One thing I want to make sure not to do on this blog is make excuses. I made a lot of excuses growing up, but to make progress I must understand that ultimately I am responsible for my actions and inaction. When I don’t get a post uploaded, it’s because I mismanaged my priorities again. This happens quite often.
Well, sorry for the silence (he said to no one in particular). I’m back. Here’s the State of the Manly address.
Since the year started, I’ve felt incredibly low on motivation. I don’t feel a lot of direction. I get done what I need to get done, and then my mind drifts. I don’t produce anything. I don’t progress. I don’t call who I need to call. I don’t e-mail who I should e-mail. I feel a bit burnt out, and I don’t feel like I’ve done enough to burn myself out.
Here, however, I’d like to take some time to reflect on what I have achieved from the beginning of the year. Focusing on things I haven’t done seems like something that would exacerbate burn-out. Let me just push that pile to the side for a second.
I got the “Earthbound” (“Mother 2” in Japan) yearly schedule book that has a page for each day. I’m pretty bad at planning and writing plans down, but I’m working on it, and I’d say this schedule is probably the most success I’ve had writing a schedule. I’ve also tried to write a little something on each page to keep track of… I don’t know what. Some are journal entries, prayer requests, notes about classes, records taken for Pokémon breeding and training, but no doodles yet, and that’s kind of sad to me. Anyway, after looking through the pages since January 1st, I have counted only about 13 empty pages, and 6 of those were the first days of the year. I didn’t start writing in the schedule until after I got back from my trips to visit my family and celebrate my wife’s birthday.
Having an analog schedule is new for me. It’s a different feeling, and it feels good. I used to use a digital schedule, but I didn’t always update it. The calendar on my cell phone is great for keeping dates, but I can’t bring that out as quickly or appropriately as a book. It feels unprofessional. I feel much more comfortable pulling this out when I need to write down a date or check my schedule. I feel responsible.
And the cover just screams, “I’m an adult.”
In gaming achievements, I’ve brought my Star Wars: Shadows of the Old Republic character from 18 to level 28 playing maybe an average of 2 hours a week. It’s slow-going, but it’s progress. I guess I feel dwarfed by others’ progress because I don’t spend as much time focused on one thing; I’ve also been working on Minecraft, Pokémon, and Bravely Default: for the Sequel since the beginning of the year. My brothers have had higher level characters in SWTOR for a long time, my wife beat BD:ftS last year, my artistically gifted friends have already opened three Nether portals in their Minecraft world, built two farms, a convenience store, a modern-style house, and a huge monster trap that was recently rendered harmless thanks to an update but probably took hours to make. I mean, it had in-game circuitry. This is all in survival mode, so think about the time that it took to build that, then probably about 3 times that just to collect materials. No wonder that progress makes me feel like an underachiever.
I posted the internal monologue a week or so ago, so I’ll post the one from the next day now. A reminder, italics are the second voice, the one that I can only currently explain as a conscious interpretation of unconscious reaction to conscious thought.
Well, here you are again this morning.
Yes, here I am.
Have you read over yesterday’s journal?
Not yet.
Go do so.
…Any thoughts?
Shh, I’m still reading.
Sorry, put your headphones in.
Good call.
What are you listening to?
Anamanaguchi and the Scott Pilgrim game soundtrack.
The soundtrack is by Anamanaguchi too, right?
Yeah. You know this because you’re me, why are you trying to distract me from the journal so much?
Sorry, sorry.
Thanks, it was easier without you asking the questions.
Oh, I still asked. You just weren’t listening, or rather, you didn’t type them out of a desire to finish reading. But think on that later. Without switching internal voices, let’s save time by allowing me to recap the questions you asked yourself. First, can you believe you said that about Mr. M? Do you really think you thought on similar levels?
Of course not, and I didn’t think that yesterday, either. It was the best way I could express the thought at the time. I think I meant to say that we thought through similar methods. Never did I have delusions of grandeur that I thought around the same level as any of my teachers. It was something more like, our thought processes were similar.
You really think people have thought processes similar to yours?
Well, maybe not Mr. M. I’m sure his thoughts are more organized and collected, like normal people.
You think your thoughts aren’t organized?
If they were, would I have to ask myself questions to straighten them out?
Point taken. Did anything else strike you from yesterday’s journal?
Yeah, it felt shorter reading it than it took writing it.
You know, this is something you should keep in mind, especially if you’re going to start grad school. Papers, essays, posts, comments, responses: you take much longer to write these than you do to read them.
Not only that, but I don’t read that quickly, either.
True enough. Why do you think that is?
Maybe because I actually pronounce each word in my head?
Most likely. By the way, you know it’s not necessary for each character in a story to have their own voice in your head, right?
It’s more fun that way, though.
Yeah, but when you read in voices you slow down for some of the characters. This is why you read dialogue slowly.
Hey, I actually read through dialogue a lot faster than blocks of exposition.
That’s because there are fewer words and dialogue is less intimidating than long paragraphs.
Oh.
Yeah, I mean you tend to close a book when you get to a long paragraph or put down a comic when there are a bunch of word bubbles on the page. Don’t you like reading?
I do, but… word blocks…
All right, I get it. It’s cool. Hey, how did everything go yesterday after the journal?
Oh, dude, thanks so much for that yesterday. As you know, I got the lesson done. At the time, the worksheet seemed simple and drab and I wasn’t sure how well it would go. I decided I’d play BNL’s “If I Had $1000000” at the beginning of class to practice listening along the lines of modal verbs.
Did they like the song?
Kinda. It’s hard to tell with first period; they’re pretty reserved.
Did they get some of what BNL were saying?
Yeah!
You went a little overboard explaining the jokes, didn’t you.
A little…
How was the lesson and the worksheet, though?
Mr. F and I felt like it was a success. I think they had a good time, but on top of that, I’m looking forward to reading what they wrote. I had them tell us what question they would ask if they could ask us anything they wanted.
Anything interesting?
Yes, actually. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t become good practice for the grammar, though.
Is that the point of your class?
No, they have another class they practice grammar in. I just teach them how to use it for communication.
But you had them write.
Well, yes, I had them write, but I had written questions on the worksheet and they wrote answers. This might not be oral communication, but it’s a type of communication.
Right. See, sometimes it’s ok to give yourself some credit.
Feels good, man.
“Don’t get cocky, kid.”
“Who’s ‘scruffy-looking?'”
Laugh it up, Fuzzball.
Why do we do that?
What, link quotes together? It’s similar to any other tangent we go on. One thought links to another and pulls you in a different direction. Aren’t you used to it by now?
Well, sure, but don’t you think it’s a problem?
Are you completely unfocused?
Well, no…
Are you still analyzing, thinking, moving forward?
I guess. Well, I mean, if you’re asking me that, by definition I AM analyzing and thinking. Is this really moving forward, though?
Depends which direction you consider is forward.
Good point. I mean, the speed of my thoughts can be as fast as anything, but without a set direction, you can’t define its velocity.
You’re such a nerd. But yeah, that’s important, isn’t it? Go read back on this and see what you intended to do with this dialogue.
Okay, gimme a minute.
…and I ran out of time. I did, however, get to go over it just now. I think what I intended to do with this dialogue was to analyze my thinking while measuring progress in methods of organizing and executing my higher level classes.
Interestingly, toward the end I think I hit on a pretty important point. Which way is forward? In order to measure growth, I need to define what that growth is. Growth may not even be the proper word for this. Let me hash it out today and get back to you. Yeah, you’ll get to see the exchange again. It’ll be up here, hopefully sooner than later.
stevemanly 