Who

Last semester we talked a lot about places and, more specifically, the "where" of each individual. However, the locations a person hold dear to his heart doesn't tell but a fraction of his story. I guess the real question, "Who are we?" is far too broad and philosophical to be phrased up in a few short paragraphs, and the parts of ourselves we are proud of get flaunted, whereas the parts that we are ashamed of get hidden. I'm certain that in this blog a person can find many good things to say about me or my writing, but if we are truly dualistic people the good only tells half the story.

This is an exercise in being center-seeking. This is also a truest test of bias, one I would imagine everyone fails. Anyone can cheat on a test like this by simply being far too vague with faults that every individual has to some extent. However, you can't expect someone to divulge every one of their secrets to an anonymous crowd. Accurate or not, it remains an interesting test.

To be honest, I consider myself a distrusting person. Some people do not consider this a fault, but it tends to have big impacts on relationships, even those that have been going for three years. To an extent, a certain amount of distrust is a very good thing. We are surrounded day-in and out by those who would lie, cheat, and swindle their way in order to grasp hold our strings as though we were marionettes. My lack of trust though, eliminate any pretense of hype or excitement for the future on most occasions, and oftentimes that leads to a dull and sad point of view.

I'm a struggling Christian. I know what I believe, but committing to the idea and being the person I feel I should be has proven very difficult. It's like I'm at the bottom of a well and someone threw me a rope. That's good news, but now I have to climb it.

There are very few who can trigger a response via a plea to my emotional side. There hardly is an emotional side to me. I guess this goes along with me lack of distrust, but I find that animal get a bigger response from my "soft side" than humans who are much closer to me. I guess it has someone to do with the innocence of an animal that makes it easier to empathize. I guess I feel that those who can, should solve their own problems, animals often cannot.

Here's the ironic double-standard. Contrary to the above, I find it difficult to correct my own character flaws. Maybe I don't want to, or I don't care to, or I just can't, but there have been many things that have proven themselves insurmountable obstacles in my life. Still they stand, boulders on a narrow path.

Those are just a few, but sometimes it feels good to commit those thoughts to text. I don't really care if someone sees me differently for them. Just because a person wears sunglasses, doesn't make the rays any less bright.

This Week

Wow this week has been a tough one. I forgot how difficult it can be to keep a regular training schedule up along with my obligations and enjoyable habits. This reminds me of when I used to work for my uncle on his surveying crew.

While working with him I was very active, but I was also working anywhere from 8-10 hours a day until the economy slowed down. He eventually let go of all his other employees besides myself so my responsibilities doubled when working in the field. I was in charge of the care and supervision of more than $100K worth of equipment and I had quickly learned how to operate every piece.

It was very difficult work though. Often, we would be carrying all our equipment through thick, humid woods or down steep, rocky hills. I was often loaded up with two tripods, the rod, and a full stake bag containing 30-40 wooden stakes hammers, nails, flagging, and the site info. If we weren't in the mountains or jungle, we would be on a clear construction site with no shade in the hot summer, and no protection from the wind and rain in the winter.

Needless to say, I came home exhausted and I usually spent most of my free time recuperating so finding time to train was difficult.

That's kinda how I feel now. The workload is manageable, the training is manageable, but when you try to find time for both it becomes an enormous task. However, my training is something I consider to be very important and I have lost so much progress over the past winter I'm trying to hit training hard to get back to the peak of where I used to be.

I don't expect that what I'm trying to do will be easy by any stretch. Often when I get back from training, my entire body screams at me to stop, and still I try to get some training done the next day. I wake up after a gym day broken and sore from the previous days training. However, no matter how difficult it may be, I have no doubts as to if it is worth it.

For those that may be interested, here are some good examples of dedicated parkour training:

Demon's Drills
HIPK Conditioning

And for the results of dedicated training:

Cambridge Joy

Guess Who's Back

Oh man I am feeling good!

Well, besides the fact that I'm sore, exhausted, stressed, perpetually coughing, and sick with a brutal ear infection that makes chewing food unbearable. Aside from all that I feel awesome. Why? I am finally getting back to training and being active.

This winter has been quite a long one for me. Why, I'm not really sure. Perhaps it's because I'm in now way, shape, form, or fashion acclimated to the cold. However I think that it's because there was a sincere lack of physical activity (probably caused by my aversion to anything resembling chilly etc).

However two days ago I finally got around to getting my lazy butt outside and I went to train. To be honest it was less training and more lighthearted dicking around, but it was fun nonetheless.

I got outside and warmed up by taking a quick jog at varying speeds followed by a real short stretch (I despise stretching). I then played around by climbing the wall near the business center and jumping to the top of it. Afterward, I tried a few new tricks of the concrete stage nearby. I soon got bored with nothing else to try there so I leisurely walked around up towards the student center. I climbed to the top of an overhang to relax and ended up staying like 10 minutes.

Overall, it was a good day.

Reminisce

A little bit of reminiscence with the poetry I use to write:

If you've never seen the edge, don't speak
Just lean over, take a peek
No matter how much you think
Dont blink
Cause your breath'll be gone 'fore you know it
I try not to show it
so don't blow it for me
cause I'm starting to see
do you believe
in destiny
for me
I'm just carried, free
to do, to see
to remember, you and me
I'm crossing the line
Not marching in time
to the beat of the two-faced drum
The beat is mine
To witness water turned to wine
Take a toast to a Freedom
Yours and Mine



It's amazing thinking back. I wrote this in the 9th grade, I was probably fifteen. That was five whole years ago. Wow.

I've actually written a lot over the years. A large majority of it I read through a couple times and threw that crap out cause it was terrible. Some of it wasn't great but I decided to keep it anyway. Some of my writing I thought was good at the time, because it was important at the time, but I look back and just laugh at how sad it is. Then there are just a few like this one: those that I like just as much or more as I did when I wrote it.

Occasionally I read some of the pieces like this that I still like and it brings back the muse I once had. It inspires me to pursue another line of thought with my writing and I thonk that is something everyone could use every once in a while.

Doughnut [REVISED]

I gaze upon the luscious doughnut laying there in its box, beckoning me.
How soft and moist a perfect doughnut is the creature I affix into my gaze.
Though you, my doughnut, are only one of twelve, you are the only one for me,
until you have been devoured.

Your texture is soft and comforting,
And your taste is of fresh honey.
Your smell, enthralling,
And as I gaze upon you, a warmth comes over my soul.

Oh doughnut, why doust thine beauty tempt me so?
I am only a man, and therefore cannot understand
The desires of my selfish heart.
But I for one know, you will be eaten by no other.
For a quarrel will be had,
Nary a scoundrel try to steal away my prize.

When I lay up at night,
I oft’ think about what men shall remember in the times to come.
Would your form be as enticing after I have passed,
And dust rests upon my bones?
Would you give yourself to others when they beg and plead,
Or perhaps when they weep?

I fear, O doughnut, that our era
May fell the curtain abruptly.
And we shall depart each going our separate ways
To live on less in memory as time grows further on.

So just one morsel,
While we still exist in body
Your sustenance will not only suffice
But exceed.

Oh doughnut, a moment will come soon,
where you and I will become one in spirit.
Your ethereal form may vanish,
But your memory shall remain forever.

This image, Copyright of Time Magazine most certainly tells a grim story indeed. U.S. Marine, Sgt. John B. Doe selflessly and heroically gave his dignity for the good of his unit. What you see in the image (warning: graphic) are his final moments of ever being taken seriously.

It started at 0400 hours when Sgt. Doe slept in only to wake up to find his unit had gone on a 12 mile training run. In a frenzy, he chased after them, recklessly knocking over some of his squad mates’ equipment in the barracks. This was the start of what would become a very difficult day.

He approached the tail end of the unit about an hour later and filled in to rank, but the Lt. was not easily fooled. He had known all along that someone was slacking. However, he kept this information to himself and instead of berating Sgt. Doe, he just picked up the pace.

A mile later Sgt. Doe started getting sluggish, and tripped up the marine to his front, a quarrel broke out, and the Lt. settled it by making everyone do 300 press ups. The fatigue started hitting everyone hard. By the time they were done with all the press ups none of the soldiers could hardly breathe, but the Lt. pressed on even harder.

Staggering and weary the group finally made it back to base. Some of the soldiers thought they could rest, but they were mistaken. The Lt. immediately had them start doing partner squats till they couldn’t feel their legs. After that, the entire squad was subjected to an array of humiliating exercises designed to break their spirit and cause them to turn on one another.

A base camera caught some of these on tape:
Link
Link
Link

The soldier you see in that last video was none other than Sgt. Doe. After that ordeal he thought it was over, but the Lt. had other ideas. He was still perturbed at Lt. Doe making the other soldiers laugh so he devised one final challenge.

“Which one of you soldiers will volunteer to eat this scorpion? If no one steps up the entire squad will perform today’s training twice tomorrow. The person who volunteers will have to hold the scorpion in his mouth while giving me 100 press ups, and afterward he must chew and swallow.”

Doe, feeling guilty, volunteered. The details of the act are too gruesome to describe in words, but the picture is worth a thousand of them. His heroic actions means he will never be taken seriously again, but his honor will live on in the hearts and minds of those he served with.

Thank you for your sacrifice.

So I have been finding myself delving back into many of my old hobbies, most notably: music composition, and card magic. In the time that I'm not working on assignments or playing video games I find myself with nothing much to do, so I open my second drawer down to find an old pack of cards I'd left there for a rainy day. I open them up and pull out the 56 cards inside, discard the arbitrary cards and start to get a feel back for handling the deck. Each card still has a finish like it just came out of the box for the first time, and as I fan them out each card separates just as much as the one before it.

I start to run through all my basic techniques like my false shuffles, false cuts, jogs, breaks, and passes. I play around with all my sleights and flourishes and try to get back the feel for all the techniques I used to be able to perform flawlessly. Magic is both a science and an art. You must know the method for each move, but just knowing the method is never enough. You must also be able to use charisma and misdirection in subtle but powerful ways to guide your audience to the full effect of the trick.

As a musician I have 7 years of formal music training and I am capable of playing a variety of brass and percussion instruments, but obviously I don’t have a small band set up in my dorm, so all my music these days is done digitally on a program called FL Studio. This program allows me to control each step of the process with individual riffs on single instruments and combine them into rhythms, and then I can further add and subtract segments from my leads, basses, and drum kits to fit the style I’m going for. Furthermore, I can link my sounds to channels and set effects in those channels, so whenever I need a bass boost, or equalizer I can add one to the individual sound or group of sounds.

College has been interesting thus far, and I find it strange that in such new circumstances I start reverting back into some old habits and interests. I guess it could be a coping mechanism to the increased stress that is present in the new environment, but no matter what it is I am enjoying re-exploring these activities as if for the first time.