Weights and reflections on stories
Weight numbers:
Squat: 95 pounds
Overhead press: 25 pounds x 2
Lat rows: 25 pounds x 2
Pull-ups: 60 pounds, 40 pounds - poor form on last set.
Sit-ups: none.
I almost don’t believe how strongly some things from high school and before have stayed with me. Knowing this now, would I do things differently? Not too much. I would mostly make changes in how I handled college, but there you are. I think a lot of people would do college differently given the chance.
The reason for this is, there were opportunities I think I missed in college. Not so much in high school. Was there another group that I would’ve got along with better than the Waiszlings? I don’t think so. Was there anything I could’ve done that was more productive than watching anime? Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have done it anyways.
One thing I would change is procrastinating so much on things like college applications and the like. I would put them off as long as I could, partly because I didn’t know very much about college and how to go about it. But instead of researching it and educating myself I listened to second-hand internet comments and stewed in my own uncertainty. This is not a good way to do things. Unfortunately I repeated parts of it when applying to grad school, but it is part of the reason I am trying to establish a new behavior pattern for myself now.
I have made posts like this before, but it is surprising how much of the media I consumed during my teenage years has stayed with me. I’m thinking of things like Xenogears, Lunar, Vagrant Story, Evangelion, Dragonlance, David Gemmell, the Black Company., Trigun, Valkyrie Profile. These things. To some extent Legend of Dragoon, Pokemon, Steven Brust. I joke about having no taste in those days (and I joke about having no taste now, but I do not -entirely- believe it.) I internalized a shocking amount from these things and they still affect some of the ways I think, or how I would tell a story.
This makes it sound like I was just a blank slate that was imprinted by the media that I happened to find. I think it is more that specific parts of those things matched things I was concluding for myself and they complemented each other. I did seek out things with a certain tone, whether consciously or not. And because of the connection I can go back to these things for nostalgia and relaxing even now. They’re not Dostoevsky by any means, but it’s nice to see that I can still appreciate them..
Another note: I think that I need stories much the same way I need tea. I can get by without them, but the days seem a lot more flat and tedious. When I am reading stories or trying to come up with my own, things flow better. It is fortunate that I don’t think I’ll run out any time soon. In this I am the opposite of Brian - though I’m always somewhat interested in knowing new things, it rarely overcomes my taste for new stories. This is why I don’t actually read more nonfiction, even though it’s interesting.
When you come down to it, a lot of nonfiction comes down to stories too. They are not always expertly told, but they are there. Sometimes the stopping and starting points are off, but it’s still a story. There’s a reason that, when talking about projects, biologists will say, “The details aren’t all worked out, but she’s got a good story worked out.” The tale of what EcoR1 is actually doing may not be compelling for that many people, but a paper presented this way is vastly more interesting than a flat presentation of sequential experiments.
So what I’m getting at is that I think it’s not just me. Humans are built for stories. We find significance in disparate events in our own lives. We find patterns where none would otherwise exist and then we put them together and impose borders around them. It’s what we do and it’s what we are, really. What distinguishes the mass of water and cells carried around within an envelope of transient other cells? That mass calls itself a brain and it calls the whole around it a person. From there it records its own story and it can appreciate others’ as well.
Squat: 95 pounds
Overhead press: 25 pounds x 2
Lat rows: 25 pounds x 2
Pull-ups: 60 pounds, 40 pounds - poor form on last set.
Sit-ups: none.
I almost don’t believe how strongly some things from high school and before have stayed with me. Knowing this now, would I do things differently? Not too much. I would mostly make changes in how I handled college, but there you are. I think a lot of people would do college differently given the chance.
The reason for this is, there were opportunities I think I missed in college. Not so much in high school. Was there another group that I would’ve got along with better than the Waiszlings? I don’t think so. Was there anything I could’ve done that was more productive than watching anime? Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have done it anyways.
One thing I would change is procrastinating so much on things like college applications and the like. I would put them off as long as I could, partly because I didn’t know very much about college and how to go about it. But instead of researching it and educating myself I listened to second-hand internet comments and stewed in my own uncertainty. This is not a good way to do things. Unfortunately I repeated parts of it when applying to grad school, but it is part of the reason I am trying to establish a new behavior pattern for myself now.
I have made posts like this before, but it is surprising how much of the media I consumed during my teenage years has stayed with me. I’m thinking of things like Xenogears, Lunar, Vagrant Story, Evangelion, Dragonlance, David Gemmell, the Black Company., Trigun, Valkyrie Profile. These things. To some extent Legend of Dragoon, Pokemon, Steven Brust. I joke about having no taste in those days (and I joke about having no taste now, but I do not -entirely- believe it.) I internalized a shocking amount from these things and they still affect some of the ways I think, or how I would tell a story.
This makes it sound like I was just a blank slate that was imprinted by the media that I happened to find. I think it is more that specific parts of those things matched things I was concluding for myself and they complemented each other. I did seek out things with a certain tone, whether consciously or not. And because of the connection I can go back to these things for nostalgia and relaxing even now. They’re not Dostoevsky by any means, but it’s nice to see that I can still appreciate them..
Another note: I think that I need stories much the same way I need tea. I can get by without them, but the days seem a lot more flat and tedious. When I am reading stories or trying to come up with my own, things flow better. It is fortunate that I don’t think I’ll run out any time soon. In this I am the opposite of Brian - though I’m always somewhat interested in knowing new things, it rarely overcomes my taste for new stories. This is why I don’t actually read more nonfiction, even though it’s interesting.
When you come down to it, a lot of nonfiction comes down to stories too. They are not always expertly told, but they are there. Sometimes the stopping and starting points are off, but it’s still a story. There’s a reason that, when talking about projects, biologists will say, “The details aren’t all worked out, but she’s got a good story worked out.” The tale of what EcoR1 is actually doing may not be compelling for that many people, but a paper presented this way is vastly more interesting than a flat presentation of sequential experiments.
So what I’m getting at is that I think it’s not just me. Humans are built for stories. We find significance in disparate events in our own lives. We find patterns where none would otherwise exist and then we put them together and impose borders around them. It’s what we do and it’s what we are, really. What distinguishes the mass of water and cells carried around within an envelope of transient other cells? That mass calls itself a brain and it calls the whole around it a person. From there it records its own story and it can appreciate others’ as well.