Alternate realities

This is a blog idea I had a while ago, that I figured would be much much too long to write about given a reasonable amount of time that I would like to spend doing so. In any case, I just had the though, that what if I had made entirely different choices in my life, mainly since coming to college. I could have a much better, or possible even a worse life than I do right now. This can be very long, so I will just take it to a point. In any case, it boils down to this: if one day I had chosen to do something important, rather than putting it off for a while or not doing it at all (especially not doing it at all) where would I be right now? As far back as I would like to go that would have a drastic impact on the present would be the following: If I had actually joined the track team or other such thing in high school, as my mother suggested, as well as joining clubs and being more social, I would most certainly not be going to this same school. That one fact of me going to a different college than I had, would not only change how my life is, is to be, and was for the past few years, but would also change who I am as a person, who I am to be, and the things that I have experienced over the years. This is all very depressing, and knowing I can't do anything about the choices I've made now leads me to wonder how much time there really is left until I can fix a lot of things. Even knowing that, why can't I find the motivation to do anything that my life doesn't absolutely depend on?

Nothing is random

This both goes in line with what I had said before, and in a way, contradicts it. Just a short little snippet about a word I really don't like: Random. There is absolutely no such thing as anything being random. There is always cause and effect, and even programs that generate random numbers do so by have a function, that if you know what the function is, you then know what number comes next. In any case, it is a word people use much too often to describe something that either surprised them or seemed to come from a large list of possibilities. Either way, anything that happens, happens because something else happened. In other words, when you do something, it causes something else to happen, a thing which, down the road, might surprise someone. Oh well, it's not random though. One extreme example I can think of right now, is where you take hundreds of peoples names, written around all equally-sized and weighted marbles, stick them in a bag, and pick one out. Though you may not know which name will be pulled out, every little bit of movement each marble makes within the bag is a map to where the marbles have ended up when you decide to stick your hang in and grab one. A typical example is with the flipping of a coin, say a penny. The placement of the penny on your finger, the exact motion that your fingers go through and the amount of force given to the penny, as well as other factors, including air resistance and such, will determine how the penny lands in your palm. It is not random, but is also not something we can figure out during the time penny is in the air. This has gone on much too long, just please stop thinking so many things are random. It just tells me how uneducated you are, or at least, how much you have actually learned in life.

My stupid ankle

Well, after going to the gymnastics gym several times and doing a bit of inside training at home, I figured my ankle was finally ready to try outside again. BAD idea. To cut to the point, it is quite sore again, and this is not from doing anything stupid, or a new injury, really. I just landed, and on grass, even. Anyway, it's got a new swelling, under the bone. I should really get it looked at. Perhaps I'll set up an appointment for some day during spring break.

Just a couple days left

Well, the blog assignment for class is due on Monday. I haven't written a whole lot, and I feel really bad about it. I'm sure there are others in class that have also been pretty lazy about the whole thing. Me, I just felt really tied down to projects, exams, readings, and other such things. Even now, I'm fretting over a little group final in this same class. I mean I have come up with things I could write about and am a slight bit excited to write about, even, but I just don't see the point right now in sharing anything I have to say with people who don't care to listen. Anyway, I will most likely somewhat regularly post new things on her, perhaps even things other than words. I could post a bunch of video clips or images from around the web and write my opinion about it. I've been told I would make a great critic - of movies, video games, and other media. Back to school, though....
This quarter has been a lot tougher than the past few. I've managed to get on the dean's list a few times in the last year or two, which is great for me. I don't see that happening this quarter. I still am pretty sure I've got at least all B's, which is okay. I also am pretty sure next quarter, which also happens to be my last, will be even tougher. I have heard a lot about a couple of the classes, and it sounds like an incredible amount of work. I'd rather take a few difficult tests than do any homework or projects. Those sorts of things don't actually help me to learn much of anything. Oh well, I will soon be done and hopefully find myself actually doing something soon.

Who is to say?

This one may be a bit hard to swallow for some of you out there. I have very blunt, strong opinions, and I do not expect anyone to agree with me, to be honest. It doesn't really matter to me. I wish everyone would have an open mind, but that is not expected either. Remember, these are just opinions, I'm not trying to teach anyone anything. After 23 years of being on this planet, experiencing the things that I did, more prominently those that I experienced in the years after moving out and going to college, these are some of my core beliefs. It is a philosophical approach to life, really. However, I in no way let these beliefs stop me from living a normal, sane life, if by insane, you think of murdering and going crazy, suicide, depression, and those sorts of things. Actually, I am an easy-going person that just wants the most out of the life I have.

Moving on: I consider that, yes, there are facts, and there is also faith, belief, and other such things. Now I won't go so far as to say that what I say is fact. I could live a life based around that being true, and I could also live a life based around faith, as I have in recent years. Until I am shown evidence to the contrary though, and thus supposing there exists no supernatural, omnipresent, omniscient being, I do not expect my beliefs to really change again.

Okay, so here goes. I will mention a few ideas, and then break them down into sections. Again, don't get angry at me, I wish for nobody to be offended. Everyone has different ideas, beliefs, morals, etcetera.

• Firstly, I believe that nothing happens for any reason, there is no karma, no predetermined path in life, or destiny/fate. 
• Secondly, there is no meaning of life or specific reason for living.
• Thirdly, and lastly (for this particular post), and also the most controversial, there is no absolute truth, aside from facts. There is thus absolutely no right or wrong that everyone should or should not follow. No bad or good, either, for that matter.

Nothing happens for a reason: Everyone has the power to make choices. If not, what kind of life are we living. There is free will, and thus there really cannot be a specific path set for anyone to follow. Also, if something bad happens to you, there is no way to tell that something good will come your way and "balance it out." That is a very selfish thing to think, to be honest. Furthermore, it is better this way. You have more control over your life, you have the power to make your own decisions and shape your own life.

There is no meaning of life: I believe in evolution and the big bang theory, to be straight-forward. There is an unbelievable amount of evidence that reinforces these theories. Yes, there can still be a higher power. But at that point, it is not necessary. Anyway, that's a topic for another post. In any event, there is only happenstance and coincidence, and thus there is real reason for the existence of life at all. We very well could not be here, nor living things or atoms at all. The universe does not care.

There is no absolute truth, aside from facts: Yes, given a procedure, technique, or set of governing rules, facts can be derived. However, there is no absolute "truth." This leads to there being no right or wrong. Who is to say that murder is really bad? Murdering other humans may be good, for the universe as a whole. However, following that line of thought, there is also no good or bad for the universe, either. This is all, of course, unless we define the self-interest of every human, at least in each country separately. Then we can decide what things are good, based on what things would lead to following the self-interest of a group of people, or things bad, which would go against the majority's self-interest. Without self-interest, and more importantly, a consensus of the self-interest of groups of people, there is no absolute right or wrong.

Well that is about it for this post. I have many more things on my mind right now, but they stem from these ideas, so I will make separate posts for each later. I hope I at least made someone think about things, and that is all I really want. Writing things down is a good habit, anyway. Stay tuned for more ...

Early Morning Mind Quiz Parts 1 & 2

A couple weeks ago, Professor Rohm gave us a "quiz" first thing. It had three parts: dot the "i", solve the math problem, and write the word "stupid." I suppose for the first and last parts, there was no official correct answer. I proceeded, however, to put a dot on the dot-less i, whereas some people put a boldfaced dot literally on the line that makes the i. As for writing the word stupid, almost everyone printed the word, when the professor evidently meant to write the word in cursive. Who does that anymore? haha. Oh, and I got the math problem right, of course ;)

Just this past Monday, we were given another couple tasks first thing in the morning. The first was essentially a connect-the-dot, where each dot was a number, 1 through 60. We were to make a line from 1 to 2, then 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and so on, as quickly as we good in one minute. I was able to get to 21 the first time around, and I believe someone got to early 30-somethings, which tells me they were studying the paper before we were to begin. In any case, the professor explained to us that there were two patters on the paper, as to where the numbers were written. Apparently, all the odd numbers were written on the left side, and the evens on the right. Also, the first six numbers were in the top half, the next six at the bottom, the numbers 13-18 at the top again, etc. Then we were given a second change to see how quickly we can go through the numbers. This time I was able to go to 31, which is only a slight improvement. I got stuck for a few seconds because the number I was looking for had a line through it already, so it was hard to spot. Someone else in the class was able to get almost to 40.
The second task was a tanagram-type puzzle with 5 pieces cut from construction paper of various colors. The pieces were to form a capital "T" when arranged properly. I'm not sure if anyone was able to get it without the professor's help, but I do think that everyone's pieces were the same cut outs, perhaps of different colors, though. Anyway, these quizzes and tasks are fun little things that are a nice change of pace from normal lecturing. It might be the one thing that keeps me waking up at 7 to go to the class haha

Been a While ...

Well, I haven't wrote anything in a while. I haven't had motivation. I could have wrote about things, I just didn't feel like blogging. I guess I should try and make it habit, so I can pass my class haha.

In any case, I'll update everyone on what has happened in the past weeks:
- My ankle is still not very good. I went bowling and now the back tendon is bothering me. I don't think I will be able to train outside for a while.
- I saw three movies at the drive-in a couple Saturdays ago: Legion, which wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but was still decent. Sherlock Holmes, which was very funny, but the story wasn't that interesting. Lastly, The Book of Eli, which was a great movie.
- I found out my other two classes, despite what their respective syllabuses made me believe initially. In other words, my work load is significantly less, which is great news.

I have also been reading Crucial Conversations, and I don't I much have a problem dealing with certain things, but the book is nevertheless interesting. However, the other book I was reading, part of the Wheel of Time series, I don't have time for anymore, so that is somewhat unfortunate.

Rain and pain = Can't Train

Well it's been raining for the past week. Today it's finally very nice out, but I'm sure the mountain areas around here are covered in snow or the like. In any case, that means none of my training buddies can make it down. Even if they could, however, my ankle is still swollen for some reason. Perhaps I should make an appointment to get it looked at ... Because if I can't run for too much longer, I'm afraid I'm going to get terribly out of shape, and possibly lose interest altogether. Not being able to do what one has passion for doing is very depressing, I'll have you know.

Just Missed Ya

Some UPS person knocked on my door this morning. I didn't feel like getting up yet, and I figured he or she would just leave the package on my porch or at the office. But when I finally did get up it turned out they went and dropped it off at the post office. So now I cant get whatever it is until Tuesday. Wonderful.
Nothing else happened today. I have mostly been staying inside on the weekends. I'm afraid, until my ankle heals, that isn't gonna change.

First Friday

Well, today is the first Friday of Winter Quarter. All three of my classes require a decent amount of work, making this potentially the toughest quarter I have ever had. At least we get a four-day weekend. The only things I have to worry about this weekend are these blog postings and reading a 17-or-so-page handout for another class.

Little things that happened today:
-Tried to run again, but my ankle isn't quite healed yet
-An old friend started talking to me again after about 9 months
-I wrote my first blog post ever haha