Pre-Med Students, Again

While I'm raging at people for minor personality quirks, let me get this out of the way. Pre-Med students were one of my very first posts, back when the blog was host to a litany of complaints, instead of the paragon of personal integrity is it now.... (sarcasm).

Pre-Med students isn't used here as a category label - that is, not all pre-med students are like this (I HOPE!) and not all people who are like this are pre-med students. Rather, it's a state of mind that so many of them fall into. I should go back to what I used to call it in high school: point-grubber.

Please tell me this drives you crazy, too: "Will this be on the test?" "Which part of this will be on the test?" "Will this be multiple-choice, on the test?" "What will the other choices be, on the test?"

Ugh, killer. Hey guys, I'm a big supporter of utilizing minimal work to obtain maximal result, but these people expect not just perfect results from zero work, but they feel entitled to have others do that work for them? Not to mention that this is no way to learn a subject, and I think we both know it. If a slacker like myself or Xian doesn't study the material, at least we don't expect to get A's. People like this expect to not have to study it and will fight for every point that they got marked down, as if it were the teacher's fault that they didn't get 100%.

I'm going to teach those idiots one of these days. I'm not even cut out for teaching, but I may do it. Sign up to teach a course, then put it right there on the syllabus: "YES, everything will be on the test, and the first person who asks that question or argues for more points on an exam will receive a ZERO". Someone's got to teach those morons that real life does not work like that, and people do not appreciate your butt-licking, point-grubbing, money-hungry attitudes.

I'm only especially mad about it right now because it appears that Berkeley does not require a dissertation defense. Now, there are two bad sides of getting a doctorate:

1) Your advisor has final, absolute power over your life. If he feels like stopping you from graduating, he can put a stop to you, officially making a waste of your last 'X' years of life and work.

2) It's viewed as a club or a fraternity, where you receive your hazing, then propagate that kind of elitist behavior.

Those are semi-bad things, but now that Berkeley's done away with them, there are MUCH more serious problems that have arisen, namely, everyone's graduating with PhD's despite having often less than master's credentials.

Let me educate you. The whole point of the doctorate isn't 'ingenious, contributing research', or to be an elitist snob in an ivory tower. The main point (at least in my opinion) is the ability to:

1) be thoroughly knowledgeable in a specific area,

2) conceive of original research,

3) execute independently, and

4) defend your research before a board of your (extremely judgmental) peers.

Harder than you might think. And none of these people appear to be capable of any of those steps. Their 'advisors' are just using them for cheap labor to further their own ideas, and they haven't learned how to do any of those four basic things. You can't just go by the word 'PhD' anymore. How on earth can I separate the real from the useless?

I'm pretty disillusioned. My new co-worker just proceeded with this series of nonsense:

Q: "So, what will I be doing?"

A: "...research. Coding, mostly."

Q: "Oh, and how would I do that?"

A: ".... How about you do this project, to get your feet wet. Insert this functionality into this code."

Q: "Where in the code would it go?"

A: "..... Around here somewhere."

Q: "Ok. What would I type in?"

A: "For real, man?"

Maybe it wasn't that bad, but come on. Really? Did you deserve a PhD?

Today: Closet Culling

Debriefing from Have Fun: Well it's harder to have fun when you're losing, and we lost 3 straight before most of the team disbanded to do (hopefully more fun) other things. I tried to keep spirits up, in a Be Cheerful kind of way, but it was a tough night on the Fields of Justice. Until we split up, that is. More on that in another post.

Today I'm going to Assess My Closet.

Just like Reviewing My Finances, it's high time we took a look at the sorry state of things. A ... Closet State-of-the-Union Address. Because this morning, I stood there thinking: everything that isn't in the laundry bin right now is basically unacceptable.

So the plan is, to spend at least some time this weekend, actually purchasing acceptable clothes. A heavy chore for me. I HATE shopping. But it must be done. I can't continue to go to work at this level of style-fail. (I suppose, for those of you who have the opposite problem resolve to organize your closets, find clothes that you haven't worn in a while, and cycle them to the forefront, then this weekend resolve to NOT purchase more clothes.)

First things first, I need to spend today removing the biggest offenders from my closet into the donate bin. Then I will determine what, exactly, I need to buy new, thereby creating a plan to efficiently purchase what I need from a single store, and get back out and back to video games.

LoL: Soraka Files 3

My friend Lin was too stressed to sleep. He gets too into his games, generally speaking. So I suggested he play Soraka - in my opinion, the most relaxing way to play LoL. Let me lay out the argument:

1) See Soraka Files 1, Soraka Is Not A Carry argument.

1a) the corollary, Soraka is Nothing But A Backpack.

You've done your job to the best of your ability if your cooldown rates are maxed, and everything's always on cooldown. That's it. It's that simple. You heal as much as possible, you refill mana / silence as much as is humanly possible. You can rest easy, confident in the knowledge that you've done everything you could to help the team, you haven't fed, and you're hanging back in the safety zone. You don't have to wonder if you should be in a different position, if you should save your skills for the right moment, or if you should be buying something else, or doing some aspect of your job better. All those other responsibilities do not fall in your jurisdiction. You cannot tank, initiate, nothing. So no need to worry about whether or not you could be doing it better. The most you can do is bring more team-oriented items and summoner spells.

2) See Soraka Files 1, Soraka is Never In the Limelight

Remember, Soraka is never targeted! Well, unless the other team is really good. Or your team is REALLY bad.

Sadly this gracious gesture didn't pan out - he's not as fatalistic as me. When I'm Soraka and we lose, I just say: "well, couldn't do anything, I healed the team." When he loses, my friend often frets too much that he 'didn't do enough'. Which I've been trying to tell him is a bit ridiculous. You're one out of five, and sometimes, the other team is way better than your team.

Lin: But we must be better! We can be the best if we just try enough!

Me: No. We will not. Because we've seen what world-class players are like. Jerks. Do you want to be a world-class jerk, just to be good at LoL?

Lin: No...

There is a mentality, related to point 1 and 1a, above, that can be good and bad. If you watch them livestreams (which I do not admit to watching, because that would be intensely nerdy) you'll wonder why so many LoL players can't ever make a mistake without giving some tired excuse about lag, luck, "I did it on purpose", etc. etc. I've heard one or two of them curse out the game's interface after it supposedly 'caused' a death. The game itself! That they are willingly playing for nigh-on 40 hours a week! These people can never be wrong, no matter who else has to be wrong from them to be right! You'd think it's just because they're being jerks, but let's not categorize it as that for now - let's delve deeper. They can't stand not being the absolute best, and will work at it until they are exactly where they think they deserve to be. Of course, for the rest of us, it means that we get all the verbal abuse and blame because they can't possibly find room in their heads to consider themselves ever wrong or at fault. Got wiped trying to 1v5 the entire other team? It was your fault for not being there. Fed hard early game? Abuse the rest of the team for being noobs, go idle like a spoilt child because the other people lost you the game. And on and on. I don't want a friend like that, frankly, and I hope to never have coworkers like that, either. I'm guessing that's what playing in a professional league is like, all the time. Only in this case, not for millions of dollars and adoring fans like in the NFL or NBA, but for a video game.

Nan has this mentality. He's not that much of a jerk, probably because the rest of us never try to compete with him in an area he's decided he's better than us at. He won't play LoL, by the way, because in his mind, I'm pretty sure he's already the best at it, so he doesn't need to prove himself to "those losers". He played for precisely 2 minutes, and was pretty confused as to why he wasn't immediately winning - after all, he was so much better than us. "This game is broken," he said, and hasn't played since. But I'm confident he still thinks he's the best LoL player ever born.

This is an amazing mentality, jerk attitudes aside. It's that inner drive that makes people superstars. But it also makes them unbearable, and I'm not sure I have a way to diffuse the numerous situations they create on a daily basis. Mostly, society lets them alone to do their thing, and just slaps their hands with fines when they start thinking they're too big for the normal rules and niceties of life. They have a hard time remembering that the rest of us aren't also frothing at the mouth to be the absolute best at some obscure thing, and just assume that we aspire to be the best, and are just losers, or lazy.

So if any of that rings true for you, do your best to dial it back a bit. Even if you really are ranked number one in the world at something, try to keep it in perspective, yeah? And remember, the rest of us don't hate you because we're jealous, we hate you because you're an insufferable jerk. Honestly.

Oh yeah, and Lin said Soraka was boring to play (sadface!).

Today: Have Fun

Debriefing on Catching Up: Well, at least I caught up on sleep??? ^_^

Today, I'm going to Have Fun.

No matter what, the goal is to have fun. Not to win, not to lose, just to have fun. My time out of work (read: incarceration) is too precious and limited to spend angry and stressed during a game! Ok, here's the plan: I'm going to try to win, but I'm going to have to ignore all setbacks, ragers, and inevitable losses. It's a resolution that you sometimes just have to stick to in LoL, which is a game full of rage. And bad teammates.

Maybe this resolution will be greatly helped if I just roll 5-man only tonight. Without our own resident rager :)

168

Taiwanese menu: very Taiwanese. Not much else to say about it.

Weekend mornings they have sweet and savory soy options, which are fine, but they run out of the flatbread quick, and the fried donut sticks are not the super fresh kind that I'm looking for - more on the twice-fried side. So, the hunt is still on. I saw some promising options in Chinatown...

Today: Catch Up!

Debriefing from General Silence: Did good with being silent, but it does feel like I may have thusly made backwards progress on other resolutions, not to mention some work-related tasks. Hence...

Today, I'm going to Catch Up.

Three day weekend: wasted! I've got more household chores and work to-do than ever before! (Do you ever fool yourself into thinking you'll do work at home? Yeah, me too.) So today, we'll need to dedicate ourselves to at least a little catch-up in order to not fall too ridiculously far behind. Just a little on all fronts. We'll be back on top of things in no time.

Penang Garden

Food is.... alright. But the portions are way off. You can't give Malay-sized portions and then charge family-size prices! When we saw the coconut shrimp was almost $18, we thought it'd feed all of us - the waitress warned us that there were only 5 shrimp involved. For $18?! No thanks. And how does your tiny bowl of curry NOT come with rice? It doesn't even feed ONE person if there's no rice...

Fried bananas were fine, but too bad! Nan doesn't ever want to go back.

LoL: Soraka Files 2

This past weekend demonstrated the impressive variety of gaming and gamers in LoL.

In one game, the Nidalee was repeatedly heading out on her own and getting caught on the other side of the jungle and easily murdered. She raged at everyone on our team, and finally turned on me, telling me that I had "no survivability". We all paused when we read it and emitted a long "....?" as she proceeded to tell the other team how she was so good, but the rest of us were losing the game for her. We tried to respond mildly, but got a hearty string of "stfu" and other curses for our supposed incompetence.

Same thing in another game, maybe even sadder: someone picked Soraka before I had a chance, and chat was down temporarily, so I couldn't warn her that this was maybe not the best idea. She laned top with a treant, and they proceeded to die repeatedly. Then, she started reaming our Ez for not leaving mid to come gank top properly, and blaming everything from the bottom lane to Ez to lag for her deaths (and still bought a Mejai's, mysteriously). Finally, after many curses and blaming the rest of the team, she just said "I'm going to go make a sandwich" and stopped moving for the remainder of the game.

In another game, I had 20 stacks of Mejai's, and we rolled in and over their base in about 25 minutes. In another, I was very proud that I stuck it out by a tower and danced around a frustrated Jax until we both were dead. In another, the Ashe called me 'pocket Soraka win,' which I was thought was quite nice of her.

So, as I may have mentioned in the past, LoL is full of both the funniest and most entertaining people, and some of the crabbiest, rage-filled, whiny-ass gamers ever. Sometimes you get great people, and sometimes you get awful people that will be so awful they'll also blame you for losing! That is the real definition of 'ELO hell' - some strange confluence of ratings that land us with non-team players that also rage at you with two hands while feeding the opposing team. Maybe we ought to create an 'unfriend' or 'enemy' list on top of the 'friend' list. I imagine that if enough people name a guy an 'enemy' than Riot will know they are a problem gamer.

LoL: Soraka Files 1

League of Legends ponderings:

Someone just started soraka.blogspot.com. What a great idea, one that I should have jumped on earlier. Well, that person is a much better artist than me, so likely it is for the best. But, we have the same philosophy: Soraka is a hilarious character that is weird and uniquely over-powered.... in her own wacky way. Playing Soraka is different from playing other characters, and I super enjoy it. I've been doggedly picking her for a few weeks now, and I've gotten really positive results.

1) Soraka is not a carry.

This means more than you think! I used to play Ashe. I wasn't bad, but I didn't really enjoy myself. Call me selfish (which would be weird, since I'm playing Soraka) but the pressure is too great. Didn't zone the other mid-carry? Noob. Didn't get every single last hit and farm gold like a boss? Loser. Didn't run to the other lane, initiate the battle, then kill all five other champs by yourself? Lost us the game. Expectations are too high as a carry! And I'm not naturally the "go find someone to murder right this second" type. I do alright in team fights, but at some point in your development (read: higher level games), you have to actively search out gank opportunities in order to win.

As Soraka, you are pretty much never to blame. Yeah, maybe that is selfish. But as I've said before, LoL is full of rage, and I prefer it not to be directed at me.

2) Soraka is almost never in the limelight.

Maybe your team won't notice you (sadface!), but it's a pretty good bet the other team won't notice you, either. That, or they can never reach you, but in the last few weeks, I've hardly ever seen an enemy champion on my screen field of view, let alone had anybody come after me in large groups. When the teamfight portion of the game begins, I'm officially smoke and mirrors - a hidden heal-ability, hiding in the bushes, well out of harm's way. Very few teams in the last few weeks have come after me at all, and I've had a remarkably low death-count, while amassing ridiculous assists, and generally keeping my entire team alive.

3) Soraka is incredibly team-dependent.

Everyone says this about their character, but of course, it is more true for Soraka than anyone else. She has NO ability to fight, defend, escape, gank, farm, initiate, tank, anything. She does absolutely nothing, so people who think she does, stop thinking that. She is practically a glorified backpack, filled with your health and mana potions. She makes all other champions way better, gives her team a surprising edge, but she does nothing more than that. If you make 4 good people a little better, the team is amazing. If you make 4 bad people a little better, you're still going to lose. I've had much better luck playing with pre-built 5-man, than solo-queue. But even then, be prepared to 4v5, because that's all Soraka does: makes a team of 4 champions very tough to kill.

Today: General Silence

Debriefing from Be Sullen: It's usually easy to just "be" what you're feeling, but as my family and friends were never guilty of any particular offense, I had to make significant effort to pick myself up by the bootstrings and disengage sullen attitude. Which is something to note, because when we were being cheery, it was easy to continue on into the evening - even if things were going poorly during the day, I was already trying to be a sunny spot in the darkness, so it's perfectly fine to take that attitude home with you, less so to take gloom and doom to someone else's doorstep for no good reason. But don't let me give you the wrong impression. I was aware of the issue as I was heading home and I managed yesterday without too much pain or difficulty.

Today, I'm going to continue General Silence.

Having still not fixed the problem of work sucking it up, I will continue to be passively angry, but magnanimously decide to spare these jerks passive aggressiveness and just keep to myself today. This is pretty much a repeat of Minimally Speaking, only now I have motive.

So out come the headphones, no one will be spoken to today. It's out of character to be unfriendly, but look on the bright side. At least I'm not starting a fight. Yet.

Today: Be Sullen

Debrief from Being Supportive: I supported Xian through some Dead Space ("You're doing great! Look at that necromorph get his limbs sliced off!" "Everything's going really well! I'm sure there aren't any more lurking in the vents, you'll be just fine!"), but no other opportunities really presented themselves. But I'm often very supportive, so it's not like it's a stretch. Which brings me to today...

Today I'm going to Be Sullen.

That's specifically to say, the opposite of Poker Face, and not feel bad about failing Poker Face. Is that counterproductive? I'm not going to care. Oh, I look unhappy, do I? Perhaps I am unhappy. Want to make something of it?

Normally I strive to be helpful and positive, but not today. Today, the world has crossed the line, and I am deliberately not going to care who knows it and thinks I'm being sullen for no reason. You know why? Those people could use the hint that they are selfish and I'm not going to be there for them with a sunny disposition and helpful advice everyday like clockwork when I'm not getting any kickbacks. I've told my jerk co-worker enough times what I need him to do and not do, and if he can't remember it or make a token effort, then he won't find himself with my cheerful cooperation, at least for today. (I'm also mad when people think I'm sullen for no reason, or for reasons other than them. If someone is sullen or becomes sullen in your presence there's a pretty good chance you are or are not doing something to make them so. It isn't just spontaneous. You could probably be doing something more helpful than what you are doing right then, you know? Duh.)

It's been a crummy, unproductive day, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I'm going to rain all over all parades today, not feel bad about it in the least, and maybe get back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Friends and family are obviously exempt, since they have been excellent company as usual. I've just had it with work for the day.

Today: Be Supportive

Debriefing from Minimally Talking: Fail, fail, fail. Super-fail. Going to have to try that one again another day.

Today, I'm going to Be Supportive.

Probably another cop-out, because I'm always support, but in a broader sense, I will try to be more active in my support. I will harangue Xian into playing some Dead Space 2, perhaps, by supporting him all the way through it. And I will defend all my friends more - probably from each other, as LoL is quite the rage-filled game...

Today: Minimalist Talking

Debriefing on Valentine's Day:

Xian: Love? On Valentine's Day? Don't you think that was a cop-out?

Me: Not at all, sir. National holidays are like pre-determined resolutions that the whole nation has agreed upon. Like Thanksgiving Day, you're already expected to be thankful, no sense in me throwing another resolution on top of that one, right?

Xian: Still think it was weak.

Today, I'm going to Minimize my Talking

I've done listening and generally being quiet resolutions, but this is a slightly different aspect. I want people to pay attention when I talk, and I often don't get this basic courtesy. I think this is because I'm typically a talkative person, and eventually the frequency I talk on is worn away - people I talk to frequently just stop attending to the sound of my voice. So today, with only the two exceptions of BFF's, I'm going to speak only when necessary, and what's necessary. Just ... stop and review, before I start talking, if it needs to be said. As if I have a limited number of words total for the day, and I need to save them for a ... boss battle.

Today: Love Unconditionally

Debrief from Sharing my Knowledge: Hooray! He was quite pleased, as I figured he would be, to learn some of these very important tidbits. Not exactly worth a class, or charging money, but everyone who's writing their thesis should probably know these things. I'll try to take some screen shots and put info up here.

Today, I'm going to Love Unconditionally! It's Valentine's Day!

Not exactly positive that's what the holiday is about, but I'm gonna take it that way. And nope, that doesn't mean buying a card, or flowers.

Quarter-Life Crisis

Maybe 'crisis' is too strong a word. Quarter-Life Slogfest?

Whatever it is, do you find yourself wondering what you're doing with your life? That's a hallmark, I hear. Here's the real crisis: I can't stand working overlong hours at something I'm not enjoying just to stress out about work in the few hours I supposedly have to myself, just to find myself going back to work again before I've hardly taken off my jacket at home.

Xian: Try my work. I was ordered by the salespeople once to "invent" 4 new ways our customers could pay us, because the salespeople couldn't do their job and sell the stupid product, and they thought more ways to pay was the answer. My jaw dropped.

Me: Did you create a system where your customers could pay you in bananas? Because your salespeople are a bunch of monkeys?

Xian: May as well have. We received exactly zero new customers as a result of adding new ways to pay, for the record.

What scares me is that I've started to look upon other jobs really favorably, when before, I would shudder at the thought of doing things like that for a living. Like being a janitor, or flipping burgers? At least you go home at a set time every day, you don't worry about what will or won't happen tomorrow, and you're not expected to do anything while you're gone. You don't get emails at 4am in the morning demanding anything, and you don't have to kick and scratch in office or interoffice politics. No one expects you to work holidays or overtime for no extra pay, and you can take vacations when you want, as long as you schedule them in advance.

Does that sound good to you? Could be you're suffering from the same thing as me.

Xian: You hate your job? You know there's a support group for those people? It's called "Everyone" and they meet at the bar at 9pm on days ending with a 'Y'.

It's just... the uncomfortable feeling at the end of a video game, where you realize you're stuck because you didn't do something way at the beginning? Like that, only there's no 'restart' option on life...

Dead Space 2: Not Even Started

I don't know why, but I'm okay with scary games. I'm really not a fan of scary movies and other media, so it puzzles me that, by and large, scary games don't bother me.

I feel like it has something to do with control. If you die in a horror game, it's your own fault. Or, at least, you get another crack at it. You know the game will end only when you win, and you will win. It's meant to be won. Death is not permanent, it's barely a setback these days. So what if it's a gruesome death? You'll be up and about in no time, re-armed with whatever weapons will dispatch whatever horrors, and you're better prepared for the task, mentally. So what if there's a lurking abomination around the corner, or about to jump out at you? You're ready to do what's needed if that situation arises. You're not helpless - you're the farthest thing from it, in fact. You're meant to fight and win. Or run and get away.

Everyone else I know seems to be fine with scary movies, and absolutely terrified of scary games. Some of my friends say it's the fact that the character is representative of you, the player, some of them say it's because it's hard for them to take necessary action when they're scared. Xian, at least, manages the pause button before he hides under a blanket and cries softly.

Scary aside, this is real entertainment, ladies and gentlemen. I handed him my copy of the first Dead Space, sat back with a bowl of popcorn, and almost wet myself laughing while he almost wet himself running scared from necromorphs. Cruel, I know. But it's not like I taped the controller to his hands! He's even the one who ordered Dead Space 2. It arrived in a box yesterday, and he won't even open that box, afraid there's something lying dormant in there. So... this will obviously take a while.

Today: Talk to My Boss

Debrief: Actually my talk got postponed to tonight by my friend, so I'll have to talk about "Sharing Knowledge" tomorrow.

Let me give a quick assessment to everything else, because even though I say these resolutions are for one day only, the ideas DO linger on.

- Planning Ahead, I think, has worked out really well. All I have to do is kind of decide what small chore I want done ahead of time, and the rest of the night mostly proceeds with guilt-free goofing off. What do you know, those tactics our moms used to use on us back when work. Maybe I'll start implementing a gold star system, too!

- Speaking Clearly is not going well. Not only do I speak to hardly anyone during an average day, I don't speak to anyone for an appreciable amount of time. At most I'm asking a question or giving an answer, not chatting at length about whatever comes to mind, and that's more likely when I run into trouble. And here's an interesting observation: a lot of people kind of develop their own dialogue style that's hard to break into from the outside. And they don't have any time or inclination to stop and give a review of everything that's happened so far that you missed.

- Listening is progressing well, at least with certain people. Instead of imperially informing someone of something, I now form it more of a question: did you know about this? Have you tried this? Overall I feel like I talk at people less, and talk about myself less. But with people that just refuse to talk, I've got no answer.

- Finances is still a work in progress. Probably always will be, yeah?

- Being Cheerful is pretty easy, but how to inspire cheer in others?

- Baths turned out to be a great idea. It's easy to do, relatively quick, and pretty relaxing.

Today I'm going to do a big one. I'm going to Talk to My Boss.

Really hard one for me. I hate initiating talks with my boss. Okay, I've only had like, two bosses, but for some reason, that kind of authority freaks me out, or something. I despise it. I get along really well with most types of people, but I just get stressed out or something. Both my bosses have been pretty nice guys, too, so it's not like, entering the dragon cave. It just still seems to come with that level of unease. I don't know why. I guess I hate it when people waste my time, and they always seem so busy, so I feel like they're glaring at me while I waste their time?

But I can't just let this slide! I end up letting channels of communication dry up and die. Gotta re-up on these things, let him know what I'm up to, how I'm doing, what I need from him.

Gonna do it! Chaaaaarge!

Today: Sharing Knowledge

Debriefing from Planning Ahead 2: Not bad - didn't get to bed til late, but I don't seem to be feeling too many ill-effects today. Must've been that coffee this morning? So, to review our specific aims:

1) get a small chore done

Pretty small chore, unloading the dishwasher. But, I also made a quickie dinner, so.... win!

2) play video games til the cows come home

Check, and check.

3) watch an episode of something I actually want to watch

Well, played video games until late. So, whatever.

4) get to bed at a reasonable time

See note under (3). Still, not too bad.

Today I'm going to Share My Knowledge.

Now, I know what you're thinking - I don't have knowledge to share, but consider this: sometimes you blazed the way and it might have been nice if someone had left you a signpost, right? Well, you can be that signpost for someone else. A number of my friends are working on their dissertations of late, and I just happened to have recently come through those woods. I can share what few tricks I invented and used to get me through, it might come in handy for them. If those tips are received warmly, I'll put them up here in a little miniseries of sorts. Hah, then if one of my friends asks in the future, I'll just make them sift through old blog posts!

Wait, wait, I have another example: my friend Xian was badgered into giving a mini-class on "programming". I asked him: "programming? Like.... how to do everything you do for a living? I don't get it." But just the word was pretty popular amongst people who... I guess, don't know what programming is? At any rate, you'd be surprised how many people were interested in "learning programming". From a programmer, no less! And it's not like he was teaching them anything high level. Just basic stuff that everyone with rudimentary programming skills knows, but the more lay-person never learned. So, moral of the story is, there are people out there who genuinely would like to learn some fundamentals that you take for granted. For instance, I could use some tips on keeping houseplants alive, or practice speaking another language. There was also a stargazing group that Xian and I crashed - someone with obvious astronomy cred was just giving out knowledge for free!

Now, I've just got to find a willing audience...

Today: Planning Ahead 2

Debriefing from Speaking Clearly: No good. I didn't actually talk to very many people yesterday. My job is more, sit at a computer all day and don't interact with anyone. No wonder my speaking habits have become rusty and un-parse-able. Look. I did it again. Anyway. Tabled for another time. Perhaps I'll find myself hobnobbing at some high society party and then I can re-focus on this issue. Haha. And perhaps bacon and eggs will fall from the sky and we'll all have brunch on the beach!

Today, I'm going to Plan Ahead.

Last time, perhaps we were too ambitious. We jumped feet first into the more advanced planning, which involved distance. And other people as unpredictable variables. Today, we're going to start really small. I'm just going to conceptualize this evening in an organized way. Because sometimes I get home, and I wonder what I have to do, versus what I want to do, and then.... I end up watching TV like a zombie until it's too late to do either. Not even TV I wanted to watch.

So today, I have a little free time at work, I'm gonna get it straight in my head what I intend to do with what little time I have at home before I have to go to sleep, then turn right back around and head back to work. I think my goals will be to 1) get a small chore done, like... laundry, or dishes, and 2) spend the rest of the evening studiously gaming, before 3) watching an episode of something I want to watch, and then 4) going to bed on time.

I feel like even these little things can make the difference between a 'successful' evening, and one that I just wasted away. I mean, 'work hard, play hard' means you have to properly organize both, right?

And if all that's done early, I can try to plan ahead for Valentine's Day. For extra credit.

Today: Speaking Clearly

Debriefing from Helping Others: Not too much of a reach for me, but I'd better be careful not to rope others into helping me help others, since that might technically defeat the purpose.

Today I'm going to try to Speak Clearly.

I've gotten pretty spoiled, sometimes, talking to my best friend all day, pretty much using a truncated language between the two of us that excises a lot of unnecessary verbiage. Also, punctuation gets a little optional, and freshly invented portmanteaus are quite in fashion. So it takes a little high speed parsing to follow, and people who aren't fully indoctrinated in that kind of nonsense, well, the polite way to say it is that they don't quite follow. The more impolite way to say it is that they fall behind. And I suppose the real truth of it is, they get disinterested, fast.

The worst thing I do, however, is restart conversations exactly where they left off. Even if we started it days, weeks, months ago. I'll just hop back in without preamble and expect people to remember and follow along. Better watch out for that.

So today, full sentences, complete with introductory lead-in for topics. I may have no idea how to do it anymore. I may have open with, "And now, I'm going to talk about something else."

Today: Assisting Others

Debriefing from Planning Ahead: I planned as far as I could, but some things hinge on others, so not everything gets nailed down. So... not as much success as anticipated there, but on reflection, as much as was possible. Does that make sense?

Today I'm going to help others.

And that's my excuse for putting it up late, thin as that may be.

Today: Planning Ahead

Groundhog Day. What a weird holiday.

Debriefing from Finances: Not a complete investigation, but things were organized into budgets and categories, and I nixed one of my recurring monthly bills, and I'm setting up to look into another, so that's something good that came out of it. I did turn out to have some money left over each month, so I'm going to get back on GameFly, maybe try to get back to reviewing games, even if those reviews end up being super out of date. I have less time for renting games, but you know how it is. Work hard, play hard. Or, "work long hours, play long hours.... sleep when you're dead". All I have to do to reclaim gaming hours is to stop playing League of Legends! Easier said than done! Maybe next week I'll do a statistical investigation of my time.

Today I'm going to Plan Ahead.

Mostly because of the SuperBowl. I want wings, and I figure I'm going to have to order wings in advance. I've got chips, I've got drinks, I'm already one step ahead on today's resolution!

Er, right, I'd better invite some more people.

Too bad everyone I know hates football.

Today: Finances

Debriefing from Cheerfulness: Not bad. An occasional slip, but it doesn't make sense to aim for constant, 100% cheer all the time. I turned a lot of frowns into silver lining searches, so that's success, I'll say. I didn't even go to the Demotivators website, so that's also something. Their stuff is so awesome, though. Now that it's not cheerfulness day, I may wander over there.

Today I'm going to look at those finances that I never look at.

What does my monthly budget look like these days? Where are those autopays going and how much have they been lately? What's the breakdown on some of these bills? Are all my Mint accounts up to date? All questions that have gone unanswered for a long time. More like, unasked.

What's the bright side of financial spring cleaning? Well, tax season is lurking, for one. And for two, well, one friend has a 'menace budget'. A slush fund for nonsense, if you will. He sets aside so much a month, and then will blow it all one day for completely superfluous stuff. I'd better make him spring clean his finances and see if he can't go skiing or get a professional massage. He actually uses an automatic deposit into a completely separate account, so even if he forgot, it's still growing there, twenty bucks at a time. It's nice because you really know that it's money that you've already decided and set aside for non-necessities. It's specifically for ridiculous stuff you probably shouldn't own, but you've budgeted for it, so it's okay.

High time to do some investigative digging in my own accounts. See where I can trim back, start contributing to Nonsense Fund.