Jordan

I’ve been working on this one a while.
I am always looking for ways to be a wiser person. Although I have a basic understanding of many cultures all over the world, I decided that in order to be a more complete person, I should also have a deep understanding of one foreign culture.

The culture had to be:
- Very foreign (probably not Europe or the Americas, and not using the roman alphabet)
- Successful (because no country can be very successful with a bad culture)
- Accessible and welcoming to Americans (bonus points if the country was once a colony of or occupied by Britain or the U.S.)

This gave me a short list of Asian countries which included Russia, the Philippines, India, Japan, China, South Korea, etc.

I love video games and want a career in them. On my list, only South Korea and Japan have a large consumer base for video games. I finally decided on Japan because of other things, like anime, and because it’s much more popular here, so it would be easier for me to find things to study while still in the U.S.

Was way better than I expected! Definitely going this year as well.

I have a blog and I wrote about last PAX in it: http://playcreateconnect.blogspot.com/search/label/PAX

The entries might be extremely dated, or very interesting and current, depending on what time of year you find this entry. :P

Been listening to lots and lots and lots of coldplay. Also been enjoying Jack Johnson and the selection in Rock Band. I’d say I’m most of the way to saying I’ve done this, simply because my appreciation of music in general is beginning to reach something above and beyond; I’m noticing more intricacies and mathematical patterns in even the simplest music, and starting to hear individual instrument voices more readily. This helps a lot in finding something interesting in genres I usually regard poorly.

I totally forgot about this for a few months so I guess I need to give up on it.

On the plus side, I have a bunch of great all-purpose mug shots!

I used to go indoor rock-climbing every week… I guess I did it about 18-24 months. It was a really fun way to get exercise, and the heights never bothered me.

I only went outdoor climbing once. No one could tell at the time, but it set off some wierd phobia, and I was terrified out of my mind while I was doing it. I had so much adrenaline from the fear I was nauseous. The moral: If you’ve only tried indoor/outdoor, and didn’t like it, try the other one! You never know…

Anyway, I don’t do it anymore, but the practice sticks with you for the rest of your life. I’ve been able to climb on rocks and such for photo op’s when on vacation, and everyone else would have no idea how to do it. Rock-climbing regularly will permanently develop a sense of where to put your limbs, how to achieve the proper friction just so, and get to the top.

This is a very laudible and perhaps top-priority goal. Learning to swim is as important as learning how to cross the street or learning to stay away from bears; it could save your or someone else’s life!

Go learn! Now!

Note to self: CHeck out Explosions in the Sky… foreign band that sounds, of all things, original. Go figure.

I’ve been listening to a capella and rag (and not even good stuff) and way way way way more of the classical channel than usual. I need to find more new bands worth listening to.

I found a more universal way of putting this want such that people who frequent the site will be able to categorize it in their heads better. I haven’t given up on this, it’s just under a new name.

OK, so these “one picture a day” things are all over the internet like YouTube and what have you, since people are finally catching on to what you can do with basically unlimited, timeless photography and storage. I think it’s cool, but…

Every day? I did the math; no one wants to watch something that long over a lifetime. That video is just too long, and people would be nodding off by the end. That’s not a good way to try and be remembered.

Instead, one photo a week. I’ve been taking a photo every weekend (just about) for a few months, and I think it’ll work out better than this excessive “every day” business.

Now instead of noticing when I cut my hair, people will be able to see some serious progression of age, which will be way cooler.

I think it’s rising to the challenge, doing something very difficult, which benefits a person or persons in an intensely profound way. It’s not something you can do all the time, but fueled by opportunity.

Helping people and enriching their lives on a day-to-day basis is not being a hero, it’s being a decent person (and should be a higher priority than heroism).

Heroism is that one moment that endeavors to shatter the concept of the purely-self-serving organism and brings great personal cost or risk in order to fight impending calamity on others. It is sacrifice.

I did one better than flint & steel, I got a high-tech firestarting kit which involves shaving off bits of magnesium and setting them alight with the most amazing sparking rod. I got a compass and a sewing kit at the same time to complete my emergency in-car gear (my first aid kit from hyundai came with a sewing kit but it was pretty pathetic – good first-aid kit though).

Blogs are only worth reading if they’re about something. You can get away with a personal journal only if you have some ridiculously unique situation vs. most internet-savvy folks (e.g. living in a war-torn nation).

I have a great interest in game design so I write about games: http://playcreateconnect.blogspot.com
I’m also using blogger beta but I pretty much use standard blogger features, and don’t post any images, which I should really get to doing. Also, about 1/4 of the posts are more about myself than about video games, and I’m in a long and drawn-out personal conflict over wether or not I should delete them.

So remember: find an interest or something you have a unique position or knowledge in, and write about that… that’s what a stranger might care about!

I’ve been using an alarm clock lately and it’s led to some pretty severe sleep deprivation; I never go to bed early enough and I always wake up in a stupor an hour before the alarm goes off, but too tired to get up until 10 minutes after it does. Compare this to my usual feeling of being wide awake as soon as I wake up.

I’m going to give it another 2 weeks or so, but so far this is looking like not worth it.

Hit-and-miss. Tended to get it right on more personal notes but not on social ones. 11 wrong, 3 right, 1 sort-of, and 1 “fortune cooke right” (e.g. “You don’t like being punched in the face.”).

Overall it was broad enough that I would expect it to be a little more accurate. The thing is, I’m pretty sure my color selections would be almost identical in order if I took this test a few years ago, when 100% of it would have been wrong.

But, it’s more accurate than all those other online tests that operate on intuition rather than empirical statistics.

What a nightmare. I got a job at a fast-food place and it was absolutely terrible. Were I to try and decribe the physical and psychological stress of the job, you would think it meaningless hyperbole. How’s this, as evidence of their turnover: oon those little sheets of paper that fast food places put on their trays, they state at the bottom that they’re always hiring; specifically, seniors, mothers, and students. When that’s on a permanent print ad you give to every customer, that is a bad job. I probably wouldn’t have applied if I’d seen it.

Oh well, there’s other coral reefs in the sea but… once bitten, twice shy. It’ll take a little time to want cash badly enough to look for another one.

At least I can take some shallow pride in the uncommon status of having listed this as not worth it.

Took my first step – I like about 3 songs from OK Go!, so I went and bought both their albums (2 are on one, 1 on the other). I’ll be forcing myself to listen to the songs I don’t like and just sort of wade around in amicable waters and see if I can make good on this goal.

I’ve been Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and title in Cymbeline (not as well known, but it’s Shakespeare, honest), both in an odd sort of school-independent teen drama club. I’ve also been a stage hand in a professional production. I was specially set up to go on stage first on our groups first production and give a monologue; I was expecting stage fright but it was just a rush.

I would never do it again, all the lines and/or dealing with people… let me tell you, theatre people are NOT my kind of people. I had a lot of trouble staying shut up so no one would be mad at me.

That said, it WAS a valuable learning experience and I would much rather have the experience than not. Anyone who has this goal should make steps to go for it.

I was never any good at it, so re-learning was easy. I’m not taking lessons and I mostly just play for personal enrichment; the difference is between whittling on your back porch and taking a class in woodworking.

It’s fun and it lets me explore the arts, about which I’m a notorious philistine – the stereotypical scientist, so to speak.

Integrity is consistency of doing what’s right. It’s admitting that to be good, you must do good all the time, not just when you see an open opportunity for charity. Integrity is about following your morals at all times, not to make up for times you allow yourself evil.

That established, I like to think that integrity is a defining characteristic of mine. It’s gotten me ostracized sometimes, it’s denied me some opporunity for personal gain in others, but those are the exception, not the rule.

I have never once regretted living with integrity.

You need to get real lessons so you have proper form and put on your arm guard properly and such, otherwise you can hurt yourself.

This is something I did for a year or two and it was fun; I haven’t done it in a long time but I don’t regret having done it. This doesn’t have to be a big deal; snoop around and you can probably find classes where you don’t need to buy anything. I myself never owned a bow and had a blast at weekly group lessons with one borrowed off the rack.