Postscript post

So if you haven't noticed, I didn't get anything uploaded last night. My internet went out at my apartment as I was looking for a replacement charging cable for my phone on eBay, and I hadn't finished five pages yet, so I hadn't uploaded anything. There's something up now though! Under "Free write #1 on my short story blog: http://scantstories.blogspot.com/ I just started writing, didn't have a clue where even the next sentence was coming from, and sort of didn't connect things at all yet. So either it's the start of a longer piece or it isn't really going anywhere. Either way, it was fun to write!

So because I don't have internet at my apartment right now, I'm at the library computer lab. I hate these keyboards now that I'm used to the flat keys of my laptop. One of the things I plan on buying as soon as I have money is a mechanical keyboard with "brown switches." There are different switch types for different uses/preferences, and while I haven't ever gotten the chance to try the different kinds, I've read a lot about them and I think that's the safest bet for the kind I'd like. Not that there's anything wrong with my laptop. This keyboard just reminded me of the fact that I've researched a lot of pretty obscure things.

Speaking of, here's the story of how I convinced myself to spend $60 instead of $6:
So my phone's charging cable stopped working. This is a problem for me. I use my phone for everything. I went to Target to buy a replacement cable, only to see that they were $20. I turned around and left. If I were going to spend $20 on a cable, I might as well just put that money toward a phone case that took a mini-usb cable (which I already have) and not have to worry about my battery running out in the future either! So I went home and looked around online for a better deal. Sure enough, there are tons of cables on eBay for around $3-$5. Wary, I looked up some reviews. Almost universally they said not to get the knock-off cables, as they might stop working unexpectedly, might prompt your phone with an error message, and might just be DOA. So I looked around for certified cables. There are a ton on eBay that say they are certified, but do I believe them? Not really... So rather than spend the $6 on a knockoff, I would be spending $20, but rather than get ripped off like that, I'll just buy a case that I don't really need so I feel like I'm not getting ripped off... Yeah, I'm not sure I quite understand it either. I'll consider it a birthday present to myself or something. The important thing is the peace of mind, right? Yeah, I know I'm grasping at straws. But back to the post!

I said in my last post (the last real one that wasn't some subsection (or subsection of a subsection)) that I had a ton more youtube videos that didn't quite fit in line with the whole "searching for motivation/inspiration/meaning in life" theme. So without further ado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wG_sAdP0U
This lady did some math. She wanted a Jewish husband with a bunch of other specific qualities, and she lived in a big city. However, after estimating that of the hundreds of thousands of people in her city, only about six of them would meet her specifications, she turned to internet dating. She was not successful. So she did some more math. She set up a points system to figure out how to better filter her results. She got no results. It turned out that the ideal guy she was looking for was not looking for her non-ideal profile. So she did some more research. She figured out a few key elements to profile-creation, and became one of the most sought-after women on her dating site. Then she found true love. It was a pretty interesting story. I'm still not trying internet dating (at least not yet).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqKafI7Amd8
This guy is a show-off. He is a computer hacker, so his showing off is sort of cool, but he's a bit annoying to watch. But if you want to see mosquitoes hunted with lasers, this is the place to go (as well as hotel TV's hacked, credit cards cracked, and people tracked (oh man, that all rhymed so perfectly!)).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY
This guy says that you can learn a new skill in twenty hours. He taught himself the ukulele to prove it. It's not a great talk. You probably shouldn't watch it. Just take my word for it, and if you have a skill you want to become decent at, maybe give it a once-over in case there are any tips you can apply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wfMNNr3ak
This doctor says the key to eating healthy is to eat a lot of starch. He makes some interesting observations of Asian people. Maybe he's right? It's certainly possible. I was interested enough that I didn't turn it off right away. Potatoes and rice are the way of the future. Who knew?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqpjap8rewo
While we're on the topic of eating healthy, this man made an athletic career out of eating better than his opponents. The goal was to speed up recovery through a good diet, and through a series of trial and error processes he came to the conclusion that plant-based diets are the best ones. He initially came down on the side of starch, but starch requires a significant energy investment to process. So he focused more on food "efficiency." He switched from starch to fruit, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat and wild rice, because they are seeds rather than grain, and so are more efficient. His calorie intake dropped by 20% and found he was less hungry because he was fulfilling his body's requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAwnA5WvLc
I don't know if you're as afraid of dying as I am, but this guy is doing some interesting research into how to stop (and reverse) aging. It's sort of cool. Mostly, I'm just trying to find a way to be less scared. I'm staking my hopes on you, crazy-looking-beard-guy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSz5BjExs9o
This is about the 11 dimensions that theoretically exist in the universe. I'm going to watch this video over and over again until I actually understand it. I sort of missed the boat when we discussed this in physics in high school. He intros with flatland, which is a great short story everyone should read if they haven't. A copy is online here: http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RENk9PK06AQ
This guy used math to write "music" that is patternless. This is different than random. It is carefully planned to have no musical qualities whatsoever. The music starts at 7:40, and the stuff before it is the background story (math mostly, with a bit of sonar-motivation thrown in). I didn't find it unpleasant to listen to, but I'll let you make up your own mind about that.

My mom asked me what a hipster was a while ago. So as I've forayed into the wild realms of the internet, I have recorded my encounters with the topic. Of course, as usual, the most effective way to figure out what a hipster is would be to google/wikipedia it, but I'll use it to introduce these two videos, which I found to be pretty awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYA8cSQB_rA

This is a bit explanatory, and also a bit humorous. Also, why wouldn't I link to another Charlie video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAMM-pZLXyQ
This poem, on the other hand, has very little explanation, so it must make up for it by being more than a bit humorous!
Best line: He mounts her...indifferently!

Poetry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lViEIq0Ne8A
I really liked the part where when he's talking about being dishonest, he says:
Stripped gears lying smoothly, pretending that our teeth still fit
(or something to that effect)
Also, he's performing this video in Northfield, Minnesota!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysVlscQtUXE
This poem is just a placeholder for Andrea Gibson's poetry in general. She's got great lines all over the place, and gets in these awesome rhyming sections, but she isn't afraid to move in and out of rhyme schemes as it suits her in the same poem. I don't really like the vibrato in her voice. It feels affected, as though she thinks it will add emotion. But the poem is already emotional enough! A video with better audio of the same poem is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoY0ukxLtms but I liked the intro she had in that one, so I put it first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4jbCgMqSew
You'd think I was a lesbian or something with these last two selections, huh? This one is cute. I can't think of a better term. It's just nice to hear a poem that's so obvious with its intention, so, I don't know, pure? Is that the word? I'd use the word innocent, but I know some people assign that different meaning than I do. So maybe the word is unpresuming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0okLJv_4wY
So either all the poems in this related-link-train I'm on are sexual or only poems that are about sex are catching my eye, or (and this might be the most likely) people write about sex in more original, more honest, and more interesting ways than they write about other topics. And, yet again, this one's by a homosexual. I guess the gays are just better at poetry... Also, he's hilarious. And whew! When the poem transitions it really turns a corner! I don't know if I like that abruptness, but it sure was memorable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJeSo1JEwJs
So if you assume that she wrote this to be funny (with a side of indignation) rather than to be indignant with a side of humor, it's actually really funny. If you assume she's a hyper-feminist crazy person, then it gets a bit too "in your face." I interpreted it to be humor first. So I think it's hilarious.

Other stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89-SerAttxE
This guy put an engine on his kayak. He still steers with his paddle. It's pretty crazy looking. You have to watch some Top Gear to see it, and it's only shown in brief snippets (because this is a car show, after all), but since I know Piper, I couldn't not pass this along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rbVQNTzCh8
This guy's main point is that if we want to focus on our creativity, we have to become boring in many other aspects of our lives. I've already employed some of these things. I eat boring things. I buy the same groceries every two weeks, for instance. Well, except for this week. Segue time (you get the point of this video anyway, right?)! I was going to go to Target anyway to buy a cable for my phone (before I knew they were $20), so I took along my Cub Foods coupons and went shopping there instead of Aldi. And I figured since I was there, and it was a pretty rare occasion, I'd branch out a bit. So I bought the things I had coupons for, and not much else. But I had a coupon for waffles. And frozen pizza! So I'm living crazy as of now. I have chocolate chip and blueberry waffles (two separate packages, though I eat them in sandwiches of one of each because the combination is so good), and I bought some summer sausage (I was feeling nostalgic, and it reminds me of eating at my Grandma's house). And I had a coupon for pepperjack cheese. Basically, life is good. Except I didn't buy milk or eggs because those are still cheaper at Aldi. So I still need to go shopping. Also, my peanut butter coupon didn't register, so I wound up buying that at full price (giving rise to the line about losing $2 at the self-checkout in my little free-write). Plus, fruit is more expensive there, so I only bought oranges (they were the least different in price).

What the hell!?
David linked to this on Facebook. Don't watch it if you don't like really random bloody violence. It's actually just insane. It's supposedly a commercial to get kids to stay in school. What I can't quite figure out is how romanticizing the concept of skipping school and then blowing people to bits really accomplishes. Weird...

So, until my charger gets here, don't expect me to text you back. I will have my iPad with me at all times, so I'll be able to email whenever. Well, assuming the internet is working at my apartment, which seems to be a bigger and bigger assumption these days. My laptop also has a (pretty terrible) camera and microphone, so I could skype or google video call if email were unacceptable.

Thanks for reading!

PS: Update: I didn't actually buy the case after all. I found a lot of more than one cable for my phone that had a bunch of good reviews, so I bought that for $5 instead. Hopefully it gets here soon!

Also, I added an update to "secrets" found "here." It's not much, but I said I'd alert you if I edited my past posts, so there you go.

(actually a part of the previous post)

Just to preface this, it feels weird doing this here, because I know that if I were in her position (and if I were reading my ex's blog), I would interpret all of this stuff as stuff meant for her to read and constructed as such. You'll just have to take my word for it that this is not that. This is for me. Another attempt to clarify what I'm feeling on the topic record the thoughts I've been having. As it relates to the last post, this is me getting my "secrets" out into the open so I can deal with them, either through dialogue or the process of getting them out of my head. Like it or not, this girl (woman? it sucks that there's no easy term that sounds right; I think the closest is "lady" but that still has a connotation of "ladies and gentlemen" like it's formal or something) still occupies my thoughts pretty regularly. I'm doing pretty well about it recently. I don't really feel that sad anymore. I have regrets, sure, but the abiding sense of loss, of clinging to the memories I know are overly-simplified or idealized has faded. Which I'm also not sure is great, but I'll get to that.

When I was talking to Sarah S about relationship stuff, we talked about a bunch of things, but a couple of items really stuck after the conversation ended. The first is that I shouldn't have gotten back together with Rebecca after she cheated on me the second time. Yes, this is likely a gut reaction of "I should have ended things on my terms rather than experience what wound up being painful," but there's more to it than that. 

More specifically, when talking about my attitude toward her after she cheated, I realized that what led to problems down the road is I took her mistake as license to take as long as I wanted to get over it. I thought this was reasonable. I'm still not sure it was unreasonable. But I obviously remember things pretty well for a long time after they happen, so the process was not short. And I thought my "willingness" to put in that work made me a great boyfriend, even though what actually happened was that I made it impossible to actually move past the problem. I don't like moving past things. I like solving them, coming to terms with them, or at the very least, eliminating the possibility of their re-occurrence. And when it's a major event, it (obviously, as evidenced by this post) takes longer for me to wrap my head around. The fact that it was the second time she cheated on me made it impossible for me to write off as an isolated occurrence, and rather than drag both of us through the process of me figuring stuff out, I should have done the easy thing and ended it.

This didn't happen, obviously, and because I had never resolved the core problem, anything extra that I became frustrated with seemed even more burdensome. On the one hand, this probably sounds like an excuse I'm making just to avoid taking responsibility for my reactions and shift the blame; on the other hand, I'm sure it was obvious that I was bothered by her cheating for a long time. Her desire to go to the bars with her friends, for example, was made even more bothersome because I still didn't quite trust her. Not only was it something I couldn't relate to because I didn't have a desire to join in, it was also something I couldn't understand because I figured bars were places people went to meet girls. Even if she wasn't going to meet guys, it was obvious that guys were going to hit on her, and she had "fell for" that before...

I know she was probably going to the bars to have fun with her friends because I wasn't that much fun to be around. That makes sense. I had obviously changed. I will try to explain. Again, this will probably come across as making excuses. I felt, not only that I had the right to change, but also that I should change. Obviously the person I was wasn't good enough. That person had gotten cheated on. So I changed, but in the obviously-wrong way. I became less attached. I figured it might hurt less if it happened again. On some level I'm sure I was hoping that if I didn't seem that committed, it might make her work even harder to make me happy.

See, here's the thing: I knew things would go back to normal eventually. I had absolute faith that as long as we "stuck it out" we were good together and would be happy again. I knew my "getting over it" process was going to be a long one. I'd read plenty of books that talked about people struggling through counseling for years to get over this sort of thing. I had this idea that it was supposed to be hard. I don't know what her conception of it was. I know that between me bringing it up all the time and her own feeling of guilt, it probably seemed like she had gone through enough "penance." She certainly had. But it's not like I was constructing some test. It wasn't "If you can tolerate me bringing it up and feeling insecure about it for "x number of years" you win the prize and we can go back to being normal. I was processing it in the only ways I knew how, which (and this may be weird) was to bring it up a lot in an effort to acclimate myself to the new fact.

(Sidebar: I do this with everything I consider to be a major change in a relationship I have with someone. For the first few weeks after Sarah Schreitmueller starts dating someone (not that this happens that frequently or something), I constantly bring up her boyfriend. I ask her what her boyfriend thinks of her hanging out with me, not to make her feel uncomfortable or make it seem like it's an issue he should be worried about, but to reestablish that something how I think about her has changed. If anyone tells me something about me that bothers them, I am guaranteed to bring it up the next few times (every single time) I do whatever that is. I will start prefacing my actions "I know this bothers you, but..." It will annoy the crap out of them. But I'm doing it as much to remind myself that something has changed or needs to change as anything else. It's my way of reminding myself, and it's probably the worst way ever, because it by its very nature reminds them too.)

So the next problem that happened stemmed from the fact that once we were back together, I didn't feel appreciated. I still felt entitled. I felt like I was always going to have the status of "being the bigger man" by agreeing to be in a relationship again. I don't think I was ever the person who took much initiative in planning for us, but what little enthusiasm I had was nowhere to be found. I assumed that if I was the person who was doing the hard thing (deigning to go out with someone who was unfaithful), I was absolved of putting further effort in. This was only a small facet of my (at the very least perceived) laziness. (It was also easy to be happy when I didn't have to work, I did basically what I wanted, and was generally content cuddling and watching TV shows.)

I knew my process of getting over her cheating would change things, but like I said, I took the long view. The "in a few years, we will be able to be happy, and in the meantime, this is better than being apart from each other." Obviously, she disagreed with that last bit. So because I wasn't putting work in (other than sitting around trying to come to terms with it), and she felt like we were drifting apart and that I was constantly judging her, things got worse rather than better. And you know what? There's a cliche about that, so I figured all was as it should be. Things are supposed to get worse before they get better, or that phrase wouldn't exist. So I didn't take that as a sign to reexamine or make any drastic changes. I just kept trying to "tough it out."

I still wonder what would have happened if we tried to really work through things (like with a counselor or something). I doubt it would have ended well. I'm pretty argumentative, after all, and I doubt that setting would really change anything. I know the times we tried to talk about it on our own it usually degenerated pretty quickly into one of two situations: Either we would be talking past each other as I was stubbornly convinced of a point I was trying to make and kept reframing it in a slightly different context until she agreed (though I'm sure her "assent" was never genuine, since it was more the result of bludgeoning than persuasion), or she would get sad and I would try to cheer her up (either by backpedaling slightly on my view (while somehow still trying to get my point across), or by dropping it and hugging her). That was a pretty big thing looking back at it. It happened a lot where she would do something that frustrated me, I would express the frustration, and before the frustration was even resolved, I would be trying to console her. So she would be feeling miserable, and I would be in this weird state of half-sorry, half still-frustrated. This even happened in Toronto when she was talking about breaking up with me. So what happened was, she aired the idea, I got offended, defensive, and upset, and then, because she was crying already, I set those things aside and hugged her and tried to be nice. It happened all the time, and it was terrible for actually getting to the bottom of anything. But I couldn't make myself ignore how miserable she was feeling (or acknowledge it and press on, or whatever the "correct" reaction is), and she certainly couldn't help feeling miserable, so many of our discussions amounted to nothing.

What it boiled down to was this: I wanted an unlimited amount of time to come to terms with her cheating on me. I figured nothing I was doing was as bad as what she had done, so I got a "free pass." This was obviously the wrong mentality. I don't know what the right thing to do is. I guess that's why people get paid a lot of money for counseling couples. "Working through it" seemed like an exercise in futility, and after a while, it took on an air of "well, I guess it's stupid to bring this up yet again." I'm sure it felt that way to her after the millionth time. The fact that I was still bothered seemed to mean less and less as it became a "yeah, yeah, I get it, I cheated on you" sort of reaction (that's an oversimplification, in case you were wondering). So things got worse before they got better, and then things ended because they got worse. My "taking the long view" might have been wrong. I don't know. I knew I was ready to spend years (the rest of my life) trying to make it work. So that's my secret, I guess: I am (also) to blame for what happened. I think I've been trying to figure out how for a long time. Because I see myself as "perfect" in a lot of ways, this took longer to realize than it should have. And for all I know, this was obvious to the people around us. But it's good to get it out there. I was confused for so long because I knew there was probably something I could have done differently, but because I place such an emphasis on having a justification for my decisions, I couldn't separate myself from those decisions long enough to really think about it.

Don't worry, I'm not done.

Recently, it's been way easier to look back on this stuff without the stomach-wrenching (or at least, the same degree of turmoil) I used to experience. This scares me. See, I know I dealt with my last breakup by over-rationalizing things. I immediately started resenting Hiwot because I figured if what I was doing wasn't good enough, then something was wrong with her. I mean, I tried really hard to be a good boyfriend, and she still didn't laugh at my jokes. So obviously it was her fault, and I almost-immediately started resenting that fact.

I realized I was starting to resent Rebecca. It wasn't a conscious process; I just realized in the gym one day that I was starting to feel angry instead of sad when I thought about her. I was mad that she had deprived both of us of what was supposed to turn out to be a happy life together. This obviously relates back to the last section in that I still had this idea that once we worked through thins, it would get better. (I was so convinced! I hate that. I hate that I was clinging to something so hard that she was able to set aside. It makes me feel like I had misplaced my effort/desires/love.) 

My sister and I talked about this for a bit over winter break. Not, like, super in-detail or anything. I feel really, really awkward talking to her about it. But I value her opinion because she knows both of us so well, that I figure anything she says has some weight behind it. Unfortunately, she always comes across as defending Rebecca. This is probably one of the reasons I don't feel close to her anymore. But we were talking, and I obviously expressed my frustration with the fact that I still didn't quite know why things ended. She said something to the effect of "cheating is an indication of the relationship being over" in the cheater's mind. Obviously I couldn't figure out why we had gotten back together, then, but that's not really the point. The first time it happened, she also defended Rebecca's "right to move on" (for lack of a better term). I still wonder rather frequently why she seems to have this abiding opinion that I wasn't good enough for Rebecca. It might be that she feels the need to defend her when she isn't there to defend herself, but nonetheless, there's a pattern of 1) things got rocky 2) Rebecca expressed doubts/problems (or cheated on me) 3) my sister immediately justified/defended/encouraged those doubts/problems/actions. I don't think I've ever heard her actually say "Rebecca was wrong to cheat on you."

What this condenses down into is that I felt better looking back at my relationship with Rebecca, and that scared me because I knew that on some level it meant I was beginning to justify feeling callous. I know I deal with things this way all the time. It's the epitome of confirmation bias. As soon as a decision is made for you, you start coming up with reasons why that was the way it should have been. I've spent SO LONG trying not to think that. I still don't want to think that. I still want to think that it could have worked, that we could have made it work. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose the good times we had, the times where it seemed like we would be together forever. I was willing to go through years of struggling trying to get that back, because Rebecca was the first person I'd been initially attracted to, reciprocated, and had that turn into a really special relationship. I wasn't ready to let it go, and it scares me to think that confirmation bias is stripping it from me. Yeah, time heals all wounds. It's probably better that (it seems) I'm going to wind up resenting her. But I don't want to. I don't want there to be that tiny kernel of hate at the core of me that enables me to move on. I wish the process were cleaner, somehow. It doesn't seem like it is, or that it can be. So I guess I'll let time do its thing.

I have to go to class. I'm not sure whether this is done or not. I'll reread it once I get back, but I'm tired of it not being posted.

Thanks for reading!

(Secrets: actually part of the previous post)

So in the spirit of not procrastinating, "just doing it," putting myself out there, etc. here are what I consider to be my "secrets." I still don't quite know what these are supposed to be. Are they just things I don't tell people? There are a lot of things I don't tell people that I wouldn't care that much if they knew. I have no problem talking about most things if I know someone wants to hear them. Just to reiterate, my goal in writing this is to unburden myself of things that occupy my mind. It will probably seem like I'm writing this to offend people, and no doubt there are plenty of things for people to be offended about. It might also seem like I'm writing it as a way to get attention. In a way that's obviously true. The video that triggered this was about a man who realized he was racist, so he moved into a black neighborhood and told his neighbors he was racist. This is me telling the people to whom my secrets are relevant. If it starts a dialogue, so much the better. I think a major part of the man's process was talking about his problem further, confronting it with the help of the people around him. I don't really know if all my secrets have solutions. I don't really know what to include. So let's start a list and see what comes out:

I believe I am superior to everyone. When introduced to a new person, I immediately begin analyzing ways in which I am better than them. If I don't have a better GPA, I assign more importance to being athletic, more responsible, more anything. (Sometimes things have to go into the hypothetical realm really quickly... oh yeah, well I bet you're worse at juggling, rubik's cubes, and Magic: the Gathering than I am) And then I decide I am "better." It's not like I'm stupid enough to think that I'm unbiased. I'm also not writing this to make myself seem "self-aware" or whatever. It's just true. I know it, and I don't tell people, so now it's out there. If I know you, I think I'm better than you. I'm sorry. I admit this may not be true, but it's what I believe deep down.

I am capable of rationalizing anything. I frequently doubt which comes first, my decision to do something, or my reason for doing it. I hold myself to the standard of "have a reason for everything you do." But when my brain is capable of finding a justification (and a convincing one) for any action, it's almost a nominal standard. So with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I am sure I'm capable of killing someone. I watched some interviews of serial killers (Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer) and the way they talk about their actions without remorse reminds me of me. It's simple. It's just "I wanted to, so I did." Ted Bundy tries to blame his on watching violent pornography, but by all accounts that's just him trying for a weird tactic. This applies to silly things too, of course. I can rationalize wearing shorts all year round. I can rationalize my decision to wear jeans this week. It's true that I will have a reason at the ready for any question about an action I took intentionally. The motivation may just be that I thought it would be enjoyable, but I'll be able to follow that up with reasons too.

I don't know how far to take this. Should I share everything I know people don't know? Should I share the things that only concern one person, or should I just talk to that one person? I mean, I'm all for sharing, but the boundaries of what constitute a secret that's holding me back are a bit vague.
Other secrets:

Love:
A. My Sister (might as well start things off with a bang)
1) I think I don't "love" my sister. I texted her I loved her just this morning, which is why this is on my mind. I don't know how to describe this either. I don't feel vested in her at all. I know we have a connection as siblings. I value the experiences we shared. I admire her in a lot of ways. I just don't feel "love" in the way I conceptualize it. I have no doubt that what I feel fits the definition of love in the dictionary, fits most people's definition of love, even, but I still felt awkward texting her. I thanked her for the birthday wishes and hit send. Then I sent a follow-up text with "I love you too, of course." Heinlein (and a bunch of other people) uses the three definitions of love separately. Philos (friend), eros (physical) agape (total). I have philos love for my sister; of that I'm sure. And I don't even have that for many people, so it's not like she's not spe(s)c(h)ial. I just don't normally say it to those people. So when I texted it and questioned it, I figured it was a secret.

B. On the other hand, I can say I love my mom and not question it at all. That being said, there was a period of my life where I doubted this, and would have said without question that I loved my sister.
When I think about my mom very specific things come to mind. None of them are positive. One of the videos I watched recently on my search for self-actualization crap said we feel a loss twice as much as we feel a gain. I think it must be true, especially if memory is any gauge. 1) I remember a car ride where she threatened to put me on medication. I think we were on Duff Avenue, maybe near Lincoln Way. We might have been stopped by a train? I was pretty young. It's one of my earlier memories. 2) I remember giving her the middle finger to her back because we had just yelled at each other and it seemed like the right thing to do (according to movies, the situation, I don't know), and feeling really weird while doing it. Not only was it not satisfying in the slightest, one of her softball teammates saw me do it and I got hit for the first time in a long time. I think that might have been the last time, too, actually. 3) I remember her saying she was afraid that I might/could kill her. The thing about that wasn't how ridiculous it was, it was how disconcerting it was that she might be seeing/knowing me for the "evil" I really was. (I have never wanted to kill my mom. I have wondered if I would feel anything if I killed someone, though. So in a sense, it was ridiculous, since I knew I would never do that, but at the same time...) 4) Around that time I remember her calling the police on me because I was disobedient. One of the most offensive things I clearly remember my reaction to was her saying she needed to control me. Unsurprisingly, I am not a fan of being controlled. How is it that these are the things that spring to mind when I think of my childhood and I still have a positive impression overall? I can't remember anything offhand that was amazing, I can remember all these specific times that it was awful, and I still think it was awesome. I love how I turned out as a person, I love my parents for all the work they did, and yet I really do struggle to remember the good times. Some of them come back with effort. Hiking is always a big one. Snorkeling in Hawaii, kayaking in Alaska, seeing the lights of Disney World. I technically can remember all of these things, and my god do I have a lot to draw upon when I take the time to remember it, but it's not my default. But since my mom will no doubt be worried that I am unhappy: don't.

C. I can say I love Sarah Schreitmueller with the same conviction.
She, more than anyone else at this point, has been through the most with me. However (haha, she knew that word was coming), our relationship has always been the most tumultuous. Is that how they work? The deeper the connection, the more extreme the variation? There has always been this sense of missed opportunity, but at this point we both wonder if that has always been more for nostalgia's sake than anything else. I mean, the opportunity was missed so many years ago that at this point it's not even that it's being missed. And now that it's been missed, we know too much (know better than) to ever try again. Yet we still flirt with the idea (each other) occasionally. I don't think there are secrets I keep from her. There are some I keep for her. Those aren't mine to share, even in a post about secret-sharing. I suppose there are secrets I keep about her/us from others. 1) Even after I have told myself we won't ever "be together" I get jealous of her boyfriends. I know it's illogical. I doubt it needs explanation. 2) Some part of me will always want to ignore all the very good reasons we are incompatible. I have come to terms with that, I think.

D. Kids
I am afraid of screwing one up so much that I have vowed never to have one. I can remember so many things that made (make) me unhappy that I can't will that upon anyone else. I know I am happy to be alive, but I still can't quite make the leap that it's logical for me to be happy to be alive. I have plenty of other reasons I also believe for not having kids. I give those reasons first. I don't think that the world needs more people. I don't think that I will be happy financially or schedule-wise if I have a kid. I do think that whoever I decide to marry will be enough for me, and that I want to have a relationship where our focus is mainly on each other. So I won't have kids. But other people's sure are great.

E. My dad (don't worry, these aren't in order or anything (any more than the order they spilled out of my head).
I love my dad, but I can feel it transforming all the time. It used to be a profound respect, admiration, etc. and it scares me that it's changing. Handball has really served as a sort of culmination of how it has happened. Around middle school-age, I remember coming to an abrupt realization that my dad wasn't actually "good" at sports. Of course, I was terrible, but I can still remember one occasion at Roosevelt Elementary when we were playing soccer and my perception shifted. His form was terrible. Sure, it worked just fine, and heck, he might even have beaten me (probably did if I can't remember it, right?), but his stride wasn't how it "should" look when dribbling, his windup wasn't "correct," etc. (I don't know whether I should include mitigating statements like "I value the time we spent together and I don't care that his form was bad." Of course that's true. I assume he knows that's true. He might even know his form isn't great.) Similarly, his tennis stroke is pretty bad. As I got better at things, the disparities became more and more obvious, so it makes sense that now, with handball, it has reached the most extreme. When I got to college (and maybe a bit before that), another change occurred. I used to be afraid of him being angry/upset/frustrated. But, like me, that's just how he gets sometimes. Once I realized how similar we were in that regard, it was almost impossible to take him seriously anymore. His frustration with navigating the car, the referees at a sporting event, or (seemingly) any piece of technology he came in contact with became "just another thing that dad does." I think this is partly because I know that even the moment, I am aware that the frustration, while obviously maddening, is only temporary. So I knew both that his frustration was temporary, and that he (probably) also knows that his frustration is temporary. I adopted the eye roll/shoulder shrug combo as my go-to reaction (accompanied by meaningful, humoring glances to my mom if she is present). This isn't to say that I'm not frustrated sometimes, especially when in public, but I know that I'm that way enough of the time that it all balances out. Plus, my frustration at his frustration is only temporary, right?

F. Exes
1) I'm afraid I would get back together with Rebecca if she wanted to. I am afraid at what this says about me. Actually, that's not quite accurate. I am actually quite sure I wouldn't get back together with Rebecca, since my self-esteem, arrogance, resentment, and rationality would preclude that. What I'm really afraid of is the amount of time I would spend worrying about the decision. I assume this is a byproduct of my still-confused state. This is closely related to the post I am composing to immediately follow this one, so this "secret" will just be a placeholder for that in its entirety.
2) I loved Hiwot, but I still can't quite figure out what that was. It started as philos, and then skipped to a pseudo-agape, then retreated into eros, then finished somewhere in the middle of all three. Does that even make sense? My secret in this case is that I wasn't even attracted to her until a year (or more) after we were "dating." It was the definition of "grows on you." It sucked because at the same time, I was quite attracted to her best friend, and that took no time at all. It's weird to say it started as philos, because that has a cerebral connotation. The thing that attracted me the most was how god damn nice she was. She wasn't brilliant, I didn't find her physically attractive, but after hanging out with her for a year, I loved her. Of course I was eventually physically attracted to her. This scares me because looking back, she wasn't really "my type" at all. Her emails were incredibly girly (stereotypically so) and exhibit a lack of spelling and grammar. She wasn't athletic, and didn't really try to be. And yet I loved her. So does that mean I could love anyone who was nice to me? That's disturbing? Does it mean I could love anyone at all? I hope not! But I don't know. I've dated the only two girls who have pursued me and shown a modicum of decency. (Sarah gets a pass because she never formally pursued me until after it was obvious the idea of us being together was "indecent." Mallory, a girl from my statistics class, pursued me but showed nothing that would separate her from a rock as a candidate for a relationship. We went out on a date once, even. Nothing.) Related to both Hiwot and Sarah: my relationship with Hiwot formally ended when I kissed Sarah. Things were not great before that, obviously, or it wouldn't have entered my mind. I don't think I've mentioned this to very many people. I always just say the underlying causes: we were committed to the relationship on different levels (I was actually more serious than her; she wouldn't move in with me when I asked), she thought argumentation was a problem in a relationship (it's hard to argue with that) while I wanted to hash out our differences all the time, and most of all, she stopped laughing when I made jokes and didn't react to my romantic gestures (I planned a "really elaborate" Valentine's Day (judge by broke college kid standards)). That stuff is all just rationalizing.

G. Other people
I love my grandma. I don't actually know her as a person, though, so it's a weird love (maybe between agape and philos). It's like getting married in Vegas and never finding a reason to get divorced. I made a decision without knowing all the facts, and I still don't know all the facts. I get little hints all the time, either from my mom or brief interaction, but she is still awesome. Even her quirks (the ones I know about) are endearing. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons not to love her, but in this case, I resolve to remain willfully ignorant.
The rest of my family is just that: part of my family. I'm sorry if you wanted more, but that's a lot of detail. I know my aunt and her husband read this occasionally. I don't really have any secrets concerning them. I still remember a time (at Disney World) where I made my mom unhappy and Joyce grabbed my arm (really hard, actually) and said something in the meanest tone of voice. I don't resent her for it, but it made my list of events indelibly etched in memory. From that point on, I don't think I was ever going to really "get close" with her (not that it would have happened anyway). It was the reason to get divorced after the Vegas wedding. (I really like that analogy!)

What other categories of secrets are there?

I judge people based on their appearance. Even based on their facial structure. I judge them based on their accent, on their skin color, on their posture. (I am also willing to revise this opinion.) For instance, upon first impression (a bunch of years ago), I didn't like Kurt (my sister's boyfriend). I made a bunch of incorrect assumptions that I can't even remember right now, but I readily admit now not only that I was wrong, but that he's actually a really cool guy. I don't feel like we get along that well, but objectively (and subjectively), he's awesome.
See, that just became another "secret" about a particular person. They guy in the video got off easy being a racist. I guess I'm a racist too, since I judge people on skin color? But not really, since I don't judge someone based on their skin color any more than I judge them for having missing teeth, mispronouncing words, or gesturing pretentiously. So I'm a people-ist?

I can't think of many right now. Those are the big ones, I think. Smaller ones include the fact that I do care what I look like (and as a result of my disgust of that, I overcorrect), I don't shower, I don't know anything about computers (other than how google works), and I don't care what most people think about me (but think that's weird, and then try to make them like me anyway). Actually that's sort of an interesting one. I think the most accurate way of putting it is that I don't think that people have the right to have an opinion about me, so I don't respect what they think of me, even though I do sort of care. This no doubt ties into my superiority complex. It also conflicts hilariously with my snap-judging of other people.

I look back at my philosophy papers and wonder who wrote them. It's so true that philosophy is a world reserved for the academics for academic's sake. I remember being happy in philosophy. I wonder if I would be happy there now. (That's not a secret!)

I want to be a writer. I know that on a deep, fundamental, basic, other-word-for-core, level. I don't know if that's a secret. If it is, it's as much a secret from myself as it is from anyone else. I plan on writing more about that in the post I'm interrupting by writing this. If I don't I'll come back here and edit.

Are sexual encounters secrets? I don't want them on the internet, even if they are. If you really want to know, get in touch with me, I guess? I've never been that shy about talking about sex. It just doesn't happen that much (the sex, or the talking about it...).

I am insecure. I bet you know this already.

I have written three suicide notes.

I will cheat at things if I know I can get away with it. I very rarely find justification for it, but that doesn't change the fact that I have no real barrier in my mind.

Every year around my birthday I seriously consider drinking. I've still never done it. Is that worthy of "secret" status? I came closer this year than usual. A new place, nothing to lose, and people were already meeting at a bar. I also seriously consider buying alcohol by myself and getting drunk just to see what it's like once every month or so. This is probably stupid compared to the suicide notes stuff, huh? To me, there is very little difference between the debates. Maybe that's weirder than either of them.

I really, really want to believe in God.

I judge people harshly right away if they make their religious views obvious.

I have no interest in being a lawyer. I really like school though.

I want to get in a fight. I want to know what it feels like to punch and get punched and know it's real.

Well, I made it to twenty-five with all of those issues. I don't think talking about them made them go away, but if you want further clarification about anything, you probably know how to reach me. If not, you can always comment!

If I think of more I'll post them here as a postscript. It might be interesting to see how many occur before and after the sign-off. I'll make a note in whatever entry I'm writing at the time so you know I've added another secret. I'm sure there are plenty I'm forgetting. This is just a few hours' worth.

My intention was not to offend anyone. Like I said, the point of this was in the hope of not worrying about this stuff again. Like Childish Gambino says:

This isn’t a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad, this is a story about how I learned something and I’m not saying this thing is true or not, I’m just saying it’s what I learned. I told you something. It was just for you and you told everybody. So I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always. Everybody can’t turn around and tell everybody, everybody already knows, I told them. But this means there isn’t a place in my life for you or someone like you. Is it sad? Sure. But it’s a sadness I chose.

So I told everybody. I'm sure I haven't told you all everything yet, but I'll work on it.

Thanks for reading!

PS: (2/2/14): (Like I mentioned, everything after this point will be an edit.) I feel awkward every time I swear. Some people (like my friend Brian Burke) swear with an ease that amazes and impresses me. His demeanor doesn't change depending on his audience, he just says "my fuckin' next door neighbor is fuckin' crazy." And then launches into his profanity-laden story. And it's awesome. I don't have that comfort. I still swear, especially around handball players, but I bet I sound unconvincing. I know I sound unconvincing to myself.

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!