haven't had much else to really focus on or apply myself to in the absence of school. I told myself I could take these weeks to write something seriously, but I can't seem to find the willpower to make that happen. And to bring the post full-circle, here's a relevant comic:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3071#comic

(blogging is sort of like a halfway point between practicing writing and not writing at all, I suppose?)

In case you're wondering about the sudden abundance of SMBC comics, the app I use to look at the comics on my phone (usually during brief downtimes (right before class, on the toilet, waiting for a court, between workouts, etc.), has been crashing for the last couple months and not been letting me click the little red button, so I'm catching myself up again. This means it's possible some of these are duplicates, but hey, they're still relevant.

Thanks for reading!

Eating

Person: What did you have for breakfast today?

Me: Ham

Person: Oh? Like ham and eggs? That sounds good...

Me: Nope, just ham. Not cooked.

Person: Oh, that's sort of weird. Did you have anything good to eat yesterday?

Me: Yeah, I had ham.

Person: For dinner? Again?

Me: Nope, for every meal. Just ham.

Person: Uhhh....

-My conversation with everyone about my eating habits for the next couple of days. Courtesy of $5, 9 lb hams at Aldi.

But also, I had Afro Deli with my dad today, and it was delicious. And very reasonably priced. I can see why it's a catering staple at the law school.

I'm back in Minnesota. My break in Iowa went about as expected. I ate irresponsibly, justifying it by telling myself I would be back to my good habits once I got back and there weren't unhealthy foods tempting me. So now I have to make good. Shopping has been completed without purchasing the usual suspects (chocolate mostly) so that's a good start.

Break went about as expected. Not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. I'll get to more on that later, I'm sure, since I have sixteen days until class starts. Ugh. Thanks for reading!

PS: The reason I didn't post any further updates after my last entry is that nothing happened.Then I was in Ames and didn't feel like blogging. Now I'm here and it's either blog or be bored. (I'm sure there's a third option, but it's just not coming to me...)

Ryan versus UTI part one

The internet connection on the bottom floor of the rec is a bit spotty. When I enter the bathroom, there's a good chance that at some point the music I'm streaming will cut out. Well, sure enough, right before I'm about to stand up, a dramatic silence falls upon my ears. About then my urine feels slightly warmer than normal. Which is incredibly weird in and of itself, since how would any one bodily fluid feel warmer than another? I look down to investigate, and lo and behold, there is a faint red line running down the middle of the toilet bowl. "Well, crap." I attempt to force a few more drops out and direct them at the bowl, but I'm about dry, and only a couple fall. But they are certainly red. I debate taking a picture, but my mind about that is made up for me when the toilet automatically flushes. The battle has begun.

(If you want, I'll point some fun little euphemisms I threw in there. The well, "crap" was a bit gratuitous, but I was pretty proud of the "spotty" internet connection and the "streaming" music. Because, you know, my stream of urine was spotted with blood.)

Now, as with any adversarial confrontation, it is important to know thine enemy. Luckily, WebMD is a thing, and after a slightly awkward conversation with my parents, I am left hoping I have a urinary tract infection, since the alternative seems to be cancer. Oddly enough, I don't have any of the other symptoms WebMD is alerting me about. There was never any burning sensation, I haven't been going abnormally frequently, and I haven't had any difficulty going either. So I don't know what to think. A brief further consultation with the internet (using an incognito tab on my browser so nobody that steals my phone will know I've been researching UTI's, despite the fact that I'm obviously blogging about it and not hiding it at all) reveals I should drink some cranberry juice. Unless it's cancer. Then the cranberry juice probably won't help (probably won't hurt though).

I do that. I go to the store for the second time in two days after having not shopped for basically an entire month. I drink two quarts of cranberry juice in an hour. I don't like cranberries, so this is another pretty big concession on my part. The psychosomatics start to kick in. I feel sick to my stomach, though I felt fine literally every second up until I noticed blood coming out of my penis. I guess it's understandable for that sight to have that effect, but come on brain, you should know better. The fact that I have most of Mike Birbiglia's standup comedy routine memorized is coming back to haunt me. You see, he used to play a game with himself on long car trips (a regular occurrence for a person trying to make it starting out as a comedian). The game was a little competition with himself to see how clear he could get his urine. Then one day it came out bloody, and he lost that game pretty badly. Which is sad when it's a game against nobody. He had cancer, which is where the routine takes on a bit of a less funny tone for me recalling it in my current state. Don't worry though guys; I refuse to have cancer. That just wouldn't be cool.

Mike's routine goes on to talk about his subsequent prostate exam, surgery, and recovery. I'm a bit more concerned with the cancer question, but not that worried because bad things don't really happen to me. A repeating though in my head is "man, if I was going to get a UTI, you'd think I could at least have had sex or something..." And now that I have one, my chance of getting laid goes way down. Actually, that's not true. It's pretty hard to quantify a decrease from one near-zero number to another. I guess if you look at it as a percentage decrease, from, say, 1% to 0.005%, then my chances have diminished by a factor of 200, which is pretty severe. But my "lost opportunity damages" (I know all about those now; go law school) are negligent, so let's not focus on that either. All I know is, I'm going to beat this thing. Unless it requires a lot of work. Or more cranberry juice. Or cancer.

Thanks for reading!

(Update: My last trip to the bathroom was normal. I am unsure what to make of this. I had no symptoms, then I had one symptom, and it was a doozy. Now I'm back to none. Has anything changed? I guess we'll find out in part 2!)

That's it

I'm done. After a solid 11 hours of outlining yesterday leading into my four-hour contracts exam today, my last final is behind me. I must say, I do enjoy law school though. Even the tests are interesting. A couple people looked at me really strangely when I expressed that my torts exam was fun, so I held my tongue today, but at least I'm not dreading any of the future semesters. Of course, I have no idea what my grades will be, but there's nothing I can do about it now. So I'll watch some movies on my computer while bouncing cashews off my mouth to find in a month or so. (I did find the wasabi pea that went missing so long ago. It was under a laundry basket.) I also went shopping for the first time this month, so I have fruit and cashews. I didn't buy anything else, since I'll be back home and mooching in a couple days, but after eating only oatmeal for the past week (with an exception of a free bagel last Thursday and some pasta Monday), I'm more than satisfied with any flavor whatsoever. My cashews even say they're from Cedar Rapids, IA! I'm enthusiastic about everything. Don't worry; it won't last.

I don't really have anything to report from my hermitage. I've read over 2,000 pages of legal text in the past week preparing, and while it wasn't the worst experience of my life (because like I said, at least it's interesting), I don't think there's much that bears repeating. I'm also not allowed to share exam contents, so I can't really go into much at all about the last week. Except I played some handball on Thursday and Sunday. I might play tonight, but I'm feeling a bit too lazy to bike to downtown St. Paul (mostly because of the ride back in the dark). I set up a final match with Matt Hiber tomorrow in any event, so I'll be leaving Minnesota on a solid note.

I am playing in my first magic the gathering tournament in a long time on Saturday. I have no expectations as to my ability, but just being in that environment again will be quite an experience, I'm sure.

I forgot my tea in my bottle rack outside today. The bottle seems to have survived the freezing, but it was unfortunate in that I didn't have my tea during the test, and in that I still don' t have my tea on account of it being solid.

The maximum word count for my Constitutional law class was 2,500 words, which I hit almost exactly. I spent a decent amount of time thinking through the various aspects and paring down what I wanted to say, and I turned it in with three minutes remaining. I got lucky the printers I went to were working, since otherwise I probably wouldn't have made the 8-hour deadline. Then in my 4-hour torts exam I hit just over 4,500 words. I sort of petered off after three hours, since I wasn't desperately typing any more. But it turns out that's a solid 11 pages single spaced (18 double), so not too shabby. I don't know what I wrote today, since it was divided into sections, but I'd guess around 3,000. Again, it was more a matter of coming up with something to say for the last hour than than it was hurrying to finish in the allotted time, so either I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing alright.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cashews to track down. And some cars to watch explode. And some magic to think about. Thanks for reading!

Study break

I am accumulating a vast backlog of events which I would normally relay here, but unfortunately finals are looming and I am unwilling to procrastinate (at least in this way). Here is a brief summation:

Two weeks ago I lost my league match to Hiber pretty convincingly, though I had it tied at 18-18 in the second game.

Thanksgiving happened! I had a great time with my parents. Ate good food. Deviled eggs were a fantastic surprise. Waiter was British (his first Thanksgiving; seemed confused at some of the concepts, candied yams in particular). That accent...

I watched all the episodes of "Sherlock." It is confusing to watch Khan (Star Trek) running around with Bilbo (Hobbit) solving murders. Good show though.


I won my league match on Tuesday, beating Brian 21-20, 21-5 as Midway swept the University team and secure first place in the league by 37 points (matches are worth 12, 9, 7, and 5 points)

I worked out a bit, rowed 2,000 meters in 7:25, 1,000 meters in 3:40, and a bunch of easy stuff early in the week. Thursday I rowed 1,000 meters in 3:35, took a drink, and rowed another 1,000 to finish 2,000 in 7:16. Also sprinted 500 in 1:39 that day, which isn't great, but not bad after having already put out some decent effort.

I turned a paper in Wednesday I had a decently enjoyable time writing (all-night, of course, but interesting research and thought went into it).

I took a quiz Tuesday, which I haven't picked up yet.

I gave my Constitutional Law book to a guy because I was going to be busy this weekend and he still hasn't returned it.

I ate a can of wasabi peas. I amused myself by tossing them into the air and catching them in my mouth. I upped the ante by bouncing on my exercise ball at the same time. Result: there is currently a wasabi pea hiding somewhere in my room, location unable to even be approximated. (Should my mouse make another appearance, he may be in for a surprise.)

I slept for 14 hours between Wednesday and Thursday. I then stayed up way too late on Thursday night, but that allowed me to sleep for the car ride to Milwaukee.

I realized I had lost a $100 bill somewhere between my apartment and the tournament site, which I was planning on using to pay for gloves and my outstanding entry fee. (Gloves were unavailable anyway, parents covered entry fee.)

I played in a handball tournament in Milwaukee. I lost my first round of open singles and open doubles (blaming a perfectly clear back glass wall, but also not playing splendidly).

I won three matches in the consolation bracket Saturday, beating Contreras, Jeff Streibig, and Anthony Selestow 15-3?, 15-12?; 9-15, 15-8, 11-7; 15-13, 15-3 respectively. I ate a ton of food and even had a bunch of dessert around midnight due to no willpower combined with delicious temptation.

I won the consolation finals 21-20, 21-16 over Dane Szatkowski, seeded fifth in the open draw to start the tournament. He had played more matches than me that weekend. I played well though.

I won $150, mitigating my loss on the weekend.

My ride braved hazardous driving conditions in an ancient rear-wheel-drive boat and I arrived home safely.

I recovered $100. (My building manager texted me asking if I had lost anything recently, since they had something they couldn't figure out the owner of. I responded all I had lost was a $100 bill. It had been turned in by my neighbor.)

Those are the highlights. I can't wait to see the video highlights over break. A reason to come home in itself. Good weekend overall. Good week in general. Study time. Thanks for reading!

Just some things

I lost to Matt Hiber again today, to the surprise of nobody. What was surprising is that I lost 11-10 in the tiebreaker. So that's encouraging. I actually play him again tomorrow for league, so hopefully the trend of drastic improvement continues and I can steal a win for my team. Games with him are dictated by really long runs of points. Neither of us is particularly good at getting the server out, so once one of us is serving it usually results in at least a few points. Also, we played with an Ektelon ball because he prefers it, and I actually liked it too. It has a bit more weight to it, so it carries a bit further past your opponent. He claims it hurts his hands less for some reason that I don't quite understand, but luckily my hands didn't seem to be adversely affected, so I guess it's all good. I wonder what we'll play with tomorrow...

I didn't have class until 1:25 today because we finished our contracts syllabus early. However, there is an optional class tomorrow I'm going to go to. And then a rescheduled Civil Procedure class that we don't usually have on Tuesday so that we can all skip Wednesday entirely. So one last busy day and then my semester is basically over. Or maybe that's when the semester actually starts, since the only things that determine my grade are yet to come, and the studying (or lack of it) I do between now and finals is really the only thing that will wind up determining my grade anyway. After class I grabbed a free muffin and bagel and headed back to the rec to work out a bit. It turns out I've lost seven pound since I weighed myself on Friday night after the smorgasbord. So that's apparently a thing that can happen. Last week was odd in that I had a bunch of free food I gorged myself on at lunch all week, and that was bracketed by free huge dinners at both weekends. But I also worked out a lot more than I had been so now that I'm back to not eating much, my metabolism is still amped up from the workouts, and I'm losing weight again.

Speaking of working out, I had a hard time trying today. I was a bit tired from the match earlier, and I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I was going to be playing him again tomorrow. So every time my muscles started hurting I immediately thought "Well, I might not want to try too hard, since I want to be able to give it my best tomorrow." Which is silly, of course, since I know that I'll feel fine tomorrow anyway. So I did a bunch of really small efforts instead of a long one. My brain just wouldn't tolerate suffering for any length of time, so I compromised by cranking out a couple baseline times for some shorter rowing distances. I rowed a 500 in 1:40 and a 1,000 in 3:32, both times I know I can improve upon, but also pretty decent for my second week rowing. For instance, those times are much closer to the 75th percentile than the 50th percentile among people reporting times to the records website. If I'm near the top 25% of lightweight rowers in my age division, I think I'm pretty pleased. The 1,000 was pretty funny in that I started way too fast. I felt really good because it was my second effort of the day, so the beginning felt easy. I was at a 1:38 pace to start, and I knew I couldn't maintain it, but I figured I would just grind it out the best I could as the going got tough. Well, the going got really tough for the last 250 meters, and I think I finished at a 1:50-something pace. So I suppose there's already something definite to look at for improving! I rowed at a pretty easy pace for a while after that as a cooldown/excuse to say I did more than I actually did, then left.

Between handball games today Matt asked me a few questions. First he clarified that I went to Iowa State, which I confirmed, noting that it was a good choice because they give scholarships to National Merit Scholars and made my choice of major a little more forgivable. He was quite interested in the fact I took time between college and law school, so I mentioned I had a girlfriend finishing her degree and I wasn't all that sure of what I wanted to do anyway. When he learned we weren't together anymore he had a pretty odd reaction. He said, "After the first one, the rest are easy." I must have looked at least partially as confused as I felt, since he followed that up with "Not that that was your first girlfriend, but you get what I'm saying." I can wholeheartedly say that I do not. Not only was this breakup way harder than my first one, I don't ever want a breakup to be "easy." I couldn't quite tell if he meant it would be easy to find relationships after the first one or easier to let them go, but I can assure you that neither of those things is remotely true in my case. I have no desire in acquiring relationships just because I can. I'm sure it's not that difficult if your only goal is to have girlfriends, but I have never been the sort of person interested in dating someone before I already know them pretty well and can see definite potential. Maybe if that's what I was interested in, subsequent breakups would be easier, since it's not like you'd be severing a significant part of yourself. It would just be a "Well, you turned out to not be at all what I wanted in a girlfriend, so see ya!" sort of deal. Which means I screwed up in entering that relationship in the first place as far as I'm concerned. It's probably true to a certain degree that future breakups will be easier, though, since I don't think it's very likely I'll have a relationship that lasts five years again. That, and I don't know how easy it will be to commit to someone as fully as I have in the past. But I told myself after my first relationship not to let that happen again, and look how that turned out. So maybe I'm just a sucker for love. I suppose there are worse things to be. What I do know is that it will probably be incredibly confusing for whoever I do wind up dating, since I'll be guarding against the possibility of it ending by trying to play it cool, being aloof, and doing my general "I'm not affected by things" impersonation (which I seem to be pretty good at) while at the same time wondering if she is a girl I can commit to and see myself loving. At least I'm acknowledging up front that I'll probably be a walking contradiction. Does that make it any better?

I don't know. What I do know is that Facebook yielded a couple of good articles in the past few days that I figured I'd share. This one is mostly amusing, awesome, and requires no elaboration:

http://www.upworthy.com/read-the-witty-suggestion-an-advice-columnist-gives-to-a-homophobic-parent?c=bl3

While this one is a bit more comment-worthy:

http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions?g=2

Now that I'm studying cases like this on a daily basis, I find myself both more and less interested in articles like this. On the one hand, I completely understand why she won, so I don't really care about the "point" of what the article is trying to get at. On the other hand, I pick out language like "industry-standard" and immediately start thinking of reasons that's an excuse and not an excuse given the circumstances. McDonald's claimed that the coffee temperature wasn't any hotter than other establishments and that it was ideal for the roasting process. But according to a case I read recently involving tugboats (and Judge Learned Hand, who happens to be awesome), the fact that a practice is standard does not of itself make that practice excusable. It's a similar argument to the "if everyone jumped off a cliff" situation, but with a bit of a twist in that for a tort claim there also has to be a better option available. So then the question takes on a different meaning and scale. Of course that's only one component. There's also the question of adequate warning, faulty manufacture process, negligence in serving, assumption of risk, strict liability, and probably some other things that aren't coming to my head right away.

Well, I'm going to go to bed before my stomach convinces me I am hungry enough to eat something.

Oh! One last thing, though. A person on facebook was making applesauce and posted some pictures labeled "crab applesauce." I legitimately thought "That is DISGUSTING! Who would eat seafood-flavored applesauce?!" before slapping myself up alongside the head and realizing that crab-apples are a thing. But that's the state of our food right now. It's gotten to the point that there are so many novelty foods and combinations that I honestly can't rule anything out. People eat rattlesnakes, crickets, chocolate-covered all sorts of stuff, and blend weird things into smoothies all the time, so who am I to second-guess a persons desire for crustacean-infused applesauce?

Thanks for reading!

My weekend

And yet again, I begin typing without a clear idea of what I'm going to say.

What I do know is that I spent a decent amount of time listening to spoken word poetry on YouTube, and here are some of the highlights of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EILQTDBqhPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXOxIq65zg

Also, I went to a formal-ish dinner on Friday. Because I am constantly paranoid about how to dress for things, I was glad I didn't wind up looking foolish. Also, I was especially proud I remembered how to tie a tie. Well, not so much remembered as thought it through and logic-ed my way to victory. Which is also kind of cool.

I don't know if this makes me vain or not, but I took pictures of myself. Here's one from before the party:

I decided to go with a tie, and luckily another guy in the group of four I was showing up with also wore one, so I didn't feel like an idiot. I think we might have been the only people there with them, but hey, better a bit too nice than feeling under-dressed. Though I'm certainly more used to feeling under-dressed. The soiree was catered by what must have been a fairly upscale place. The first thing I put on my plate was a rib with the meat basically falling off the bone and cooked in a fancy-looking sauce. They were served in individual portions, so I didn't know how much to take. Next, I put on two different kinds of salad, one with spinach, mandarin oranges, walnuts and strawberries, the other with different kinds of vegetables, beets, and some other stuff I couldn't taste by the time I got to it. The reason I couldn't taste it? I ran out of room on my plate and resorted to piling food on top of other food. So my salad became buried under rice and pasta. There was also a cheesy potato dish, sauteed vegetables, two kinds of bread, and sea bass. The sea bass was particularly good. It practically melted in my mouth, and it had this sweet/tangy sauce that turned out to be highly addictive. I went back for seconds and just grabbed another rib and two more portions of sea bass. And some cheese tortellini. I never got any of the salmon because it was still cooking when I went through the first time and had migrated to the dining room table by the time I went back up. (I was eating in the living room.) Obviously I ate way too much. Next came the challenge of socializing, made especially hard for everyone because of the enormous amount of food just ingested. It was common to see a person flushed from the heat of the crowd (forty people in a house, even one as big as this, raises the temperature significantly, especially when there's lots of hot food being served) and stuffed to the gills almost nodding off in the middle of whatever conversation was occurring. Groups of three to five people seemed to be the most common size, so whoever wasn't fully participating in a given conversation tended to stare into the distance with a glazed-over expression of contentment.

Some guy took a bunch of pictures and posted them on Facebook. Here I am, cropped out of a larger picture of me and the person I was half-heartedly talking to at the time. Also, for some reason this was the only picture this guy posted where he used flash on his camera, so I had the most ridiculous red-eye glare going on. So I did what any person would do: copied it into Paint and attempted to clumsily color-fill pixel by pixel. Just in case you noticed that my eyes look weird, trust me, it's not as bad as it was.

Dessert was served not long after, and oh boy was that an adventure. I haven't eaten that much since, well, I guess last weekend. Hmmmm. And Thanksgiving is this week? Quite a trend I'm establishing here... Dessert was chocolate-covered strawberries, key lime miniature torte/pie things, chocolate truffles, shortcake, and chocolate raspberry cheesecake. All amazing of course. We socialized for another chunk of time, during which I spent each new conversation trying to figure out what the person I was talking to already knew about me. I don't talk to anyone at school, see, and it seems like everyone has a slightly different impression of me as a result. So to some people I'm the guy who plays handball, to others I'm the guy who rides bikes. Others know about Magic, most know about frisbee, and everyone knows me as the guy who wears shorts. So my goal became to dispel whatever stereotype they had of me. The people who thought I was a jock for being sporty I talked to about scholarly topics, the people who knew about Magic I talked to about exercise, the people who only knew I wear shorts all the time... well, at least I was dressed decently enough to prove I'm not hopeless. We left, and I made a brief stop into the law school to use the bathroom. And who am I kidding, I also wanted to get an idea of what I actually looked like; all I have in my room is a small mirror. I took some more pictures, but the lighting in the bathroom wasn't great. I wound up wearing my leather jacket instead of a sport coat both for warmth (it was single digits with a nasty wind) and because I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard. I think it looks pretty decent actually. (Obviously, or I wouldn't be putting the pictures up, right?)

 I weighed myself when I got home, and I had put on three pounds in one night! Ugh. At least I had a lot of exercise to look forward to in the morning.

Sure enough, I between body pump, handball, basketball, and my walk home, I felt pretty exhausted by the end of the six hours I spent outside my apartment this weekend. Basketball doesn't really count, though, since I was just playing with Joseph. His friend didn't show up to play with him, so I stepped in. He had a few house rules (no double dribble, make it take it but only for him, and I had to shoot my first shot from the three point line), and it was overall an adorable time. He pulled out the victory after a hard-fought 10-9 battle which involved me jumping as high as I could at the slightest pump fake (because otherwise there wasn't a way for him to get around me to get a shot off). I can't imagine how awesome it must be to be actually tall. How do tall people ever lose at any sports ever? I'm lucky handball has no height requirement.

David showed up around 12:00, and I was already pretty worn out. I won our first game pretty easily, lost the second 21-20 after going down 17-6, and lost the third in similar fashion. I just couldn't motivate my legs to move until I was about to lose! He asked to play a real match where I tried the whole time, so I said I would be free Thursday. It turns out that my classes got cancelled for Wednesday, however, so now my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving Day. I'm sure it won't be a problem to reschedule with David, and I can't wait to stuff my face again! We have reservations at a place that looks pretty nice, so I'm excited. Also, I get to spend Thanksgiving with my family after all!

I'm playing Matt Hiber over lunch tomorrow, then my league team faces off against the university's team in the battle of the only undefeateds on Tuesday. Then no school while I work on my paper about federal jurisdiction on Native American Reservations. And a bunch of other stuff I'm no doubt supposed to be working on. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but it's sort of late and I don't really need an excuse to stop typing anyway. So there.

Thanks for reading!