Shennanigans

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. I guess it's just kinda gotten away from me, things have been kinda busy lately. I finally got moved into the house and classes start tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the year. Dr. Tom sent me and email the other day asking me to grade for him. That should be pretty fun. I just have to stay up on the work and not let it pile up like I usually do for stuff. I don't think it should be too much of a problem.

I have to admit I have some mixed reactions to moving up here. A part of me is sad to say goodbye to all the friends that i made this summer. It really was a blast. It funny, when jess broke up with me I thought to myself "all I want to do is salvage as much of this summer as I can...meet some new people and have fun". And the funny thing is, that's exactly what I did. It's a really good feeling, to set a goal like that for yourself and accomplish it.

I wonder a lot about my potential. How much of whether or not I succeed at my goals in life is determined not by the rest of the world, but by my own mindset? Do I really have the power to wake up in the morning say "I want some goal to happen" and be able to set out and actually make it happen? Can the difference between success and failure really rest in my head? I'm extremely skeptical of such "feel good" and "positive attitude" ideas, so I used to dismiss it. But I remmember this one time over the summer when me and bobby went to see this hipnotist. I know this sounds crazy, but it really made me think...

Hipnotists can make a 100 pound woman stretch out between two bar stools, and remain stiff as a board when a heavy man stands on her back. Is it all fake? Sometimes I think it isn't. I mean you have to keep the notion of the human brain in perspective. When you feel a heavy man standing on your back, in the woman's case, what do you really "feel"? It's all just interpreted by your brain, yknow? If you can control your mind, tell yourself that you're stiff as a board, then why shouldn't you be able to make it happen. I mean if you believe it, honestly believe that you are, or can do something...it's an exciting thought. That means that I can wake up tomorrow, and just by believeing in myself, I can accomplish nearly anything that I want. Craziness.

So if it's so damn easy, why don't people just succeed at every goal that they have? I think there's a pretty easy answer to that...they're afraid of something. They stop themselves from succeeding. It makes sense really...a survival instinct that can be more counterproductive than useful...it's certainly fits the bill. I've been thinking about this quote a lot that I heard from Cat in one of her blogs...she said "trust your hopes and not your fears". That's a great way to look at life. I'm beginning to think that my fears are causing me to fail at my goals. It's like I don't want to be lonely, so I want people to like me so I won't be alone. But I'm so afraid of being disliked, I don't have the confidence to be myself around people. So I don't really get to know people, so I end up feeling alone. it's a vicious cycle.

I think that's maybe why I succeeded so much at my goal this summer. I mean down at the waterfront, I had nothing to lose. I really didnt care that much if people liked me or not...we were all just there to play frisbee and have some fun, yknow? I wasn't afraid because I felt like I'd already hit rock bottom.

I know that was a really random discourse, but a lot's been going on in my head lately. I'm still not anywhere near over jess. I had a dream about her last night. I woke up early this morning so mad and upset. Took me forever to get back to sleep. Just a stupid dream. I don't really know how to deal with it to be honest. It helps to talk to people about it...but I'm afraid to talk about it with people, because then that means that I'm some kinda heartbroken loser, ykonw? It's like I try to convince myself I am over it by not talking about it. I don't know...I mean I just keep telling myself...it's only heartache. I mean yea it sucks, but what's the worst it can do to me? I just have to fight through it, make the most out of each day. And most importantly not to be afraid of anything like being alone. Like Cat said to trust my hopes and dreams, what I want, rather than what I'm afraid of. It makes sense.

Geez I must have had that stored up for awhile. I wanna talk about something more happy now.

So I've been working really hard to meet some Ultimate guys up here. I got in touch with Hodge's friend who's on the team, and went out and played some pickup with him and bunch of guys the other day. They all seem like pretty cool guys. It was nice to be back in my element, yknow? I do well meeting people through ultimate, because I don't really have any fear out there. I have the confidence I need on the field.

But anyway I went to the activities fair tonight and met a few more guys from the team. They seem cool. Some exciting news about the club:

-They practice 3 or 4 days a week (I could do with 7 personally)
-They're trying to go to a couple tourneys in the fall, one of which will hopefully be Berea. That means my cousin will be there playing with her school. Awesomeness.
-ISU has a team!! That's huge! Supposedly we'll scrimmage against em every friday. That helps eliminate some of my reservations.

So in short I'm pretty stoked, I have to admit. There's a pickup game on friday, and practice starts monday after classes. Geez I'm so excited. I bought a Rose Hulman ultrastar disc tonight for 7 bucks. It's pretty awesome. On a down note though, I'm really frustrated with my throws right now. I can't throw a backhand at all (no big shock there) and I can't get my forehand to quit turning over. That's no good. I've always been a much better cutter than handler anyway. But on a good note, I've being toying with a high release backhand that Shaggy taught me right before I left the ville, and it's coming along nicely.

Well I gotta get some sleep for class tomorrow. Peace.

By the way, thanks to Cat for the message on my last post, it helps a lot. You're the best.

Whew...

Wow it's been an interesting night. But I'll start with last night first it was a hell of a lot more fun.

So we go down to the waterfront and me bobby and hunter jump in a game (there were like 3 or 4 going). So we play for maybe ten minutes till Ming comes over and is like "hey guys come over here". Apparently these punk ass high school football players were talking shit to him and Ray. Well that pissed us all off cuz that shit shouldn't happen in ultimate. So we got a team of the regular guys together and decided to beat the shit out of them lol. After we went up like 5-1 we decided to do an H-stack with me bob ming and ray handling. Yea we destroyed em 10-1. It was so great to see those cocky bastards get there asses beat by a bunch of easygoing guys who were just out to have fun. Right in front of all there little prissy girlfriends too. So great.

The other highlight of the night was when a big group of really hot (like bad hot not good hot) girls walked by while we were tossing. One of em asked Reggie if she could throw once. So he tossed it to her and she TOOK OFF with the disc. Man Hunter started chasing her down (he was soo pissed) and I thought he was gonna bury her ass in the concrete. Luckily Reggie got there first...she goes "go long!"...so he grabbed the disk and yelled "bitch I am long!" and flicked her off. I thought that was pretty damn funny.

So I finally called jess back tonight. It's funny everybody I talked to was either like "you said you would call you need to" or "fuck her, never call her back". Hah so I called...it was akward, and I felt a little shitty afterwards, so I called Arlyn and she picked me right back up as usual. She's a great girl...I always say that's she everything for me that jess couldnt be. It's funny I was going through my phone and I had a whole list of good friends that I knew I could call if I needed to. Awesome feeling man. Well anyway I gotta get some sleep.

BTW I'd really like to post links to my friends blogs on here but I really think I'm too dumb to figure out how lol.

Poop...

Y'know I was having an okay night, i really was. I actually got a decent assignment at work, played a little frisbee, re-hurt my shoulder, not a bad night. But no, my night had to be ruined by a fucking IM conversation. Y'know i can deal my night being ruined by a phone call, a kick in junk etc., but an IM convo? What the hell is this shit? That just pisses me off even more.
I just spent the last hour talking to my ex g/f's friend about how I'm such a dick cuz I havent called her back. Y'know I'm really more impressed by that than anything.

It's funny though, it kinda pissed me off, but I'm not really all that upset by it. Guess that means I'm moving on. Good shit right there man. Well that's really all I got, sorry it's not more involved, but to be honest, I really don't give a shit. Man that feels good.

The Debut

Well so I finally decided to hop on the bandwagon and start blogging like all the cool kids :) It's been a pretty damn cool week or so, so this should be an upbeat post. Don't worry though, I'm sure there'll be plenty of rants/depressing posts as well.

The fun really starts last saturday. LUFA had a hat tournament at Cherokee Park, so I was pretty stoked about going to my first tourney. Turns out it wasn't much of a tournament, more like 20 people playing all day. There was a good mix of people there, I knew a few guys from the waterfront, and most played for ULtimate (UofL's team) or the LouEVIL Villians (Louisville's club team), so I got to meet some cool people. Since it was my first real ultimate event I picked up on some strategy that doesn't happen at the waterfront too much. Hah now Bob can't make fun of me (as much) anymore for being an ultimate noob. I had a blast, although I hurt my shoulder pretty bad in the first game. Turning a corner + laying out for a disk = bad idea. I'm kinda worried cuz it still hurts, and it's been over a week. Oh well it's the left shoulder, so at least I don't need it to throw. After we got done playing a few of us went to grab some food on Bardstown Road which was good. After that we headed back and I watched some of the guys play with Louisville's club team vs. Lexington. Louisville got beat and kinda played like shit, but it was cool to hang out with the guys and see my first real game. Anyway I got burnt as hell as anybody who's seen my arms in the past week or so can atttest to. Oh well, it was worth the injuries :)

I'll fast forward through the rest of the week cuz work is boring as hell. I never have any work to do and my boss gets pissed when I offer to help with stuff. Oh well a couple more weeks and I'll be done with the shit forever.

I didn't play for four days straight (!!!) to rest my shoulder. I finally went back on thursday (my friend hunter got back from NJ and joined us). I was taking it easy on the shoulder and all went well till Hunter decided it would be funny to tackle me. Not only did I re-injure the shoulder, but about 75% of the skin on my left arm came off from the sun burn. He felt bad but like he always says shit happens.

So Friday night I went to Bloomington for Jeff's 21st birthday. It was awesome to see all my brothers and meet a few people up there. Once again I drank too much, but I had people there watching out for me. I'm making progress on the whole pacing myself thing, so you guys shouldn't have to put up with it for long lol. Some highlight include drunken frisbee (I still had a flick!) and walking ridiculous distances with kenny to buy grapes to create microwave plasma. Good times.

The next day we drove up to Terre Haute to chill up there for the day. It was nice just being able to relax with my brothers and recover from the previous night. We watched the family guy movie and me and Tomsu drove around for something to do that night. It's funny because there really wasn't anything extradionary about Saturday but looking back it was a really fun time. I really do miss hanging out with the guys this summer and this upcoming year's gonna kick some serious ass. No more confining myself to my hall and spending two hours everynight talking to a girl that's 200 miles away. Screw that shit, this year's gonna be awesome.

So I drove home Sunday and pretty much took it easy the whole day. I was gonna go to the waterfront but ended up just relaxing.

Today worked sucked as usual, but tonight was an absolute blast. Probably one of the best nights at the waterfront yet. I don't know if it's just that I haven't played in three or four days or what, but I felt like a million bucks man. I must be getting in shape or something (scary i know) cuz I felt like I was running circles around people down there. Anyway it was a blast, it was pretty much the usual group down there, plus three or four fairly attractive ladies that I'd never met before. Not a bad deal :) Anyway I butsted my shoulder twice again tonight but I'm getting used to it by now lol. Afterwards me Hunter and Bob went to Waffle House and shot the shit for awhile. Good Times.

As if this post isn't long enough already it's time for some reflection. After the past week or so I've really come to realize that my life isn't bad at all. I mean I was pretty crushed at the beginning of the summer when jess broke up with me, but things are definitely looking up. I'm kinda proud of the fact that I've been able to recover, but i realize that it's not so much my doing but a testament to what great friends I have. I know I screwed up this past year in spending so much time in louisville to see jess, but I'm just really glad I've got such a good group of friends to see me through this bullshit. So far this summer I've gotten a couple chances to hang out and get to know better some of the Pike guys (mostly Edmonson Tomsu and Hodge) and I've had a blast playing ultimate.

I know everybody probably thinks that I'm too obsessed with ultimate, but in a lot of ways it's been jessica's replacement in my life. It sounds ridiculous, but I really do have an emotional attachment to the game (as anybody in Bloomington this past weekend found out lol). I mean it's so nice to be able to be with a great group of people pretty much everynight and just have some fun. While I'll proably never see most of the people I play with again after this summer, they've really helped me get through these past couple of months, strange as it may seem. I really am gonna miss playing with Bob and Hunter and the rest of the group when I go off to school, but I know I have my brothers to look forward to this year. I just hope I can keep playing and having a positive experience with Rose's team this fall.

Well god damn that's a long post, but it's been a fun few days. I'm off to bed, gotta go to work :( in a few hours, so I should get some shut eye. Peace out yo's.