Brose's Blog Page of Burnination

There have been a few things that I can blog about lately, but I guess I chose to put the one that's the most "personal revleationicous" type for the title (yeah, I, um, kinda didn't know how to phrase what I wanted to say, 'cause you know, my English sucks)

First and foremost I guess could be the recent "hot topic" of what positions we should hold in society in the future. I think I've said most of what I wanted to in the comments I've made in Jason's and Ray's blogs, so I don't want to repeat myself here.

Oh, it's nice to have a few of us blog "more frequently" again, as more posts usually illicit more conversation between us, heh.

Basically there are two things I felt like posting about, one with regards to leisure and the other with regards to more general life stuff. I'll open w/ the leisure one I guess:

Sanctuary calls to me.

Ever since 1A I have lost my connection to that world. Sure, it was fun here and there, but I guess it was because all of my friends stopped playing for one reason or another that I myself stopped. And when one of those old comrade at arms took up his sword again, I was hesitant to return to the battlefield.

There have been several attempts of going back into this world, however, all of them futile in rekindling that fire I once had to destroy the forces of the Three Prime Evils.

However, recently I once again went back to join the fight, and well, this time it was different. It was fun. I began getting back those long lost feelings of excitement and joy from fighting the monsters of Sanctuary, defending what once was "my world". I delight in the progress of my skills, and those far-fetched ideas of recruiting new and bold companions to fight the good fight once again surfaced to my mind.

So I don't know how many of you saw through the above paragraphs. Long story short, I feel the pull of Diablo 2 once again, I want to level up my character, I want to MF, I want to make my Grim Ward Barbarian. So yeah, maybe I'm going back into the world of Sanctuary once again.

As for the actual title of this post:

I've noticed that my work ethic this term has deteriorated compared to previous school terms. So in that sense, I've been getting "lazy".

I still get my work done and all, it's just that everything seems to be done so much more last minute than it used to. I often used to have at least a day or two to spare when I finish an assignment. This term I'm finishing assignments the night before they're due, sometimes working late so that I don't really get enough sleep. I was late both times I had to hand in the assignment for my 8:30 class, this I've never done before. Luckily my prof isn't a stickler for handing assignments in at 8:30.

My studying habits are getting pushed to the brim as well. I used to do a small amount of reviewing the day of midterms, having prepared my summary notes and done any practice problems the days before. This term I've pretty muched crammed the day before and day of the midterm as my studying. For one class I didn't start studying until about 5 hours prior the the start of the midterm.

The thing is, I'm not too sure if my grades will reflect the drop in effort. That is, so far (some of you might smack me for this), I don't think my grades have dropped. At least, not in direct proportion to the decrease in effort I am putting in. Which means I'm getting roughly the same result for what is overall less effort.

That does sound like a win-win situation, only that I don't really feel comfortable keeping on with this type of study and work habit. It's just not my style, to push things to the very end. I tend to like to have things done well before the time they're supposed to be done; I suppose I feel less pressured that way. However, I haven't really screwed myself this term...yet.

So you might ask what have I been doing then with the time that I would have used to do my work and study ahead of time. The simple answer is that I just happen to waste that time away, ranging from watching TV, playing games, to just plain ol' surfing the Internet. Previous terms I'd finish my work first and then go onto playing/wasting time. This term it's the other way around.

This kind of reminds me of a post Ray had quite awhiles ago, it was some economic theory where it states that 80% of the results is obtained with 20% of the effort, and the other 80% of the effort contributes to the remaining 20%. Basically, it's saying that the marginal rate of results decreases drastically as one increases effort.

I think thus far I have tried to acheive that 100% potential in school. But this term maybe I'm only shooting for 85% potential, hence the decrease in effort. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I know my university undergrad days are numbered, and that I should treasure the last months of this wonderful period in life that is unversity.

Or maybe it's just 'cause I'm slacking more, that could be a reason too.

Who knows =p

Nothing quite like a good session of exercise to find out just how completely out of shape one is. It's quite awesome. 50 year old women can probably school me on the court after a couple trips up and down, 'cause that's when my heart starts pounding and my ribcage starts to sore. How utterly sad indeed.

So basically I can play basketball for about 10 minutes, then I'm totally wiped. That's not good, because once you're wiped, you're lazy in moving, and that means you play poor defence and poorer offence. Eventually you start to push yourself a bit, so you get a couple trips up and down the court where you actually get there with the other 9 players, then you really tire yourself out, and end up walking between the three point arcs, always a few steps behind the action. It's like "Wingo hockey", chase the puck but never get there, ha ha.

Sigh, really should get myself into some exercising routine, otherwise I'm asking for a heart disease by like 50. General problem is that I'm too lazy to move myself to a location that endorses such movements of the body, aka a gym. Have to either drive there, and if so, find a place to park. If not, then I have to walk back home after being tired out, seems too much effort. Blah, maybe I should just take my ass off the couch/bed/chair and run around the block or something. But then winter's coming, d'oh...

Oh well, in about 2 weeks I'll forget about this, and I'll remember this again the next time I exercise, which probably will be in another month or so =p

Hi all, again it's been about a month since my last update.

It's not that I don't have things to talk about. Actually, there were a few times where I'd think of something, an idea or concept, and I'd think: "Hm, this is fairly interesting, I probably should post this on my blog and see what the others think about it." But alas, as those who still come here know, I haven't followed up on that. Primarily it's because those "revelations" come to me as I go about my day, I tend to think while walking to and from campus, and generally that's when these ideas pop up. Thus, I don't have access to a computer terminal right away, and these thoughts get pushed back. Right now, I cannot recall a single one of these ideas, damn.

Well, actually, I remember of one day's events that led to an "interesting thought", however, I have forgotten what that thought was now. There was this one day where, upon leaving for class, I passed by one of my neighbours just about to take her dog for a walk. The dog wasn't leashed, so when he (let's just assume that it was a male, instead of you know, a bitch, ha ha) saw me, ran up to my legs, started barking and growling and stuff. He blocked my path, as I tried to maneuver myself around the dog, he kept himself in front of me, barking all along. For those few seconds I felt threatened, but I didn't know what I was to do. The first thing on my mind was: "Should I make a break for it?" (Hm, actually, typing about this reminds me of the "revelation"). Before I could make my decision, the dog's owner told me to calm down (I think, or was it stand still?) and let the dog smell my hand. She said that the dog can get bossy if he feels that you are afraid/threatened by it, and you just need to show that you are friendly (or something of the sort). So, after letting the dog get my scent, he went along his way with my neighbour, and I continued my trek to class.

What was interesting about this encounter was my initial reaction to the situation. I didn't think about fighting or kicking the dog, I chose to run. Does that mean that I'm a coward? Maybe. I guess this links to the psych 101's 4 F's: Fight or Flight? I could try to come up with reasons why I chose flight in that encounter with the dog, say I didn't want to hurt it because I knew the owner was a neighbour, but I felt that the dog was going to bite my ankle. Or maybe that my tendency in a situation is to run first, and fight only if I have to. Maybe my general schema for threatening encounters is that flight takes priority over fight. Just thought that it was interesting.

I'm not sure if the following took place on the same day as the dog encounter above, but I do recall seeing an accident at the intersection of Keats Way and University. So basically I saw it right after I stepped out of the townhouse complex. I didn't see the actual collison of the vehicles (a woman in a small sedan, sized probably like a Civic, collided head to head with a U haul sized van, it looked like the woman was going straight and the van was turning left from University into Keats Way; wheather one or both of them were trying to beat a red light, I'm not sure), but it probably had only happened for a few minutes, because there were no emergency personnel around, and I could hear the nearby construction workers calling the accident in. I couldn't help but be drawn to what has happened, I slowed down my pace, if not stopped for a moment or two, to capture in what has happened (as you can tell, I did bother to take note of how the collison appeared to take place). That was also interesting, because usually I don't understand why people do that. If I was driving though, I would try to just be on my way and not stop traffic to look at another's misfortune, unless there was nobody else around and someone needed help. So what was interesting about this was that when a person sees something novel or out of the ordinary (as in something they don't encounter everyday), then do tend to direct their attention towards it. If I didn't have to go to class right away, I'd probably have stayed at the scene a bit to see what happened, if the woman was injured or not (she did look quite stunned in the driver's seat), etc.

So, the above two "ideas" perhaps justifies what we always see in sci fi movies where Earth is invaded and such. People always just look at the alien creature or spaceship and such when the first see it, and then run when they're scared or threatened as they see the aliens are attacking them. Maybe =p

Oh yeah, since Alan started updating again, I figured I should too, or risk being pushed into the "4 blogs" link on Bao's blog, ha ha ha.