terrible study techniques, volume eight

Today's topic, class, is cramming.

...there's no one in this room.  I'll still go on.

I had a schedule conflict last night, so I wasn't able to make it to class.  Instead, I was playing a show, singing (ok, screaming) in the band Maus.  The black belt class being the highlight of my week, I was a little disappointed, but getting to play a show is a ton of fun and only happens every month or two.  

Right before we played, I was thinking about what I put into the  black belt and I Ho Chaun classes: two hours of pure sweat, focus and intensity.  So I decided I was going to take that work, especially the intensity, and cram it into the next 15-20 minutes of music.  I wanted to try and be as exhausted and sweaty as I was every Friday night.  It worked.  My roomate's girlfriend called me 'crazy eyes' because of my high level of intensity.  After just one set of 5 songs all I wanted to do was sit down.

This made me think about every technique or form I do.  A rep of Kempo, for instance, is the culmination of my eight years of training.  I don't know how many times I've done that form, but it's a lot.  Add all the time of fine tuning certain parts of the form and I've spent a pretty decent chunk of my life practicing this form.  All that is in the background for every rep, but I want to bring it up--cram all those years of practice into the next rep so I'm mindful of what I'm capable of.

Independent of this I've also been messing around with what I like to call 'flash meditation'.  Master Brinker recommended to a class a while back to take a deep breath while saying "I'm breathing in" and then exhale with "I'm breathing out".  That would bring us into the moment of whatever we were doing to appreciate it better.  It's a great technique--what I've been trying is just taking five breaths while trying to zone out for just a second.  Anytime I need to focus or really appreciate what I'm doing, I try to do 10 minutes of meditation in five breaths.  It's pretty neat.

So think about what's behind all your practice, or even outside actions, and start cramming.

being positive is all a matter of charges

I went skiing this weekend in Jasper, got home about two hours ago.  I'm very tired.  I didn't sleep well last night, I spent a full day on the slopes then was in a car for four hours.  My bed is two feet away from where I'm writing this, and it looks very inviting.  All that's left is 50 pushups and situps to finish my daily total.

I usually do this part of my UBBT no problem, even after much more exhausting days, but pushups are the last thing I want to do right now.  Maybe it's the thought of going back to school after a week off or the fact that I was using muscles in a different way this weekend, I'm just completely drained.  But I'm not going to skip them, despite how (unjustifiably) bad of an attitude I have right now.  Because I know that the minute these take to do will pass no matter what.  And I'd rather spend a minute making myself a better person than an extra one in bed.

Figure that's a good way to start the week.   

just let me find my face and we can continue the interview

I've been house-sitting for my parents for reading week, it's just been myself and our pets. I've been semi-productive.

I almost burst the pipes when I forgot to turn on the furnace before I left saturday morning.

Spent an hour or two talking to a pattern matching chat program: basically a computer program that is made to try and pass as human. I wasn't convinced, but it was fun trying to teach it the relationships between various words.

I also watched some tv. Now, I do watch the office at my house, but other than that I avoid it. It's horrifically boring. But I've had a few shows on here and there, mostly out of novelty. What I've found most interesting are the commercials.

I haven't actually paid attention to any sort of advertising in a long time and I'm struck by how irritating it all is. First, the sexism is blatant--so many commercials rely on 'woman love shoes! shoooooes!', sometimes to sell a product not even aimed at women (for instance, I just watched an insurance commercial that was going on about the husband working for his family, while the wife stayed at home and passively worried about the insurance payments). Mostly, though, they're just dumb. Unfunny, unoriginal dregs that shriek that we need to consume more. I'm not okay with someone yelling into my ear for twelve minutes of every half-hour to buy more junk in order to make myself happy.

Plus, out of train wreck curiosity, I watched a reality program called 'Paris Hilton's My New BFF', where a bunch of girls (and two guys) competed to become Paris Hilton's new best friend, basically by doing whatever she told them to do. The whole thing was such a consumerist, celebrity obsessive orgy that I had to do extra pushups just to calm myself down.

tv is the worst. Reboot did just come on, which is pretty awesome.

i is third

I am an example.

Sometimes I make bad desicions--I waste time on wikipedia instead of working, I don't put all I have into a practice session. I wear t-shirts with offensive band names on them. Sometimes I have bad days. Most times I have good ones.

When I first thought of myself as an example, I saw eyes everywhere. What if someone saw that? What kind of example does that make me? I beat myself up for being human until I decided to start seeing my examples as human too. Then I relaxed, was who I was, who I am. Decided that only showing people a part of my life as an example wasn't a very good example. That even on my bad days I can maybe still inspire someone. If so and so slacks off, well, I shouldn't feel so bad. But then he or she snaps out of it and keeps going. If my examples are human but still do what they do, and if I can show people the same quality, isn't that so much better?

i is second

I am a student.

I walked into the library once, not sure what I was looking for, so I just wandered around. The stacks seem endless if you look at them right. Rows of information, of thought. Some of the spines were too cracked to read the title, I didn't really mind. It was still there.

I stopped looking at the books, running my fingers over the covers instead. Rough canvas mixed with the inviting touch of worn leather. The presence of knowledge, thousands of voices talking to themselves.

I got to a section of phd dissertations, started looking again. Some had been turned into books, but not these. Most them were collecting dust. Each person had spent years working on it, pouring all they had into a few hundred pages of them. Each was only occasionally checked out by another academic. But it wasn't about who was reading, rather who wrote.

I waited until everyone else had gone home for the night. I pushed the couches against the door, blocking the world out and giving me space to practice. I settled down with the first thesis and never left.

flattened snakes and a cop in my bedroom, with empire hovering at the edges of my vision

Anyone remeber the movie 'Hackers'? It's on right now--I'd forgotten that, in the 90s, screenwriters seemed to think that computers could do anything. Plus, so much rollerblading and neon.
...hack the planet.

I'm been thinking about empathy a lot, mostly what it's good for. What I think is that a deliberate lack of empathy is a cultural force today that is making the world a worse place--if not the cornerstone of the explotitive capitalism we operate on.

Our economic and political actions are guided by our cultural choices and attitudes--and a part of culture is what's considered normal. Many people latch onto the little everday deviations from the status quo: different forms of eating or sexuality, different kinds of music or clothing, of politics and thinking. By dimissing these things as weird, by mocking them even while professing acceptance, we create a rigid, narrow notion of what it means to be in our society. This happens all the time--what you may think is a harmless gay joke is pushing people outside of society.

This lack of empathy is the root of our problems. A combination of relentless social enforcement and apathy about what really matters. The only way we can go to war or exploit third world workers is if their way of life is unacceptable to us, and that begins at home.

So how do we gain empathy? There are two kinds--the everyday social intution, reading people and such. I'm bad at that kind, but that just makes me awkward. What I'm talking about is the in kind found in other people's shoes. Our culture is expanding, different kind of lifestyles are popping up every day. So next time you see someone not taking the beaten track, instead of just calling them weird, think about why they are living like that. The answer could be surprising, and maybe you'll be struck with the urge to dip your feet outside the maintstream.

readily ignored for the good of humanity (i are first)

The I am project is a part of the UBBT in which I need to somehow talk about how 57 adjectives apply to me.  I'll be posting all of these in addition to my regular postings.  I'm gong to warn you all, while my blog is about communication, these will be more along the lines of expression.  In other words, forget all of you in the nicest way possible, I'm writing whatever pops up.  

So yeah, nothing else to do but do. 

I am exuberant.

I'll inhabit a wasted day with nothing wasted, chasing imagination through the pain in my knuckles.  Just keep telling myself tomorrow is an illusion, until one day I can forget what hasn't happened long enough to make something happen now.  Keep going, keep going, the pain grows, I can't take but take it and then there is the one glorious second when my passion outstrips my body and I'm invincible.  I collapse, thinking of old movies from the 70s and hope one day to fly--leaping off the roof long enough to forget the ground. 

a funny thing happened on the way to the store

Who says charity can't be fun?

Benefit show for the Silent River Benevolent Foundation--the community building arm of Silent River Kung Fu (ok, technically it's a separate organization).  That's the back of my head on the right, responsibly wearing earplugs.  The singer of a band called High Jinks is somewhere under that group.  Photo by Andrea Janzen.

Doesn't my friend on the left look like a jaguar hood ornament?  Oh, and he doesn't have jaundice.  We think his neck is just the lighting. 

Putting this on was a lot of fun, raising 1200 dollars in a night wasn't too shabby either.  Entertainment for chairty is the way to go for fundraising, in my opinion.  People would have come anyways, they also helped out.  After the show someone told me that it felt good to have fun in support of something.  

I've added the I am project to my list of requirements, so I guess I'll start that tonight.  I'm going to go work on some logic first.