Happy G-Washy Day!
Although, I am cheering for Team Canada during the Olympics, I got to thank Mr. George for crossing the Delaware on Christmas. This is probably one of the coldest paintings of all time:
This painting had fifth grade me riled up and ready to run through a brick wall.
After a 12 years hiatus, NHLers are back in the Olympics, and it has not disappointed. It was expected that Canada and the U.S. were going to be the top two teams coming out of preliminary group play, so no surprise there. The only surprise to me is how McDavid and Matthews have moved up a gear during these games. McDavid is playing Tom Wilson's role so well, Jon Cooper kicked Wilson off his line. 9 points in 3 games is a crazy stat-line, but then you remember it is McDavid. McDavid, MacKinnon, and Celebrini on a line is not fair; who is stopping that? Celebrini is unreal, but I still think if you swap him out for Bedard, Bedard would have the same impact. Such a shame Bedard did not attend the World's Championship last year, otherwise he would have made the team. In what world are you taking Jarvis over Bedard? I do not know, but still let's go Canada! Matthews is doing more for Team USA than he does for the Leafs. I love Tone, but bring this back to the Leafs man, do it for the mandem in the 6ix, the city deserves it.
If the Olympics were not on, I have no clue how I am getting through Week 6. With no Olympics and NFL being over, how did students in previous years get through midterm week? I give a lot of respect to them, it takes a lot of courage to get bombarded with exams and having nothing to look forward too. Fortunately for me that was not the case. Olympics were on, I got to go LA this weekend, life was not bad, even though this was a rough week.
Monday was one of the best Monday I had in a while. I got to finally comeback and workout in the D1 gym. Granted I was moving some sorry weight, it was still nice to get a sweat in after two weeks of inactivity. My lectures and discussions went pretty smooth. I went to review my circuits quiz in office hours to see where I went wrong, and it was exactly what I thought I did. Silly mistakes. Even the professor chewed me out on it, but he said he's happy to see me doing better this time around. I need to figure out how to avoid making silly mistakes because that has been the story of the quarter so far. The lights are always too bright for me, I guess. I also reviewed my Data Science quiz too, which sucked because my TA told me my logic and reasoning is correct, but my silly mistakes costed me. I just have test-taking and performance anxiety, I need to overcome.
My first CAPS or therapy session was on Tuesday. It was just an initial evaluation session for like 15-minutes. I just got the standard, "Be nicer to yourself, you have come so far, celebrate the small wins." Everybody says that to me, but it just goes in one ear and out the other, just empty words that do not internalize. Yes, I have come far, but you do not celebrate in the middle, you celebrate when you are done:
Boxing lessons officially started. The first sessions were humbling, I absolutely sucked. My fundamentals are terrible, but that's why I am learning. When the instructor was throwing out the combos, I am always like 3 times slower than the rest of the class because I had to get the rhythm and flow down. Sometimes in my head I know what's going on, but my body is not following. Coach even chewed me out, saying, "Dawg, I just showed you how to do it, why are you not doing it?" Being honest, I replied, "My brain is trying to process, but my body is not following." Coach spat back, "Don't try, just do!" I have been scolded by coaches before, but I do not know why this one stuck with me. It is probably because for starters that is a Yoda quote and hits different when told, but that was probably one of the most real and right thing someone said to me. I will not lie and say I did not choke up because I did. After hearing that, I was like Rocky staring in the mirror in this clip here.
Constantly overthinking me has been my Achilles heal. Being so hypercritical, analyzing everything to the minute detail, then end up paralyzed, and not taking action or doing the thing I did not want to do. Some boxing coach I have only known for two hours total was able to crack the code on me. Is the pain I am going through so obvious to see on my face? Probably, but I am happy I heard this happened and decided to take lessons. The sessions are only an hour long, but they are intensive. I probably sweated more in those first two sessions than all my hockey practices for UCSD. I am enjoying it though, get a good sweat in from 12 to 1, feel a little good about yourself than off to studying. It's embarrassing how much I suck right now because I thought I would be better, but it is a start. You do not make it to the top without starting at zero.
Data science midterm ate me up, straight failure, I am below the mean and the median. I tried to convince myself I was going to do good on it, but as I was studying the old midterms, I knew I was cooked. I studied for 8 hours on Tuesday, slept for 8 hours, ate a good breakfast, but when it came time to take the exam, it did not click. There were so many questions, I did not know where to start or even have a chance to get too. 12 coding and probability questions in 50 minutes, stadium pulse was high. I left more questions blank than I liked to and that will end up costing me. The only thing I can say to make myself maybe feel a little-bit better, is I showed up and took the exam. I can not say I tried because trying is failing, I did not do my best and leave everything all out there, and that is the part that eats me alive. Knowing I could, but I did not. In my sick-twisted mind, if I laid everything out, I would have been able to not leave any question blank and be confident in my answers, and not constantly second guess myself. Even though, I was exhausted and studied a lot, there is always more I could have done and push myself towards that extra mile. Like what Khabib said, "Who cares?"
I can attribute this to my last quarter performance or any aspect of my life too. If I put it all on the line, I would be in a much better position than I am in, but you could say that for anyone and anything. I understand that I am too hard on myself, but I rather be that than too easy on myself. If anything, I am trying to gear towards being more real with myself. If I know what I am capable of and have that standard set. Why strive for or accept anything less than the standard? Why reward mediocrity? I do not want a participation trophy saying I did "good enough."
I got a review session with my TA tomorrow so back to the drawing board, and trying to get better each day. Obviously this week and midterm season, just adds to the slew of an already difficult first-year here at UCSD. Despite these setbacks, I am not giving up on myself, but man do I find more reasons to give up every day.
You can have 99 reasons to quit, but 1 good reason to stay that takes precedence over all the other reasons. My 1 reason to keep going last week was going to UCLA for the weekend. Although it took 6 hours to get there, I had fun. The public transport in LA is terrible, but there are so many characters on the bus. I was talking shop to my bus driver, Josh, about public transit, football, and culture. Josh is a legend, a living embodiment of someone who works their tail off each day, but still find time to enjoy and embrace the little things in life. We had a solid conversation while sitting in traffic on the 405. Josh gave me hope that everything is going to be alright. Let God sort things out!
I still can not fathom how good the dining halls at UCLA are. As I was eating, I just became more angry at myself that I did not work enough last quarter to put a UC to UC transfer in. I know it is stupid, but when you experience the UCLA dining experience after UCSD than you know how justified my reason for trying to transfer is. Golf was pretty brutal for me; played a terrible 9-holes. I did a have pretty good range session after though, so I am pretty happy about that. LA trip was brief, but worth-while. Ate some good food, had fun, spent time with good people, and sometimes that is all you need. Although I wish I would have spent more time, I will be back in LA before I know it and will have another good time then.
I have learned that the prerequisite for good days are bad days, it is only when working to survive through those long days, you can truly appreciate them. It is Week 7 now, and as much as I complain about how my first year is going, I am starting to realize that life is coming from me rather than at me. In 4 weeks, my first year will be over, and that is hard to wrap my head around. Am I the same person I was before coming in? Probably or maybe not, I can not answer that question right now. Forgive me, I just finished reading Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I am reading David Goggin's Can't Hurt Me now, so I am on philosophical thoughts right now 😂. I do not want to go that deep right now. Some time or maybe at the end of the year, I will create my reading list with reviews on every book I read this year, hopefully it is more than two. There's so many ideas I have for this site, but I am just too lazy to update the HTML and JavaScript right now.
I am going to end the log here, it is like 6 AM right now, I have an exciting day, and another long week ahead of me. Check out the video of the week, it helped me after my data science midterm went horrible. I do not know who needs to hear this, but I am not giving up, so you should not either. We climb out of this rut together!
See you next week!