Last week I managed to not work out all week long. I also managed to skip a record number of classes, some on accident, which is also very bad! In penance for a very bad week last week, I am going to do my best to have a good week this week. I’ve started it off pretty well: I got a ton of homework done last night, and I just finished doing my 100 Pushup Challenge workout. Since I did week 1 then skipped a week, I’m going back to week 1.
Week One, Day One, completed. 14 (min 5) on last level.
Mmmmm.
In the time between my original posts and now, I’ve made pretty immense progress on my book list. Reading more has been a goal that has been very easy to pursue. I had forgotten how much I loved reading and it has all come flooding back since I started reading recreationally again in May. I seriously regret all the time I wasted NOT reading. Honestly. What the hell was I thinking? It’s such a good way to pass time, especially on slow days at work.
My official book progress list is here: http://listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.34381
Books I’ve already read are automatically shifted to the top of the list, under whatever book I read last. Books that remain to be read are in no particular order. If there is one I wish to read before another higher on the list, I will, but when it comes to just picking randomly I usually work from the top down (I get tired of seeing the same ones on the top all the time).
I’ve read so many good books already, I cannot wait to delve into more. Right now I’m working on Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky, which isn’t exactly a “fun” read, but one I would definitely like to have read and hopefully appreciate more so that I can move onto more Dostoevsky with more preparation. Snow Crash, my most recent read, was a very light-hearted and fun sci-fi novel. It was actually recommended to me years and years ago, a recommendation which has stuck with me until now. While not a paragon of fiction writing or revolutionary in any way it was certainly very well wrought, with extensive preparation and a somewhat convoluted plot that unraveled itself in a (mostly) well-paced manner. Though a bit didactic at times where the plot had to be painstakingly explained due to its surprisingly historical, religious and philosophical nature, I really enjoyed the mostly humorous, fast-paced book.
YT is a fucking badass, too!
I’ve decided to take part in the 100 Push Up challenge, which essentially just challenges you to be able to do 100 pushups in a single attempt – no matter what your current physical ability is – in six weeks. The regime is pretty rigorous, though it requires exercising only 3 times a week. I don’t expect to reach that goal in just six weeks, but I will obviously be shooting for as short of a time as possible.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are my days of exercise choice since I have work off those three evenings every week (pretty much). Each day has a specified number of pushups you must do over the course of multiple levels, and every last level is a challenge to simply do as many as you can at once after having worn yourself out on the previous levels, with a minimum you should beat. Hopefully on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I will remember to post in this blog so as to keep track of my 100 push-up challenge progress as well as give me an opportunity to ramble just a bit.
So with no further adieu, my first day’s progress.
Week One, Day One, completed. 11 (min 5) on last level.
Woot. I feel the burn a bit today, I assume the muscle soreness will get worse as the levels become more challenging (which they do, very very fast). I plan on also keeping up my habit of going to an abs class every Thursday, so hopefully I’ll see some changes in my body definition in the coming weeks. With a little more tone I could approach the realms of super hottie 
So this turned out pretty much as I assumed it would: a failure. Haha. I’m not very good at keeping up with things.
I am, however, getting better. With that in mind I have decided to make a second attempt at this blog, albeit in a slightly different manner. Instead of a blog keeping track of my reading progress it’ll instead be a blog of just about everything, including my reading progress as well as a few other goals I have.
Apparently, my new focus in life is self-improvement. I am an enormous, unfathomable dork for looking at it like this but I sincerely believe I have important my goal-oriented new lifestyle from my World of Warcraft addiction. WoW always held a strong fascination for me in large part (and this is something I’ve believed all along) because it has very tangible, accessible goals, both long and short term. The feeling of immediate progress, of being able to track the multiple goals you have going for your multiple characters was orgasmic to me. I love progress. I love watching loading bars fill up. I am freaky like that. In that way, WoW was like a paradise to me. Some of the things that turned others off — grinding, farming, reaching one goal just to chase another — were some of the things that turned me on the most. I loved meeting all kinds of different goals on different characters and wished only that I had more time to devote to attaining more goals. Eventually, however, my mind finally accepted the long-known realization that these goals ultimately gave me nothing. I might get a million billion gold or have a whole cadre of level 70’s but this translated into nothing in my real life. Once I finally kicked that bucket for good, after steadily losing interest in all of my goals and quitting the game and staying quit, I did something pretty outlandish.
I imported my WoW lifestyle into my real lifestyle. This sounds retarded, and I’ll admit it pretty much 100% is. But I feel in many ways that it is true. My mind is still progress oriented – I LOVE making to-do lists almost as much as I love crossing things off of them. I have literally kept multiple to-do lists of the same things simply so that I could cross items off multiple times. So I have been using that to encourage myself to meet tangible, worthwhile self-improving goals in my everyday life.
Of course this is not nearly as easy as it was on World of Warcraft. Meeting even the smallest of real-life goals takes lots of more time and tons more effort than its virtual counterpart. It’s still difficult to encourage my naturally lazy self to do things that I really, really just don’t want to do. It’s even more difficult to encourage my naturally lazy self to do things that I really, really just don’t want to do after I’ve already spent my time doing other responsible things. The worst part, easily, has been conquering the “Okay, I did this responsible thing, so now I can slack off” mentality. This idea is okay, sometimes, since all work and no play makes me want to shoot myself, but is hardly practical for me to make any headway into my multiple goals.
Anyway, I ramble. I ramble because one of my goals is to write more. What about? Anything. Seriously, just anything. Nonfiction, journal entries, fiction. Paragraphs, sentences, poems, blogs. Blurbs about what I’m up to. Quips of what I’m thinking about or doing. What I’m reading. How I’m progressing. To-do lists that I’ve crossed off. Anything and everything – I would just like to get in the habit of spitting something in here about three times a week… hopefully more. We’ll see how that goes.
By Jack Kerouac
This book was pretty great. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it, and I got exactly what I expected.
The fractious friendships and travelings of a youngish fifties Beatster. A life so much more open to interpretation and freedom than the one presented to me today. It didn’t change my life or anything like that, but it was a great read and really made me appreciate how quickly social norms can just evaporate and be replaced. The idea of hitchiking today is pretty much taboo but thirty, forty, fifty years ago it was a more than viable option. It felt oftentimes that nothing was happening or that the story was repeating itself in a different location, and it lacked any kind of conclusive ending, but I still liked it. It was the book that sparked the most conversation with people who saw me reading it… thirty year old men who read it in college and wanted to expound on its profundities with me.
I’m not a big profundity expounder, really.
By Frank Beddor.
This book is notable for having stirred me off my lazy ass to actually start reading again. I spied it on my friend’s bookshelf and its rather interesting cover intrigued me. Retold fairy tales were usually at least interesting if not good and it had been a while since I’d really settled down with a book, just reading for the sake of reading.
It was good, a very quick read, I certainly enjoyed it and would (will!) read the next, Seeing Redd, when it comes out in paperback (and after my friend buys and reads it himself, first, ha). Other than that, this book’s only notable feature is the fact that if it weren’t for it I wouldn’t be here, on a literary roll, reading everything I can get my grubby paws on.
Thanks, Mr. Beddor!
I figured I’d create a blog through which I could keep track of my progress through various things. I’ve decided to pour more of my life into things I’d been putting off, and so far I’ve been managing to do that pretty well. A blog to follow that journey would not only help me remember and keep track of what I’ve done and what I’ve yet to do but help hone my greatly neglected writing skills. I don’t intend on this blog being especially public but I may use it to write personal posts or off-topic things from time to time. Who will read this intro? Anyone? I highly doubt it, but… why not?
