A Few Notes

As I am just relaxing (albeit tired) before work, I figured I would share a few things that have been on my mind.

As far as having goals--in my case, the 30/60/90 plan--it makes sense to me now that I should have necessarily quantified results I was hoping to get. By that, I mean I should have added some definitive measure as to what I hoped to accomplish. For example, it's hard to track "drink more water" when it's left to ambiguity. As such, I think I should try to drink at least 40 oz. of water daily to begin with. It's about half as much as I hope to eventually get to, but keep in mind that I haven't been working out much. Therefore, I lose less, and require less. Eating less also slows my metabolism, or at least logically that would follow, I would think. So perhaps that factor would also contribute to less cellular thirst.

I've also tried to set some priorities. I'm going to severely limit the amount of time I play video games until the semester is over. Not that it was a problem to begin with, but the trouble lies in my difficulty concentrating on a specific task when so many are before me. As of right now, I'm working on reading a book for my final philosophy paper as fast as possible. The book is the famous The Plague by Albert Camus. So far it's absolutely delightful, I love his style. It reminds me of Nabokov.

I need to make myself an iced coffee in order to stay awake. I'm only running on about 6 hours right now, and that's terrible. Personally, I know that I can't function well at all without my sleep. That's not to say that I don't enjoy waking up early, because I do. The issue is simply that I get home from work late more often than not, so that tends to shift everything about my schedule later.

I have been very ambitious about my writing lately. Yes, admittedly, I did post some erotica on DA recently, which I felt was very well received. It's a genre I'm quite interested in. Romance in general, really. You cannot blame me, my family has it's roots there; Madame de LaFayette purportedly wrote the first romance novel. But I don't want to write just erotica, of course. I have many passions, even in writing. Originally I intended to be a part of NaPoWriMo, but I took myself away from it after only a couple of days, reason being that I wanted to direct my efforts at working on my novel once again. And so I did for a little while, but the harsh realities of writing for school sunk in once more after "spring break". Despite having to write an 8 to 10 page paper for philosophy, I feel a deep urge to write something additional, describing some of my own personal philosophic insights during the course of the semester. A lot of these things are reflections I have had based on inquiries made by the professor--which, in class, often go unanswered. Perhaps I need more courage for my convictions.

At any rate, I would only take the course of writing such an "essay" if I felt it would be innovative in some way. I feel I have found a new approach for viewing the human experience, something both complicated and rational. It will be my attempt to explain it in the paper I jokingly told a co-worker I would title "A Comprehensive Treatise of Philosophy: Why Everyone from Socrates to Sartre Was Wrong". Naturally I would never be that bold, or make assertions of that kind. In fact, I am thankful for the breadth of philosophy that I have been able to study so far and draw from. It's a wonder when we can engineer thoughts that are truly original. On occasion I ask myself if a thought I had is one that surely someone else had thought before me. Perhaps it is so, or I could be mistaken in the way that everyone is an individual, and as such, has a different mental experience. However, the common factors (of how we organize our world) lead me to favor what I originally felt. *By organize our world, I mean the sheer fact that you and I could both observe an elephant, grasp its properties (size, shape, color, noises it makes, possibly even smell) analyze that sense data, and both conclude that it is, in fact, an elephant.

Hopefully my whole paper will not border on such trivial technicalities, or mundane orderings of language. I guess if that is the case, it won't be as entertaining as I had originally hoped. Although, this could be a case of writing for function rather than form. In such scenarios, a process approach works best. Anyways, I feel like the development of my personal philosophy is some kind of search for a unification theory, much like exists in physics today. The problem I have though is figuring out exactly which problem I'm addressing. Maybe I'm addressing everything, life in general, since it's occurred to me (especially with study of existentialism) that I've been left in life to figure a lot of things out for myself. I also possess a certain shade of skepticism, inherited by reason alone, or by paranoia, or a vivid imagination; I'm unsure.

I'm so happy that my university plans for fall are all ironed out. My financial aid should be just about ready to go once I fax a couple of forms back (but my application in general was received early). I really need that to come through for me for this to all work out well though. Certainly, I cannot work this volume next semester and still hope to do well. In fact, I have been faltering as it is now, at a considerably lesser institution. Perhaps the increase in difficulty is simply imagined, but I think it makes sense in actuality, taking a number of imagined and related factors into account. However, I digress: I plan on taking four classes so far. They will be Latin, French, English (intro level), and a Math Statistics course. The later two are going to be undertaken only to satisfy certain general requirements of my major program. My intended major is English, creative writing track (although I've considered a switch to the rhetoric one--damn sophists). I plan to double minor in French and Latin languages. I think Latin will give me an excellent understanding that will aid me in learning French and other romance languages in the future. Perhaps later on I could pick up Italian and Spanish with ease.

This has drawn on quite long enough I should think. It's time to do something a little more productive.

Pick my head up

Well, it's become clear that I've failed in virtually all of the goals already, and the first week hasn't even gone by. The only one that I've really kept up with any vigor has been the reading, and even then I'm unsure if I'll reach the projected page 732 by the end of the month. But I'm going to keep plugging away at it.

And as for the rest, I'm going to re-focus and accomplish as much of it as I possibly can. There are priorities of course, and right now I'm catching up with homework during my spring break from school. Hopefully I can breeze through the coursework though and move on to other endeavors. I'm really anxious to write programs and get certified. I need to really get on top of the studying for Net+, it's one of the most important things in my life right now, because of what it would mean for my future. If I can get a better job, that will mean a better standard of living overall. And that would definitely ease my conscience.

At least I will once again have health insurance within the next six months or so. It's one of those things that will just give me an enhanced peace of mind, knowing that it's there. I don't want to enter into debate about the Health Care Reform Bill, or even mention my thoughts on it just now. It's irrelevant to the point I was making.

I also found out late that it's NaPoWriMo: National Poetry Writing Month. I totally forgot about it being in April. I attempted it last year with moderate success, or at least I wrote some poems I was fairly happy with during the course. I was thinking about trying to catch up if possible, I mean I'm only five poems behind. That's not a terrible amount to do, and the practice would be great. Besides, I've barely written creatively lately.

Hoping for a nice day today. The weather appears beautiful, and it's opening day for the Brewers. Hoping for a big win over the Rockies. Me and the girl both have the day off of work, so we're looking to do something nice together later on. I'm just working on getting back on track, and taking care of business so that for the next couple of days I can just decompress, worry-free.

Challenges

Well, it's only the second day of my working on 30/60/90, and it's already challenging. Obviously, my schedule is very hectic right now with school and work, to the point that it's not always convenient for me to just head right to bed at 11:30. But, I've stuck with it, and both mornings I got up at 7:30 as well (though with a bit more struggle today).

It's also rather difficult to not buy things at work, though I get the sense that once I break the "habit" of it, it will be much easier to do. I haven't fallen through on it yet, but the urge to get something on break is a pretty big one. My plan is to counteract this by planning accordingly, and bringing enough food to work for my breaks. This might mean spending a little bit more at the grocery store, but that's an expense that I can budget for, and it's more sensible than paying $3.99 for a lousy sandwich I could really be making myself.

And I guess things have fallen more into perspective, especially with the whole fast food thing. I can actually feel my body going back to a different state without all of the junk going in. With walking both mornings so far, and eating a more whole, natural diet overall, its a growing pleasure. I've felt like I'm crashing out a bit, and maybe I need a bit more stimulants throughout the day.. but I haven't taken to soda yet, just coffee. I bet it's really just the adjustments that are getting to me.

I weighed in yesterday at 158.6 lbs. This means that on May 1st, the scale better read at least 161.6 for me to have reached that goal. I've been reading Les Mis as much as time will allow. I've also been working on C programming from the book SAMS Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours which has been most helpful thus far. In WoW, I made the warlock, and I'm already up to level 6. I have to figure out how to use the 80 warrior still though.

Tomorrow, I only have work, and now it's officially spring break time for me. It's joyous, but I do feel guilty about missing so much class in the first half of the semester. I plan to recover homework wise over break and get back up on the horse for the 2nd half. However, I feel like for this plan to be successful, I really need to get less hours at work like has been promised for so long now. That is the sole condition. Otherwise, I have off on Saturday, which is quite epic. I rarely ever get weekends off, so I'm hoping to have some fun for a change. I'm even debating having a gaming night tomorrow night into the wee hours.

Other notes about progress on 30/60/90: I re-organized my facebook to the point where it's almost done. I have to re-add the Twitter update number to my phone so I can use it more often, even though I'm only partially serious about really getting into it. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but almost every social networking site has some kind of "status" feature.

I still have to eat my oatmeal and take my vitamin for today, which I will do now before I head to work. I'll have an hour of sitting time to read before I actually punch in though. This is going to be challenging to reach the halfway point, the book is just so incredibly dense. But, like everything else, I will keep punching away at it.

I've only been doing a little writing lately, sadly. I don't know how much that will change based on make up homework I have to do over break. I've been writing mostly little fragments to poems, and additionally I was working on a little rap yesterday.

Until next time, adieu.