BA Status Report

Today was the first time I read over the entirety of my BA from start to finish. I went through and fixed all edits that had been commented on, and added all citations that were missing. Thus, everything is mostly done, as far as presentation and argument is concerned. All the main text is proofread and supported, all the sections are in the right order and filled out, the source list is updated and coherant (no redundancies or unaccounted references). All that remains is my conclusion.

I would like to thank Microsoft for an excellent product in Word 2007. The blibiography and citation manager made my life immeasurably easier, as it has on numerous other papers. For this one, however, managing all my sources would have been impossible. Well, I guess it would have been possible, because others did it, but I'm glad I didn't have to do without. Thank you Bill Gates.

And now, off to the library to work on a website.

(*

Spring Break, in one day

I know, I haven't posted all break. Believe it or not, I've actually been somewhat busy.

Mornings start with me failing to get out of bed.

Then I get out of bed way later than intended, more tired for the previous effort.

Then I eat breakfast. Usually this is fruits and nuts, but today it was pancakes.

Then I engage in the manly rituals necessary for preparing oneself to look nice in front of society (aka, shave, shower, brush teeth).

Then I go to Olympic weightlifing training, which is amazingly awesome because I get to move heavy things in cool ways, utilizing my entire body's muscle system working in perfect synchrony. It's pretty snazzy. The only problem is, unlike regular weight training, my entire body is sore from it. My arms more than my legs, because they're weaker generally, but my entire back is sore, anything remotely associated with my shoulders, hamstrings, even my feet. But the sensation of directing all that explosive muscle energy, coordinated by well-timed nerve action, is euphoric. And my handstand is now several seconds off the wall, which I blame on the strengthening of the stabilizers from holding a barbell over my head several times a day. Apparently, I'm really good at it (in terms of technique, not weight. I'm still only moving 65lb or  little move)

Then I go home and do one of a few things:

Yesterday, I worked all day on my BA (and got surprisingly little done). The day before that, I plastered campus with fliers for a Palestinian-Israeli youth dialogue event I'm organzing. You should come. It's Thursday from 7-8:30 in Social Sciences 122. Unless you're against peace in the Palestine/Israel, it should be really cool. The day before that, I searched for jobs.

For those of you that are concerned, I have lots of ideas now.

The one I like the most is an internship at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. It, however, does not pay, but I think it leaves enough time to get another job doing something like lifeguarding or watering plants. There are also wilderness leader-type things, Outward Bound, an internship at the Ely Wolf Center (which does pay...), and applying to a course in environmental organizing. I plan to take the Foreign Service Exam, because it's free and I'd like to eventually serve in the foreign service, so exposure would help.

Today, I will be finishing my BA, polishing up a new website I've been working on for Hwa Rang Do, contacting some people are working with Iraqi refugees in Chicago, contacting some people about teaching music to children in Hyde Park, maybe grappling with an HRD buddy, and hopefully will hang out with someone. It's been a long cold lonely spring break, but I've done okay.

Oh yeah, and I went running yesterday. Four 800m runs, at 2:42, 2:34, 2:38, and 2:36. To give you an idea of how fast that is, the men's record (the best and fastest among people who run every day and nothing else) is 1:54. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy. This was also after me weightlifintg and doing front squats and cleans, which do use the legs.

I miss my family and especially my sister. Love you all.

(*

Long Run

Ran Approx 8 miles (+/- a mile, I didn't measure)
Time: approx 50 min (by the microwave clock when I left)
Pace: 6.25 min/mi approx

This is the first fast long run I've done since the summer, though I did run a bit with Dad over winter break. First time I did a long run with the Five Fingers toe shoes on. My calves were really feeling it, but I think my speed speaks for itself. These things are fast! I wandered a bit too, jumping up and down piles of rocks, running through a beach a little, and I stopped to stretch some.

At the end, coming down a little hill, I noticed a guy in front of me speeding up. I thought it meant I was slowing, so I picked up my pace a bit to catch up, but as I got closer, he sped up again. So, being a red-blooded, sporting, male, I naturally sped up, and we ended up racing the last half mile or so, me in my toes shoes after having run 6 or 7 miles already, weaving to stay on the grass and dirt, him in normal shoes, on the asphalt. I kept up, I'm proud to say, and there was as definite exchange of glances as we went our separate ways. Physical competition, the universal language ;-)

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All Alone

Well, today is my first full day living completely alone, in my entire life really. Not that I don't have a way to get in touch with people, but I've never actually resided in a dwelling without other people also living with me and upon whom I could talk to if something untoward happened. Not that I've never slept along before, but I've always either been with friends or family, or when I was younger had an assigned caretaker. Both my roommates are gone, and I have no classes or anyone I'm necessarily scheduled to see.

I'm not really scared or anything like that. More I'm just afraid I'll go nuts. Seriously, I realized yesterday thinking about the coming week that I'll just lose it without anybody to talk to. So if you read this blog, feel free to e-mail or call me whenever you feel the need. I do have friends still here, and I do plan to meet them in the coming days, and I've got a ton of stuff to do, but all the trappings of home, the little markers in a place that assure us someone else is around even though we don't see them, will just be from me. Why this is intimidating I have no idea.

From a Warrior's standpoint, I of course should learn to be emotionally and psychologically independent, in addition to the physical independence of fitness and self-preservation. Though even for those who serve others, self-sufficiency is more of an emergency tactic, since we'd hopefully be around those we wanted to help and care about. The ability to maintain internal balance on one's own, without others around for reflection or stabilization, is important when helping people, because if others are relying on you, you can't be putting too much weight on them. So a Warrior does need to have the ability to be very secure on his/her own. That said, the life ideal is very interdependent, and so that ability to do well in isolation doesn't necessarily mean we should seek out isolation all that time. Spirit quests being the obvious exception. Maybe this week of spring break is my spirit quest.

(*

Frolicking with Klara

Yesterday, and the day before, Klara and I jogged to the point and frolicked, which literally meant we played like little kids at a park. Besides jogging around for a bit, we raced each other to a tree (I ran on all fours, in a move called a kong, like how cats run). I then proceeded to climb a massive, huge, gigantic tree with really spread out thick branches. It was a bit higher than I'd anticipated, but I got down okay by shimmying upside down along one of the long branches that came close to the ground. I kind of tore up my forearms, but as Calvin and Hobbes maintain, it hasn't been a good day unless you've got grass stains on your knees, or something like that.

Then, we jogged over to the beach and I tried to pick Klara up over my shoulder, but she wasn't helping, so I didn't get her over my shoulder, but I could have if she hadn't been resisting my simulated kidnapping attempt. Sprinting in sand is really hard, by the way, and we should all do more of it. It was tons of fun, and I felt very child-like trying to do handstands in the sand with the crazy Chicago wind blowing me over all the time. And my glasses came off, a lot. Kind of a problem. If you can't do handstands, dive rolls, and flips without glasses coming off, what good are they?

Basically, it was so nice just letting my body run into things, climb up things, crawl over things, invert itself, find new and unusual ways to interact with the world. When was the last time you went out and romped in the yard? Sure we jog, but it's not the same! Our bodies can do so much more! They can hang from trees. We evolved from monkeys after all. Actually, konging felt really primal and animalistic, and it only works if you throw yourself forward. No holding back. Which is my philosophy on life these days anyway.

Go climb a tree...now! Go. Stop reading this and find a tree and hoist yerself into yon branches. Seriously, it's fun.

(*

Crossfit WOD "Murph"

For time:
1 mile
100 pullups
200 pushups
300 squats
1 mile

Partitioned in 10 sets
43:50

Ow...ow

Comparative Politics Essay and Animal Behavior Exam

I have finished one of my essays this afternoon before our run, and am here at the library printing it. It is on defining and predicting civil wars. My basic argument, which isn't really all that creative admiteddly, is that the Lebanese and Algerian civil wars were not predicted by the prevailing models. Various factors came into play that were not considered by Fearon or Collier & Hoeffler, such as the importance of group loyalties in Lebanon. It's also interesting to note that both Lebanon and Algeria were relatively high income countries, and the violence took place in their urban centers, both considerations that would go against the normal predictive models. I wish I could have come up with a more interesting thesis, but I have to work on another, longer paper for my Culture of Modernity in the Middle East class, so I don't really have time to rethink everything. Also, adding Algeria was kind of a last minute thing, and I'm afraid it's not as well integrated as it could be. Still, it's better than my last paper, which got me a B or B+ (don't remember), so this should go well.

I also had my Animal Behavior exam this morning. Went pretty well. Some of the mating system questions were a bit vague, and I kind of fudged them, but I think I'm in high A- or A territory, so I'm not too worried. I also got my ethogram (behavioral study) on Dwarf Mongooses at the zoo back. 99 out of 100. Lost a point on a minor definitional thing. That's worth more than the exam, so I think I'm in good shape for that class.

Frolicking at the Point (3/16/2009)

For time:
21 - 15 - 9 reps of:
Handstand pushups
Dips
Pushups

Time: 12:30

I did them in a different order, dips, then the HSPUs then the pushups. Klara was there to hold my legs up, since the tree I was using for dips had a lot of mud under it. Dips were between the branches of a tree, about ten feet up. I'll grant that the HSPUs weren't nose-to-ground (I'm working on it) and the dips could have been deeper, but considering that I had to climb a tree to do the dips in the first place, I'm pretty happy with my time. It's really fun to workout outdoors, and the natural elements force your body to be a bit more on its toes; the tree branches weren't level so my right arm was higher than my left, and the ground was bumpy for the HSPUs. It was also just nice to get dirt on myself again. We also practiced some quadripedal movents (running on all fours) which was really awesome and animalistic!!

Back Squats (3/11/2009)

Tempo Run 10 mins

Light jog 20 mins

Overhead Squat no wt x10

Overhead Squat 55lb x10

Back squat 135 x10, 155 x10, 165 x10

I'm really excited with this. It is the first time I managed to squat more than my body weight, and considering the high reps and the fact that it was after a series of other squat sets, suggests that I'm nowhere near my max. I am reluctant to try much more over my body weight without a spotter to check my form and for safety's sake. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with the results. Firefighter test is to be able to lift 170lbs on your back, so I think I'm good with that. I want to be able to carry an average human male, so I think I should aim for around 180 to 200 lbs, which doesn't seem out of reach at this point, especially if I only have to do it once.

Starting down the Path of the Warrior

What is the Warrior Spirit?

First off, let me define what I mean by warrior in this context. The word itself is derived from War, organized violence, so a warrior might be someone who knows how to fight. At its simplest, this is true, but when you take into consideration the prerequisites of knowing how to fight, it soon becomes apparent that a warrior is much more than simply a soldier.

But to me, a warrior is not just a fighter. If we go back thousands of years, to the last Ice Age, we encounter Homo Sapiens wandering the globe in tribes, led by strong young men who had the endurance to lead the way, the foresight not to lead the tribe into dangerous territory, and the physical prowess to protect the tribe if ever it was threatened. These were the hunters, the scouts, the protectors and guardians, and, when tribes met in conflict, they were the warriors.

So, in this and upcoming posts, when I say Warrior, try to envision that young man, driven by love of his tribe to risk his life to acquire food, find shelter from the elements, and stave off attackers. How can this notion of hunter-gatherer self-sufficiency possibly apply to modern day life you ask? I have decided to find out, as I have recently had a taste of what it means to live life to the hilt, pushing yourself to your limits and fulfilling your human potential. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, for the defenders of society throughout much of human history, it was only the brightest and best who became warriors, for to entrust the survival of the tribe to anyone else was to risk extinction. Nowadays, we are so specialized, domesticated, and reliant on others and society at large that most of us can't do much more than take care of ourselves, if that, much less take care of others. Wouldn't it be nice to be worthy of that honor, or at least achieve some modicum of what it might have felt like? I am going to try, and I'm going to write about what I go through, and what I think it means to be a warrior, and how best I think I can achieve it. I hope you'll find my journey inspiring, or even just interesting.

Note: While the example of a warrior I give above is a male, I firmly believe that this was simply the result of the immense burden of childrearing on females. They simply didn't have the time to learn to defend the tribe and nurture its future. There are some good things about modern conveniences, including providing men and women the time to both nurture others and to develop themselves. Specializing is the enemy, so it benefits men to get involved with childrearing, and women with the modern-day equivelant of hunting and defending the tribe. That said, I recently saw a sculpture of a very adventurous, powerful looking Sacajewea, who had her baby on her back, so I think women have it in them to do both anyway.