The Rain Is Gone

Despite not having a particularly regular schedule, I've managed to fit a fair amount of exercise into my schedule here at college (not as much as when I was on a team in high school, but certainly more than this summer when I was unbelievably lazy). I've even flirted with thoughts of a "comeback" to road races and maybe even the track team in '09. At this rate though, that'll never happen because things keep coming up to prevent me from taking my training seriously.

The first is a classic: not enough time. Between classes, homework, trying to have a life, and the meager extracurriculars I've found, it's very hard to justify spending a lot of time on working out instead of hanging out. This is basically the problem I had last year. Wanting to be happy (that is to say superficially happy, the kind where you spend times with friends, laugh, etc) and running well are mutually exclusive (at least for me). Who would spend hours every day running, lifting, and suffering when they could be having fun?

Early this semester, which is to say during and right after orientation, my exercise featured yoga more than running because it was supposed to be geared towards rock climbing. At the time I was getting used to the idea of my running career being over (that feeling has since left) and was turning my attentions to outdoorsmanship, which I figured was more sustainable later in life (if I ever get old, which I don't plan on doing, I want to be one of those really tough guys who can still climb and backpack and shit). Frustration at my lack of climbing skill or conditioning, plus no stimulus from the outing club has moved climbing to the back burner.

After a week or two of good running, we get here. At this moment, I ought to be running but I really don't want to. This is partly due to the fact that today is simply a lazy day. More importantly though, I've fallen into the trap of fun sports. I've joined the cricket club (worth a post sometime in the future) and an IM soccer team. For those of you who don't know, intramural (or IM) sports are for people who aren't good at sports, like yours truly. But I take stuff, especially sports, seriously all the time. Plus, the team if my hall, which I'm feverishly loyal to. The end result; I practice for IM soccer almost everyday, as long as I can find someone to kick balls at my head. See, I'm goalkeeping for my team, something that I was very good at in 1st grade or so. Now, not so much. Anyways, even though I get pretty beat up in the process, soccer is way more fun than running (and accordingly way less helpful for my fitness), so I keep trying to justify not running with playing soccer. By the time soccer season is over, winter will be fast approaching and with it limited running opportunities and broomball (count on that taking tons of my time and energy).

You've now reached the end of this post. What you probably realize is that it lacks a point, a conclusion, or even a series of lyrics slipped in. I hope it at least has been pleasantly diverting, and left you hungrily anticipating future posts about goalkeeping, cricket, and broomball. Failing at that, at least your appreciation for decent prose has been increased.

Apparently, Prostitution Hasn't Been The Same Since '76

I like to think that, beneath my mean and cynical exterior, I'm a fairly nice person. Wait...my do I always use these stupid lead-in lines? Fuck that.

Ahem. I went to give blood today. My (mild?) desire to help other people always manages to overcome my hypochondria* when it comes to blood drives (imagine a hypochondriac walking around knowing full well that they're missing a pint of blood...not pretty). Plus, I feel obligated to donate given that my blood type is O-neg. More than that, I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real (saving lives). Some people get lucky that way and don't have to worry about donating because no one else can except their blood (here I'm thinking of Vulcans living on Earth and Mike Shinoda**). Anyways, I was pretty excited about pretending to be a hero and getting an excuse to lie around all day. And on a totally random note, I just turned down free caramel apples that were in the same building, which I now regret very badly...maybe I can get one before my next class...

Right. So I wait around for a while, read all sorts of stuff about HIV and how I might get nerve or artery damage (!?!), then finally walk into the donation room and sit down with a nurse. Within ten seconds I walking back out because I'm sick today, and apparently sick people (even one with just little colds) shouldn't give blood. I guess that makes me one step closer to being Mike...

I'm glad no one I knew was around, 'cuz it's pretty sketchy to get obviously rejected from a blood drive. I know there's all sorts of legitimate, honest reasons like travel, gay sex (not kidding), or (duh) having a cold. But who assumes any of those? You see someone get turned down by the Red Cross and of course the first thing in your mind is "unprotected sex", not 'oh, I bet he spend a summer in Mexico building houses for orphans with AIDS.

*the reason it's so easy is that my hypochondria doesn't set in until after I make an appointment, at which point I can tell myself "there's no turning back now"

**his blood type in Krylon Technicolor, Type A

P.S.- I know I said I was going to post daily, and then failed after the very first post. I don;t know how I got this way, but I promise that I'm breaking the habit tonight

They Don't Call Them "Daughter Salutations"

So I've been 'trollin' round the blogosphere lately, via The Rising Blogger and realized there really is a breed of ligitimate bloggers with ligitimate readerships. Hm, but self deprecation can wait. More importantly (well, maybe not, but that's an easy segway) I saw how many people post every day (or very nearly). I want to become one of those people (obviously sans the large number of subscribers) because I figure if you can find something in your life to blog about every day, then either you lead a really interesting life (which would fit well with my 'carpe diem' ambitions) or you have the kind of thoughtful outlook that lets you write intelligently (and hopefully interestingly) about fairly inane things. So here goes; day one (strictly speaking, this happened yesterday and I started writing it last night, so today is really day two).

I'm trying to figure out what it means to be the only straight guy in my yoga class. I mean, I knew it was going to be a group largely attracted to men, but the reality is far more striking. Maybe that sounds a little homophobic. It's not that I mind being in a room full (not full, the vast majority of people in this class are girls) of gay guys, it just makes me wonder about where I fit into all this. (No, I'm not unsure of my sexuality). See, I am a little homophobic insofar as masculinity is really important to me. I don't care if people think I like men (or if you happen to like men), but being a flaming "queen" would disgust me. I personally don't see this as my disliking gay people, just emasculate men (and I stand by disliking a group of people based on their personality traits).

Anyways, more to point, I wonder if I've managed to find a middle ground between 'rooted, tough, East-coast athlete type' and 'metro, Starbucks sipping, California yuppie type'. I find Eastern religion and philosophy fascinating, so I really hope I can explore that without wearing a beret or knowing the distinction between mocha lattes and cappachino Dr. Pepper (23 flavors and no room for cappachino?).

What? I should just be myself? Fuck you. That attitude is a ridiculous oversimplification. Any serious interest comes with a culture, a whole ideology held by people with the same interest (though not necessarily related to the interest itself). So to say "just be yourself, like yoga and football at the same time" ignores the fact that serious interest in yoga (or Eastern religion as a whole) will inevitably expose me to the Starbucks/beret-wearing culture (no I don't think Buddhist monks drink Starbucks, Eastern philosophy in the West has its own culture). The yoga ideology will conflict with other various ideologies I've gotten myself it (running, Star Trek, etc) and reconciling all of them will require more thought and effort than simply, magically "being myself".

Ok, that was off-topic and kind of angry. The point is I brought my hands to "Namas-te" and realized "holy shit, I'm the only straight guy in this room". But I still went back to my dorm, talked sports, and drooled over racing flats. Did anyone realize there's berets in my closet?

Remarks In Closing

The number 1 fear: suffocation

The neurosis: hypochondria

The condition: exercise-induced asthma (imagined?)

(the reasons I flaked on my last set of lunges today)

Starvation

For some reason I haven't found anything to blog about lately, so to fill space here I'm going to take a random picture and talk about it (I've become enamored with pictures on my blog and now I wish I had a camera with which to better document my life).



This is the beautiful scene in my right periphery (I'm watching football instead of doing work, in which case I'd be staring at this wall more directly). On the far left is a map of campus I put up during orientation. Within my first couple weeks here I got lost in basically every building I walked into, which was exceedingly embarrassing. Plus I naturally had no idea where any buildings were, hence the map. For some reason, my college is terrible about putting labels on any building making it even harder to find them. And they're old, so the dance/asian languages buildings still has "Geology" and "Life Sciences" engraved on it. The whole getting lost thing is not helped by our science building, which is literally built like a maze with no perceivable numbering system. Yes, that's where the psychology department is.

The thing next to the map is a random wooden-bowl-hangy-thing I bought in Tobago. I use it to hold the remote for my alarm clock. Yes, my alarm has a remote. Yes, that's as bad an idea as it sounds.

Obviously there's a Canadian flag there too. Lots of people hang flags of their native country in their dorm rooms. However, Canada is not my native country. I just put the flag up to show my lack of US nationalism. If anyone starts a political debate in the comments, I'll smack them.

Note the fire alarm. It is the loudest fire alarm ever. The ridiculous volume and strobe light flashes make fire drills feel like acid trips. I think anyone who burns popcorn will get lynched. See, we had a fire drill the other day and people were pissed about the excessive loudness of it. It's a wonder no one has actually set it off with popcorn yet, given that someone makes it almost every night (I know because the smell of food travels almost instantaneously through all four floors of my dorm).

Random anecdote: I went to this big dance party last night and got frisked by security on my way in. Ligit frisked! I mean, what the hell? Are people bringin' their 9's to college dances now? The more likely explanation is security is made up entirely of douchebags.

Heart Of Gold

Everyone knows that adventures are fun, and therefore make good blog posts. But how does one get into adventures? (other than hanging out with dwarves- I swear someone is whistling the Shire theme right now!). It's fairly simple, just set your mind on something fairly inane, like Talk Like A Pirate Day. One of my neighbors is pretty obsessed with pirates (why? we don't know) and is very excited about tomorrow. But, in typical girl-with-a-problem fashion, she has nothing to wear. Since I had next to no work tonight, I decided to find some appropriate pirate attire for her. Of course, I forgot about the Aucum/Murphy law of JV trying to do stuff: the simplest solution never works out. Hence the adventure.

First was googling the local area for costume shops and anything involving pirates. There were two hits within free-transit range: a chain party store that closed too early and the "Gypsy's Heart Boutique". I called the gypsy place and got, well, a gypsy, who told me she had gone out of business. She couldnt get anything pirate related quick enough, but ws extremely friendly and called me back, telling me of a store where I could get something. Unfortunately, this place was well out of free transit ranger, and would've required me to beg my RC to drive me there. That plan was abandoned and things looked grim. Then, a breakthrough! I remembered this cool little store in the next town over and, against all hope called to see if they stocked any pirate clothes. But, alas, my hopes were dashed; all they had was eyepatches, certainly not enough for Talk Like A Pirate Day. Another twist: the people who work at this store are extremely cool and celebrate the niche holiday themselves, and so could direct me to pirate gear. My spirits buoyed, I borrowed someone's bike and risked my life in a harrowing ride down a busy street to the nearest Walmart (a sin, I know, but the only place I could turn). I wandered forever through the vast, obese expanses of Walmart before finaly coming to the pirate section. Much to my dismay, they had no legit pirate hats, so I had to settle for an eyepatch and bandana. Tieing my booty to the borrowed bike and switching on my light (yeah, I was riding down a busy road, with no helmet, in the dark...but it was worth it) and peddled back to my dorm.

The end result is quite hilarious (a lot of "what are you wearing?!"). Here's a picture of said neighbor, sporting new pirate gear.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Ekhein

As of tomorrow Epoch and I will have been together for a week. This may not seem like a lot to you, but for a fish that's half the size of your thumb it's a pretty big deal. If he can make it another few days, he'll get a bigger tank. We (myself and my hallmates who also got fish) have sadly had to adopt that kind of pessimistic language because 1) they're very small, 2) we don't really know how to take care of them, and 3) we got them in a mass free giveaway with no food. Our lack of hope is well founded, as oe of Epoch's compatriots died yesterday. Hopefully I can get a picture of the "tombstone" that was erected where he got flushed.

But life isn't all bad for little Epoch. Last weekend I made the trek to the mall and returned with supplies and advice for him. Most notably was te filter I got for him (my roommate keeps asking me if I regret buying a $16 filter for a free fish yet). Even it was the smallest they had, it's still grossly oversized for my little tank, not to mention grossly overpowered for Epoch (it nearly sucked him up when I first turned it on).

Because I know you're all dieing to see them, here are so more pictures of my new pet. Note the unnecessarily large water filter. (and I apologize for the picture quality, the only thing I have that takes pictures is my laptop, which doesn't lend itself to quality shots).





Hopefully my next expidition to the pet store will yield a suitably bloggable story...