Team Mental State at Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Invite was good. Came in 11th, took 1st in our Pool over Arizona, Clairmont and Santa Clara, and left with 6th. Yeah, we could have done better: losses to LPC and Tide were very frustrating. But overall, Im happy with our result.

The thing I am most happy about is the mental state we had as a team during the Clairmont game. We warmed up intense and focused. We played the first half intense and focused. He huddled intense and focused. We ended the game intense and focused. Honestly, I have a really hard time remembering Squid games with mental focus as good as this one.

We are a better team than them, yes*. Our athletes are bigger and better(finally now that Stout and Jughead have left) as is our training and coaching, but those advantages have failed us before when we didn't have it together mentally. In this game we played to our abilities, the entire game, and the score showed this. 13-4. I have always noticed that the Squids would not blow out teams, even when they were better than them. This happened because with a 2 point lead came jokes and relaxed focus. We'll, now we know what its like to play the entire game with the same focus.

Truthfully, it was hard to stay focused. I did have to constantly remind people to keep the focus on this game that, even if we are ahead, is not over till its over. I did have to remind myself to not watch other games going on around us or get lazy with my throws. But we did, and it should be obvious to us all what that was like and what mental strength that took.


Our last opponent on Saturday was Santa Clara and this game reinforces lessons about focus. They were not as skilled as Clairmont and in fact lost to Clairmont 13-6. Instead of repeating our mental dominance from the first 2 games, we kinda just played the game. 13-7. We didnt really earn many turns, they mostly just gave up the disc. Yeah we won, and by a decent margin, but I hope everyone felt the difference in the team's mental state. It is real and it IS a choice that we make.

Sunday we had LPC. There is a lot to say about the game and they are very skilled so I dont want to take anything away from them, but our mental state played a big roll in the loss. No energy, no sense of urgency, no sustained fire, little focus during the first half. We did better in the second half but its the same old story: If we had played the first like the second we would have won. If we came out Sunday morning like we did Saturday, I am convinced our Sunday result would have been different. No reason we couldn't bring the fire on Sunday. In fact, Sunday should be its own motivation to bring it. But we just didn't.

The Tide game for 5th place? Same story as LPC.




Hopefully we take from the tourney the recognition that there is such a thing as team mental state. We create it and we have power over it IF we acknowledge it and its importance.



* - I actually really like the Braineaters and have for a while. They have a good program with lots of potential. That being said, please, someone slap Markum in the face and tell him to play hard. Remind him of how much fun it is to run one's self ragged instead of walking and yelling IN SUPPORT of your teammates instead of at them.

ps- you can check out a fuller tourney summary on the Air Squid Blog.

Ochem Lab

I am going to need a lot of help with my O-Chem lab. This quarter is gonna suck. I honestly would not be opposed to less standard methods of getting a passing grade in it. Trying to do chemistry after a weekend of disc and a sleepless night writing a paper is not fun or safe.

The Southwest Men

3 Bids, 11 Teams in the running, Regionals in Colorado

Alphabetized so no one gets mad:

• Arizona - Break out year last year
• Clairmont - Best run in their history last year, sweet throws from young players
• Colorado - Duh, its Mamabird
• Colorado State Always top 7 at regional
• Irvine -SB Invite Qualifier Champs
• Long Beach - SoCal Warm Up Champs
• San Diego State - SoCal Warmup Runners Up
• San Luis Obispo - Tied for 3rd at Sean Ryan this year
• Santa Barbra - Duh, its Tide
• UCLA - Wins over good teams at Sean Ryan this year
• UCSD - Duh, its the Squids

There are the old standbys, there are the up-in-comers. I honestly feel that all these teams have a shot. This region is gonna be a dogfight.

College Champs, short

Great news concerning College National came yesterday.

20 teams, 2 bids per region, 4 strength bids awarded based on the previous year's performance.

Basically, everyone who has thought about the bid system has come to the conclusion that it needs to be fixed in some way. Expanding nationals is certainly a good move: when the 16 bid nationals was instituted there were less than 200 open teams - now there are more than 500. Not everyone will agree about the method of bid distribution and there will always be teams that don't make it to the show that "should" have and teams there that aren't as good as those that aren't. Still, it seems that when a "great" team gets left out, its the second team in a region with only one bid that year. See Tide's 14-16 loss to 'Bird in 07 when Colorado took the only Southwest bid to the Finals. Tide will (and should) always contend that they could have been a major player at Nationals, perhaps a semi finalist. That doesnt seem to happen with the 3rd place team missing a bid.

I am very happy: The UPA actual seems to be actively changing in response to players want. While I still have mixed emotions about C1 and Cultimate, let no one say their brash actions provided stimulus for the UPA to work on some problems quickly.

This news makes SB Invite all the more exciting. Its gonna be a show in Goleta this weekend.
Peace

Santa Barbra Invite

SB Invitational is this weekend and I am not sure how I am feeling. Last year, the Squids won this tournament; it is my only competitive tourney win. This year we are seeded low, are a different team, and have high aspirations. I am thinking about receiving the first pull on Saturday and seeing 70 yards, 7 defenders, and 15 other teams standing between me and my goal. To be honest, I feel a great deal of gravity surrounding the situation - more than you'd think would be surrounding a Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

The truth is, I have never been a vital part of a team before. Last year (and in previous years) I played my role, but because of the other throwers we had on the team, my role was minor. In soccer, I never was good enough to be on the starting line up. My whole life, I was a secondary player on the team - I was able to watch my teammates wrap up the games we won and be responsible for the games we lost. But not this year. This year I am the veteran, I am the quarterback, I am the thrower. I take full ownership in my team's performance.

So I actually have some jitters. Butterflies. Yeah, im actually a little nervous. But its a good nervous. Its got to be that same nervous that comes before any performance - a test, a show, a date. The key thing is to let body do what I know I have trained it to do.

So I focus in. Yeah, winning the tournament is the outcome goal (and it is attainable), but thinking about that goal isn't going to help me do that - that thinking is the opposite of focusing on the moment, the task at hand.

How can I find this focus?

I think about the physical game.

• What are the particular physical actions I will be taking this weekend?
• What state is my body in? Where are my injuries and how can I work around them?
  
• What will I be doing on offense to get the disc?
• What cuts will I be looking for? When? How will I communicate to my cutters?
  
• What throws will I need to make?
• How will I play downfield defense on particular matchups?
• What will my mark look like? How will this change with field position? With team strategy?
• How will I fuel my body with food and liquid? How will I rest it? Help it recover?
  

I think about the mental game.

• How will I eliminate distractions durring warmup?
• How will I avoid frustration on offense and instead of throwing up prayers, keep doing the hard work till we score?
• How will I react to teammates screwing up?
• How will I react to lucky or unlucky breaks?
• How will I participate from the sidelines?
• How will I act when we are up by a lot? Down by a lot?
• How will I coach/teach younger players?
• How will react to a win or a loss?
• How will I feel about playing teams I am rivals with? Playing teams I have friends on?
  
• How will I know when to talk to my team and when to shut my mouth?
• How will I prepare to feel the unexpected?

By asking myself these questions I put my mind exactly where it should be before this tournament. With each answer, I put myself on the fields in Goleta - I am ready for what is going to happen there. Instead of some far off thing to think about ( like defending our title), I have concrete, individual thoughts that I actually can grasp and wrap my head around. I said earlier that I felt a lot of gravity surrounding the tourney and that may not be particularly helpful; I don't know. I do know, however, that there isn't any gravity surrounding my thoughts of what its like to throw that IO break up the lane after a swing where my mark has to blast past me to stop the around. There aren't any butterflies surrounding thoughts of how I am going to be warming up. I know how I am going to react to a teammate turfing a throw at 10-10 and I know how I am going to react to bad calls and I know how I am going to react to game point.

I am ready

Offside

Do not be offside on the pull. It is not hard, you simply start your run up 15 yards behind the puller.

It is the most basic of rules.

"We'll im only offsides in practice and games without observers..."

So you put yourselves at an advantage in every game that doesn't matter but put yourself at a disadvantage (never practiced doing em right) in the games that do matter at Regionals and Nationals. Sounds like a crappy strategy

Have some respect for your own training: you'll play like you practice. If its hard in practice cause you stay onside, it will be easier in a real game because you've done it before.

Have some respect for your opponent and for the game: In a self-officiated game such as ours this is the quintessential test of your ability to police yourself. If you don't care about following the rules, why are you even out here?

Talking from the Sidelines

They are NOT listening to what you tell them from the side lines. Why try to get their attention at all when its clear they need to focus on what they are doing?











Do not call to a team mate who is on the field unless you really, really need to get their attention.
Players must focus on the game at hand; their mind should be clear of the unnecessary.

"Nice Cut Tom!"
"Stop Getting Broken Tom!"
"Huck it Tom!"
"Yeah Tom, Nice Break!"

All of these serve to take Tom's focus off the game which is where it should be. Just think, would Phelps have done so well if he was thinking about his potential sponsorships. No, that "In the Zone" state we athletes desire requires that all our attention is on the relevant tasks at hand. We don't need to get mad at ourselves, we don't need to be impressed with ourselves, we can't have others make decisions for us. "In the Zone" = "Tune Everything Out" except the 14 on the field and the disc.

Notice that all the examples above have the player's name in them. After practicing that focusing ability, we get good at tuning everything out, BUT OUR BRAINS ARE HARDWIRED TO PAY ATTENTION TO CALLS OF OUR OWN NAME! It is not impossible, but the desirable full-focus mental state is very hard to attain with shouts of your name.

You respond to your own name well because it is a great way to get ones immediate attention:

"Lisa, give this man 20ccs of bromoethylene dioxide, Stat!"
"Chris, for the upcoming few points I want you to force your man under and put a flat mark on him"

Calling a name works in the way it is supposed to. They pay attention to the voice. Do you really want your team mate to pay attention to what you are saying as opposed to what is going on within the field?


I cannot tell you how many times I have seen someone muff a catch because a teammate cheered "Great Cut, Rick!" right before he received the disc. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a player get yelled at directly to stop getting broken and only get broken more because he becomes flustered and mad. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen total tunnel vision caused by the sidelines yelling for a particular throw. We sidelines teammates certainly don't want theses things but in my opinion, yet we are to blame for some of them.

You might say though, that the sideliner can make better decisions (he can see the whole field) and thus should tell his players what to do with the disc. This is wrong in a few ways. First, deciding what to do and doing it are not seperatable action. Deciding on a throw and doing it are one in the same for me. Secondly, normally, the decision of what to do, and assessing whether you can complete that task, happen more accurately inside the head of the thrower. We don't blame sidelines for throwaways, we blame the thrower - let the thrower decide what is right to do.

At first, you might think about how its a way to teach, instructing from the sidelines. To this I first counter by asking what players aren't learning. If you didn't tell them what to do, would they they be more able to think for themselves, see the whole field, and stay focused? Also, if a person actually DOES need to know what to do or does need congratulations during the point, that person should not be on the field, especially not on offense.

So what should we do on the sidelines? I like the idea of many many spectators - so much noise in a stadium that there is nothing to concentrate on but the game and thus bench-sidelines don't need to say anything. For Frisbee, I think general noise is good because it is a generalized stressor that raises adrenaline levels. Especially on D, players need that adrenaline but not the direct comments:

Work hard!
Yeah!
UC Us D!
Get Down, Get Down!
AHHHHH!

If you are cheering, you should pick from this list


PS- "We gotta win this game" and "We gotta score this point" are not motivational at all. Please stop with them.

PPS- Stop Yelling "No Break!" all this means is that you arent supposed to get broken. DUH. What you mean is "Shift Around!" so say that or say "Shift Inside!".

Choose

Wow, Lei-Out. What an experience. I'll surely write about it later, but dont have much time now - im off to track practice. It was definitly one of the most fun tourneys Ive been to. I guess thats the point of a "fun" tournement, but i was truely very impressed with how much I liked the whole thing. Th weather, the level of play, the commroadery amoung opponents (thanks for sharing Twist O Lime), the TDs, the old friends, the party, the elimination brackets, the finals, the team bonding. I love the Ultimate Community.

Think for a second, its up to you:
Choose: Do you play scared or fearless? Do you want the disc or do you hope your team scores without you? Do you hope the man you are covering stays out of the play or do you realize its 100% critical that you give your all to shut him down?

The truth is, if you are thinking about how you dont want to be important (and therefor not have the oppertunity to screw up), then you are not only not helping the team, you are hurting them. If you have realized that you arent scared to play hard and give it your all, then get to the track, cause the person gaurding you and that you'll be gaurding will feel the same.

So choose. I know that I choose not to be scared. And I choose to bust my ass at the track.
Peace







They are not afraid.

The Great Thing About Olympic Lifting

...is that you feel really powerful. It just is the nature of the barbell movements that they allow you to move really heavy weights, long distances, in a short period of time. And as you know from high school physics:

Power = [Force x Distance] / Time



Heres what I did last night in the gym after track practice with the team:

Warm up with barbell technique, especially my push jerk - I felt that I didn't have to do a full warm up because I had just done 45 minutes of running, stadiums, agility drills, and throwing.

3 rounds, all with the same 42kg barbell:
5 Sumo-Deadlift High-Pull
5 Hang Clean and Push Jerk [most power cleans, some squat cleans]
5 Squats
Time: 6:56

Worked on some more technique stuff... my snatch is not very strong - I cant seem to do a full snatch-squat [my back just feels strange, guess I have to work on the overhead squat which I am also not good at [Probably a problem with ankle flexion due to sprains]].

Talked to the guy next to me about playing ultimate at ucsd. He played baseball for the last 4 years at ucsd but got injured and is looking for a different way to compete. He is seriously considering coming out for the Squids which is sweet: he was squatting 300lb over and over with 210lb bench presses. His name is Paul and he said he is coming out for practice soon. Squids, make him feel welcomed.

Then:

3 rounds:
10 squats while holding 20 pounds of dumbbells
10 65lb thrusters
10 full box jumps while holding 20 pounds of dumbbells [btw, if anyone is looking to get me a present, I want a weight vest]
Time: 7:14

Felt good about the workout and I managed to resist the urge to fall asleep all sweaty. Showered off and had a great night's sleep. Woke up this morning with that wonderful all-over soreness which is easy enough to get over but tells you that you really did work everything hard.

I am starting to feel real good about the upcoming season.

Peace


PS- I don't know if I have shared this before, but here is my absolute favorite quote about training hard by one of my favorite writers:

It's not a secret, but it bears remembering: If you do not flirt with pain and exhaustion in your workouts you won't know what to do when they start a conversation with you on the field.
-HH

Socal Softy

Jan 12. There is snow on the ground in most of America. San Diego? It is 75 degrees and sunny. I am wearing pants and a t-shirt and am hot and sweating. The weather is so ridiculously nice to the point that it is becoming a problem. I am starting to need hand warmers during night practices. I didn’t want to go outside in the morning over break in northern California. It is becoming hard for me to believe people can function in the northern states. I’ve started to wonder how do people go to class or the store or even harvest food in Vermont. I recognize I am becoming a SoCal softy.

But I have a tan in January.

Link Sunday - Milkman

Good stuff:

DJ Milkman Im pretty into mashups as of late.

See

The life decision I made that most improved my ultimate abilities

More explaining what Crossfit is by the group's Director of Training

More on how genetics isnt about what you have and what you dont, but which are turned on and which are silenced.

Have a good week.

Blogging's better than cleaning which is better than paper writing

Its Sunday night at 8. The week ahead is gonna be tough, but then again, I said that about last week and didn't really work that hard.

I have to:

• Do a Ochem lab, which requires me relearning ochem
• Finish[read: start] the grad school application.
• Read texts for Philosophy.
• Get back to work at my lab and make my work there more productive this quarter

This last weekend involved some pretty hard partying for me. Friday night, we hosted a party at our house. There was a good mix of Ultimate people and non ultimate people. It got totally out of control, but in a good way. Lots of people I didnt know - I just hoped my roommates knew them and that the strangers would play it cool. We'll, the roommates didnt know them. We even had people from UCSD's notorious humor magazine, The Koala. The hand stamps, guess the person we labeled you as on your back, commemorative mugs and multiple beer pong tables went over real well. At 11 we went lights out, strobe light on for the dance floor. People were climbing in my tree. People barfed. Old guys beat young guys at a boat race. My shed is in need of a roof repair. Neighbors were mad, cops were called.

The night ended when Casper, my roommate and I were handcuffed and interrogated. I didn't think disturbance of the peace was an arrestable offense. rest assured, everything is all right, it was pretty obvious to me that they were just intimidating me. In fact, I have always wanted to get my Miranda rights read to me. Missed out this time, but got close. In the end, it was great that they came, the party promptly ended at 1 and after clearing everyone out and taking stock of the aftermath, I was able to get to sleep at a reasonable time before 9am practice the next day.

I still can't find my electric razor or frying pan.

Saturday night I went to a massive rave on campus and then to a big house party. At 6pm I was barely able to move: party hosting, little sleep and intense practice lead to coma. Somehow, my roommate got me up and out the door. Even though I couldn't stop yawning, I stayed true to the adage that if one is going to party, they might as well party hard. I got home at 10am, ate some food, and passed the fuck out on the recliner [damn that thing is comfortable].

The house still smells a little of beer with a tint of vomit. Ah the smell of success.


Lei-Out this upcoming weekend. If I make it through this week alive, the tourney is gonna be a blast. Hope to see you there.

Lei Out Jersey Trade

It really amazes me how this happened, but it did.
I have been playing Ultimate for about 4 years now, and I own exactly 1 white jersey. I don't even have any others that could be considered light for scrimmage purposes.

Freshman year we got lights and darks. This white was my favorite jersey in my possession - until I tragically lost it to a recent mishap where I left it on top of my car to dry and drove away. I had other stuff up there which I later found strewn about the streets, but not my white.

That first year I really looked up to a senior on our team named Phelps. At one of the last parties of the year at his house he gave me 3 of his jerseys. 1 white, 2 darks. A year later he randomly showed up to one of our practices to help out and requested that I give him back one of the jerseys - he realized he didnt have many as he had given out more than a few. I had only brought my own dark and his light. Damn.

Sophmore year our captains though it would be cool to have blues and blacks. Ugh... to bad all the first years had nothing to practice in if they were on the light team at practice.

I still have my light from junior year. But thats it.


So. Thats 6 darks. 1 light. I'm getting real tired of washing the same white for every single practice.

If you are going to Lei-Out next weekend and have and abundance of lights, lets trade. I'm a size large. You can find me by looking for Team Hazing. We're the UCSD team who decided to get dark crimson jerseys. Grrrr...

?

What if I should go to med school?
What if I should be a massage therapist?
What if I need to do something were I can run around outdoors?
What if I really should be a writer? Or a Philosopher?

What particular opportunities that I've had dispose me for real success; what type of success is it?

Is the right set of circumstances out there, waiting on me to find it or is that BS and I have to create it?







Do I overuse commas?


Why am I wearing this scalp massager like it's a hat?

Party at my house

My roommates and I are throwing a party at my house, Friday night. 8:30.
You are all invited.
Theme, games, food ect. TBD.

3923 Mt Abraham Ave
San Diego CA 92111

Costumes not required but always encouraged.
Possible themes include:

• Dress as your favorite meme of 2008
• Dress as an idiom, Guess what everyone else is via written ballot, most correct answers wins.
• Dress as your favorite argument for or against Intelligent Design
• Secret Missons
• Do/be whatever you want party
• 10 Year High School Reuion

Ugh

Last night's track practice included a timed mile. I though i would do decently because I had done some workouts over break and was feeling healthy besides the ankle.

5:54.

And it was painful.
Last year I started with at 5:45 , ended with a 5:25 and felt good during and after each one.

I guess the 3pm pho was not digested by 6. I thought I was gonna puke that last lap. Ill have to work on my pre-track eating schedule.

After track, I went home, ate some food, did some pull ups on my freshy installed home-pullup-bar, promised myself I would shower, and promtly passed out on my bed all sweaty with my light still on. Needless to say, that was a pretty shitty night's sleep.

Oh, and on the subject of pull ups - does anyone have any good ideas for how to deal with pullup calluses? I have gone through a few and my hands dont seem to be toughening up.

Peace

Post BewareHo

Its Monday morning and school started today. 8am class wasnt that bad; I have gotten up before the sun the last few days because of an Ultimate tourney and then wanting to get a head start on the drive south.

On Saturday I captained team Hitmonchan to the finals of BewareHO. While I though we had some good players [my brother is good in the air but is no Beau, who was on team Jigglypuff], I think we did well because we were in the right mental state as a team. People were making good decisions, playing within themselves, being positive, and having fun. While I came into it with lots of ideas about strategy, very little of that was talked about. I hammered the topics of focus, intensity, working hard, and the right mental state.
In the end, we lost the final, not because of something we didn't have, but because we could have used a few less players who were shaky with the disc and didn't know where to run. Bob's winning team had all competent players and thus less silly turn overs.

I had a ton of fun playing and captaining my first team was a great learning experience and a nice ego boost.

Props to:

• LPC guys for putting on a great tourney
• My brother Ben for being a smart cutter and sweet in the air
• Corey for being so fucking ninja
• Sticks for being calm cool and collected and having go go gadget spring boots
• Danica Fong for being smooth and always open for a dump
• Yelena Gorlin for being a sweet cutter and having some great hucks and also not getting mad when I screwed up your name {not many teams had nation champs on them. she won it all with Stanford 2 years ago}
• Vac aka Cody Brock for being amazing at catching for a hs junior and also for allowing me to give you the nickname cause i didnt remember your real one. I hope it sticks.
• Tim Bonnell for being solid. And having a massive Monkey-T-rex index
• Lisa for suprissing me with your athleticism, throws, and lack of knowledge of what a pick is.
• Natalie Mar for joining our team at the last minute and being solid, super athletic and skilled. And for having such a cute smile
• Taylor for driving my car afterwards - my random leg spasms would probably make me an unsafe driver
• My mother for finding me the perfect hat for this hat tournament
  

Flops:

• Matty Sung for getting my hopes up and then not showing {I love you anyways}
• Hip flexor and hamstring spasms
• Ankle sized potholes in the fields

Awesome tourney. Make sure you are there next year.

Pre Beware Ho

Check it. The teams for the BewareHo hat tourney got posted a couple hours ago.
Sweet - I get to play on a team with my brother, some old friends, AND our team name is Hitmonchan. ANNNND I get to be captain.

I'm certainly excited because this tournament is always a fun way to see old friends and make new ones while still maintaining a high competitive level. ( There are always a handful of Elite players: Jeff Eastham, Tyler Grant...Beau is coming this year - Ive covered him twice in my career- this time i promise not to get torched deep). But I am really stoked to be captain. I have had a lot of ideas about the way O and D should happen and about team dynamics, focus, fun vs tactical discipline, ect. but have rarely been able to take command.

I just learned I'm captaining when the teams were posted so I don't have anything elaborate but I can think of some things I will make sure to address/ Bring up / keep in mind:

• Find the best girl and convince her to be my co-captain
• Emphasise positivity in talking about teammates. Negative comments like :
• "Stop getting broken!" are pointless and the singular thing I hate the most in my teammates.
• When in the huddle, talk in ways that will actually improve performance as opposed to saying something for the sake of saying it.
• Face the sideline, not up field, when checking it in after a turnover out of bounds
• Have plays to get the disc off the sideline
• Teach zone. Zone is killer at hat tourneys
  
• Get the disc off the low side
• NEVER receive the disc on the low side, look up field for 6 counts and THEN start faking. It would be way better if you didn't even look up field but only looked for a dump. At least stand at a 45 to the field so you can see the handlers. (I also want to work with pivoting back to the middle as Frank taught me in his Ballbreaker drill, instead of up the sideline, when a in cut is caught on the sideline)
• Focus. Awareness. Concentration.
• Staying in the game, even from the sidelines.
• Have the mindset of always be cutting. Every motion, even standing still, should be about getting what you want. To think that you cut, rest, cut, rest .... is to allow your defender to stop defending you.
• Trying not to "Force it" when its not there because the skill level is varied. Instead, work harder, be more patient and set a good example.

Wow, what a list. This is too much for tomorrow. A great way to lose newer players is to keep on talking and talking. I lost myself while thinking about what I wanna do as captain: look what time it is!

Ill read over this tomorrow but mostly I'm gonna play it by ear and have fun.

Peace

New Year, Las Quarter

Well, 2008 is over and my “8” key is still broken – 2009 is no better, “9” is broken too: I’ll still have to copy and paste to write the date. More importantly, though, Winter break is all but over. Today’s Friday, I play Beware-Ho all Saturday and Sunday I hit I-5 for the long trip home. All in all, twas a good break, but it could have been better. It was dominated by the all encompassing laziness of middle school summers when I would forget what day of the week it was. Sure I did stuff, but not that much stuff; a lot more could have been “accomplished” in the time period.

I sure do hope this period “off” will help me be more able to be “on” in the coming quarter. I have felt Fall2008 was a really bad quarter for me and “off” is a very concise way to describe it. I was off with school, off with my internship, off with my BS/MS application (So far, I’m all talk), off with being a good friend, off with following through with my promises. I wasn’t particularly on with Ultimate either. Started a blog, but had bigger dreams for it than its current state. Learned more about Crossfit, did a few WODs but wasn’t consistent. My shoplifting picked up, but got a little sloppy at times. Financial awareness? Really off – not that I bought anything lavish, but where did my checking account go? Practicing what I preach in general? Off – Im often hypocritical. I capped off the quarter with a stupid layout bid resulting in a fucked up shoulder. Off

Well, I sure have been bagging on myself. There certainly have been good parts, even great ones:

Living with grandfather for a bit.

Getting house with Casper and Luke

Furnishing house with dumpster doven / free / shoplifted stuff

Making new friends

Strengthening older friendships

Securing a lab position under a director who is crazily enthusiastic

Successfully went to Vegas for the weekend

Started a blog

Having a successful Ultimate party at my house

Running SoCal Warmup with mostly good results

Solidifying my grasp of Crossfit philosophy

Passing my classes with minimal effort (hey, it’s hard to do decently when you seem to be trying to fail)

Saw Third Eye Blind in concert

Tried some new things

Helped my roommates learn about how to live on one’s own

Ate better, no money to buy ice cream

Got some good facebook photos

Wow, I feel a lot better about myself after writing about the good thing.

Hoping Winter quarter is more of the latter.