Sorry there is not a good morning, today!
For starters, I got a quiz today, midterm Thursday, another quiz on Friday, and what happened yesterday morning. The bright side is there are two more weeks left, well actually three including finals week, but regardless I am in the final stretch now.
Where do I begin? Team Canada dominated the entire game, but Hellebuyck stood on his head and played out of his mind. So many great chances, but could not convert, and that is just life. I feel bad for McDavid. How are you able to keep going after coming so close, but yet so far for the past 3 seasons. I want a reason and an excuse to be mad about it, but I can not. It was one hell of a game that came down to the wire, and Team Canada did not come out on top. I know those missed chances by MacKinnon and Toews will be eating at them for years to come because I still hang my head on thinking back to missing wide open nets in minor hockey. This game was an instant classic, made me so anxious, and had my heart-racing. Not the result I wanted, but very happy about what is to come out of this for the next generation of hockey. One of my Canadian colleagues said, "I wish I did not care so much about hockey," and I think that is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Yes, I am being hypocritical, I have said that before, and he probably said that out of emotions, but I came to realize that is such a meaningless sentence and frankly a waste of words. The only way we as athletes or sports fan can experience triumph and heartbreak is by engaging with and truly loving something bigger than ourselves. These high pressure moments and raw emotions are what makes us feel alive. For 2-3 hours we can escape and forget about work, school, first-world problems, and even that we are human. I think this South Park clip here explains the message I am trying to convey the best:
How lucky am I to have a reason to wake up at 5 AM to watch a game that I am not even playing in? How lucky am I to be able to do something I love for 14 years and going? Also, how lucky am I to play the sport I love in a foreign country? There is much to appreciate. I love hockey, I love sports. Congrats to Team USA, but everybody likes a comeback story. Chasing redemption, revenge tour coming 2030 in the French Alps!
Enough said, here's how Week 7 went:
Although I had no midterms during the shortened week, there was still a plethora of work assigned to me. All my professors decided that a shortened Week 7 is the best time to assign 4+ assignments along with labs. I signed up for this though, so the work needs to be done 😊, but best believe I will still complain while doing it.
I got my midterm result back for ECE 25 (Digital Circuit Design), 60/100 🤦♂️. This one sucks because I sabotaged myself out of a high 80. I breezed through the easy problems so quickly, then spent way too much time on the long problems, I forgot to revisit, and recheck my answers for the easy ones. I brought the score upon myself, which was the same story of how my DSC10 (Data Science) midterm went, careless mistakes on the easy questions, analysis paralysis on the hard questions. There is another midterm on Thursday for ECE25 and a quiz on Friday for DSC10, so I will move on to that.
I am just so frustrated with myself. There is just this negative-feedback self-doubt, and overthinking loop that I can not seem to break out of. I study, work hard, I understand, but when it comes time to do, I fold. Even in my boxing lessons, my mind registers the combinations and footwork Coach says, but my body does not follow. Coach gets on me for the same reason I explained last week. This week Coach told me I need to "focus better and lock-in" and "if you did it correctly once, why stop?" Pretty vague and simple advice, but effective. Boxing is a sport of pure discipline and I respect that the Coach is hard when needed to be. You can lose your life in this sport, and having the proper fundamentals and groundwork is essential to ensuring your safety. After all, I did say I wanted to learn what it means to be strong, and you can not learn strength from a sugar coated coach. I am still learning how to adapt that "Don't think or try, just do" mindset and mentality. These lessons only last for one more week, I thought it would go until the end of the quarter, but in just two weeks I am in awe about how much I learned about life from this coach. Hopefully, I can sign up for the next level of boxing class next school year.
I got some huge wins this week too; securing Kyoto dorm and Pepper Canyon West dorm for next school year. Pepper Canyon West is a 12-month contract, so I will be spending summer '27 in La Jolla, but I am fine with that. Yes, it would be nice to try and go for an internship back home in the Bay during the summer, but the reality is the job market is not getting any better, and no one is hiring a low GPA student. I need to build myself and taking summer courses next year will definitely be beneficial to me toward my degree.
Also, I have started the dorm move out process. After last weekend's LA bender, I sent my hockey gear, among other things taking space up space in my dorm back home. The space definitely feels a lot emptier, but I think my suite mates are happy with all the empty space. Yes, I am still bothered by how this season went, but I am glad that I kept playing despite how frustrating it was. I am going to be so rusty when I come back, having not being on the ice for 7 weeks. This is probably the longest I have not skated since COVID. I have experienced plenty off-seasons before, but not like this. I would always find time to skate during the week, it would just not be as frequent as during the season of course. Although I have been checked out of the sport for the last 2 years, I still have not gotten used to the adjustment of being away from the game. I am going through a one-fifth life crisis, but I think the majority of my former teammates who are not playing Jr's are too. If you are in the same boat as me, I want to say I love you all, I hope you are healthy, and we will be alright. This is a pretty good video explaining the dilemma:
I want to study a bit more before my quiz, so I think I will end the log here, but before I do that, I wanted to share this video:
This was going to be the video of the week, but as much as I despise Jack Hughes, his post game interview takes the cake. Just a nails speech about what it means to be an American and embody that spirit. I did a Black History Month project for Jesse Jackson back in 8th-Grade during quarantine. I am in no position to share my political beliefs or views, but this speech really resonated with me. R.I.P. Jesse Jackson. Keep hope alive! Keep moving forward!
See you next week!