The Other Dentist

Hey everybody, happy Friday. I'm back after not having written for a while.

It's been a rough week. I haven't been able to get myself into any one strong schedule, and so most everything has suffered a bit. UBSCT sleeping in was great the first day, but it just threw me off the next two.

I really strive on schedules. When things are constant, life is good. I think I've said it before, but changing breakfast cereals is always rough on my blood sugar levels. If I mess up breakfast, lunch is trouble, and if lunch is trouble, it's always a lot harder to make the rest of the day go well. When I can nail breakfast, everything else has a tendency to fall into place. Of course, nailing breakfast is in large part dependent upon how I did when I went to bed the night before. Everything is very connected, and when I'm in a schedule I can predict and react more accurately.

So the schedule has been off, and that's been messing with me a bit. School was harder for me this week than it has been in a very long time. I'm two and a half calculus assignments behind. Part of that is 55 minute class periods' fault, part of it is my own laziness, and another part is external factors. Regardless of the reasons though, being behind in calculus is trouble. Getting caught back up will require a marathon of epic proportions. I will make it happen, but I don't know, I don't like not getting it. I understand the principles, but there are just so many little things that trip me up. Sometimes I don't even know where to start. I really really want to natively understand calculus. I want it to be pure and entirely clean to me, but it just isn't happening. I don't get it the way I wish I did. I'll need to do a lot of work in order to make that happen. I know I can do it, I'm just worried that it won't happen soon enough or that it'll run into something or other that'll make it so I never do it. I don't want that to happen.

English has been crazy. I've let myself get personally involved in the class. Some classes that's alright in. In Chemistry last year, I had to become personally involved or I'd have withered and died. I had to invest myself in that class and make it part of me in order to succeed. I think, in a way, that's what I have to do with all of my classes, at least a bit. I need to care about it enough to do excellent work for no reason other than to do excellent work. That doesn't happen in all of my classes.

In English I'm personally involved, but it's the wrong kind of involvement. I'm not really invested in the class at all right now. I don't look at it as an opportunity to learn like I ought to. Right now it's just somewhere I go. My friends are there, and we have a good time. I do love fab vocab. It just feels like I'm constantly butting heads with the teacher though. I know we can laugh and get along and make jokes, but sometimes I just feel like it's a fight. My Hamlet essay was a tragedy because I got too involved. I took it as a personal battle, and I totally defeated myself. I tried to write it without any of my own voice in it. Part of that was a bitter response to the little sit down I had with the teacher. Bitter responses never make for high quality writing. There's a lot of work that's constantly due in that class, and it's just sort of dragging on me. I really enjoy the people in the class, and I find joy in some of the work. I just feel like it's a bit excessive.

So school's been a little crazy. I got my computer tech business sorted out. I am taking it through community ed now. I've got the book, and I'm doing the work out of it. I need to finish 'reading' it and answering the questions, and then I need to create three projects on the computer. Then I turn them in and I'm done. The book is copyrighted 1985, which is incredibly cool. "Internet" isn't in the index. 20 megabyte disks are huge. It's hilarious to see how things were back in the day. I'm a little more than halfway through the book. I'm really excited to read the chapters about the future of the computer, just to see how accurately they predicted. It's interesting, that's for sure. I'm happy to be nearly done with it. Once I get it taken care of, I'll be in line to graduate. I haven't been in line since sophomore year. It's a pretty great deal.

I've been unhappier this week than I usually am. There are a lot of factors that play into this. I haven't accomplished a lot of the things that I wanted to this week. I'm behind with homework, and I missed a few deadlines. I've been less healthy this week. My diet hasn't been all that great, and my bloodsugar has averaged about 30 points higher than I want it to. I haven't been sleeping great. I've been between the old schedule and the new schedule. I think either schedule would work, but inbetween isn't quite doing it for me.

I'm not unhappy right now. I've still been pretty happy this week. It's just important to note that this week has seen more unhappiness than most other weeks. It's been interesting.

So, naturally, I've been thinking about cause and effect. Why are things not as good for me this week? I listed a lot of the reasons above. I think it all stems from the fact that I haven't worked as hard this week. I've been lazy. And because I've been lazy, I haven't done a great job taking care of myself.

So, solution: be less lazy. Take better care of myself. Drink more water, eat healthier. Sleep better. Do more work. Think more. Utilize time wisely. Be kinder.

I've thought a lot about the way I want to be. You all saw my great excitement about the new plan. The idea that I'd get to bed by midnight was really appealing. I've been looking for a change for a while now.

Two weeks into this new program, and I haven't succeeded once. I still think it's a great idea, and I still want to work for it. But I think that, perhaps, it's more important that I work on some other things first, to build to it.

I want to start working out again. That's one thing that I haven't been doing at all for the past several months. Workout has always served to make me feel better about myself from every single angle. Working out has provided me with incredible results time and time again. It makes me a happier and more effective person. I haven't done any of it for a really long time. I feel like I need to start reaping those benefits again. I want the added energy I get, and I want the added ability and happiness.

Step one is going to be to start working out more. I don't intend to start all that fast, but it'd be glorious to get out for a jog this next week. I'll do more stretching and a tiny bit of work before bed. I've got a bit of a plan, and I'm going to go for it.

I also want to start writing and thinking more. Blogaday was good because it made me think. I always feel accomplished when I write. Just like working out, I feel like it adds to my ability and helps me be happier. It's a two for one deal.

Particularly with the writing, I want to start talking more about ideas. I tried a long time ago to do an idea-a-day. It was sorta like blogaday, except instead of a post a day, I'd write about an idea I had a day. Sometimes I had an idea from before, and other times I'd create the idea for the post that day. Some were business models, others were design ideas or products or etc. etc. But I want to start thinking more about that stuff. And I think one of the best ways to do that is to write about it. When I have an idea I think it'd be cool to come here and flesh it out a bit.

Most of the ideas that I'll write about won't really be good ideas. I recognize that, and even celebrate it a bit. The goal here is not to write great ideas, but rather to explore and learn a bit. I'll take crap for them, but I don't want anybody to assume that I think they're incredibly ideas. They're just ideas, and I'm going to start writing about them. Hooray!

So that's what I've been looking at lately. I've got a ton of work that I need to get done. Having a lot on your plate is incredibly cliche', but it's the way things are right now. I think the key for me is going to be remembering what's important. If I'm going to not get something done, I want to make sure that whatever it is that suffers isn't the important stuff. There are certain things that I'm willing to let slide. I'll let calculus assignments slide, because I know they're not the most important things. There are other things, though, and I'm not willing to give up. Things that I'll fight for.

High school has always been something that I've fought for. It's been really important to me. I think the work that I've put in has paid off, no questions. I'm coming to a point in my life where high school isn't always the most important thing though. I'm not saying that I'm about to stop doing homework in favor of something else, but I'm saying that I want to really do what I've got to do. There are things that are important, and I'm going to keep those things my primary concern. I need to work on keeping the big things big and the little things little.

I just feel like it's time to go back to the basics. Like it's time to focus on being instead of doing for a bit. I want to be a better person, obviously, so I want to take steps to make that happen. I feel like working out and writing more are going to help that to happen. At the end of the day I want to go to bed happy about the progress I've made that day. And I want that progress to come from calculus and english and working out and writing. I want it to come from all over the place. But the most important thing is that I want it to come, and that I'm going to take steps to make it happen. It's a process, obviously. But hey, while I'm living, I might as well do something with myself, right?

So here I am. Friday night. Pretty late. Legs are sore, not sure why. Pretty tired, and really looking forward to the time I've got to sleep. Tomorrow ought to be a good day. I'm going to try to make it the best that I can. But for now friends, I depart from hence. Thanks for listening, I do appreciate it.