Right now I'm doing all my mental Christmas shopping, deciding what to give to my friends (the family is mostly done). I love giving presents, but doing it right takes a lot of work.
If you don't know what someone wants, you get them a gift card. If have a wish list or something, you get them something from that. But if you are a gift-giving ninja, you find something that would have been on their wish list, if only they'd known it exists. Those are the best presents - things people didn't even know they wanted, but actually can't live without. Of course you have to know them pretty well for that. And you have to think about it a lot, which is what I've been doing this week.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
untouchable for life
Yesterday at bjj, Jack was having us do a lot of one-move drills - "do kimuras continuously for a minute," for instance. A. had just returned from France, and Jack kept coming around and picking on her in his coachy way: "Pick it up, A.! Just because you've been in France for a month doesn't mean you get to slack off!" I speculated that maybe there was a special A.-only tournament somewhere that Jack wanted her to train for. Then apparently I got invited to the super secret tournament, because it was all, "Lookin' good, Kay See (that is how Jack says KC - with a lot of separation between the letters)! What, are you tired already? Keep moving, girl!" Nobody but us gets to go to the secret tournament, I guess. It was funny, but maybe you had to be there.
Oh! And I learned some new moves recently, I guess, because I surprised A. a couple of times with some tricks I learned while she was gone. Sometimes you don't feel like you've learned anything new, because everyone else has been improving too. Then someone goes on vacation, and when they get back you sweep them a couple times. Then they catch on and you don't have any tricks until they leave town again.
I was feling pretty good when I came home from practice, and maybe that contributed to the dream I had after I made a sandwich (grilled avocado, tomato, and cheese is the best) and went to sleep. Basically what happened is that I turned into a very happy superhero.
First, some guy I know - maybe it was R. - found a kind of plant in California. If you ate it, you became immortal. So a placeholder group of friends and I all went to California to eat it in this forest. It was no lie - not like we tested it by trying to die, but you definitely felt different after eating the plant. I was bursting with energy, so I jumped into the air in a particular way and discovered that the plant could also make you fly. It felt a lot like swimming, but faster. I even dunked some guys.
A girl we knew was being coerced into marrying an evil guy - he wanted her money I guess. She'd escaped, but for some reason I don't actually understand he'd captured a different girl and was going to have her stand in for the first girl at the wedding ceremony. Then somehow he would be married to the girl who wasn't there. I talked to some people in the wedding party about it, and they agreed - I specifically remember saying to one guy, "You're a jerk, but you're not evil." He was convinced by that and helped us break up the party. A chase scene involving some catering followed. In particular a taco buffet was adversely affected by the chase.
Resting in a water garden after having saved the day, we saw a woman in a wedding dress start singing and walk into the water. It was a ceremony that belonged to a culture that my dream had completely invented. A lot of other women who were involved in her wedding all got in the water and sang together. The ritual was intended just to bless the wedding, but the feeling in my dream was that their singing had also consecrated us, the immortality plant, the water, and our future of immortality.
I told T. about this dream and she asked me to send her some of whatever I'd been drinking. Avocado sandwiches? BJJ? I don't know if it's repeatable. But I felt awesome all morning.
Oh! And I learned some new moves recently, I guess, because I surprised A. a couple of times with some tricks I learned while she was gone. Sometimes you don't feel like you've learned anything new, because everyone else has been improving too. Then someone goes on vacation, and when they get back you sweep them a couple times. Then they catch on and you don't have any tricks until they leave town again.
I was feling pretty good when I came home from practice, and maybe that contributed to the dream I had after I made a sandwich (grilled avocado, tomato, and cheese is the best) and went to sleep. Basically what happened is that I turned into a very happy superhero.
First, some guy I know - maybe it was R. - found a kind of plant in California. If you ate it, you became immortal. So a placeholder group of friends and I all went to California to eat it in this forest. It was no lie - not like we tested it by trying to die, but you definitely felt different after eating the plant. I was bursting with energy, so I jumped into the air in a particular way and discovered that the plant could also make you fly. It felt a lot like swimming, but faster. I even dunked some guys.
A girl we knew was being coerced into marrying an evil guy - he wanted her money I guess. She'd escaped, but for some reason I don't actually understand he'd captured a different girl and was going to have her stand in for the first girl at the wedding ceremony. Then somehow he would be married to the girl who wasn't there. I talked to some people in the wedding party about it, and they agreed - I specifically remember saying to one guy, "You're a jerk, but you're not evil." He was convinced by that and helped us break up the party. A chase scene involving some catering followed. In particular a taco buffet was adversely affected by the chase.
Resting in a water garden after having saved the day, we saw a woman in a wedding dress start singing and walk into the water. It was a ceremony that belonged to a culture that my dream had completely invented. A lot of other women who were involved in her wedding all got in the water and sang together. The ritual was intended just to bless the wedding, but the feeling in my dream was that their singing had also consecrated us, the immortality plant, the water, and our future of immortality.
I told T. about this dream and she asked me to send her some of whatever I'd been drinking. Avocado sandwiches? BJJ? I don't know if it's repeatable. But I felt awesome all morning.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
fight back to school
On Friday I dropped one of my classes. It was right before the midterm, and the TA seemed perplexed by that - most people take the midterm and then drop if they do badly. But I was less concerned with my grade than with the time the class was consuming. I was turning in 20 pages of homework weekly and studying extra to make up for confused presentation in lecture. It wasn't even thoughtful homework, it was usually 6 versions of almost the same number-crunching problem. I wanted the credits so I could be done taking classes sooner (I plan to finish the credit requirements next year), but the trade-off with research time was too steep. Being done with classes doesn't help me if I haven't got any research done. I feel like dropping this class has freed up at least 10 or 15 hours per week, and just yesterday I made some science progress. Problem solved!
I feel a little bad that I didn't sit the TA down and explain why I was dropping. I really felt like the class was being run into the ground, and that was what made me quit. I was getting a good grade in the class, participated in lectures, studied for the midterm I didn't even take, and I think those things would have made my opinion carry a little more weight. The thing is, when midterm evaluations came back pretty negative, this TA bitched out the class at the next lecture, in the "if you don't like how I teach you should drop" style. There's some truth to that, but if everyone in the class thinks you teach badly, there's probably something to it and you shouldn't write them off as whiners who should drop the class. That's bad form. So I felt like I could possibly have changed the class for the better (as sort of a public service) by explaining why I was quitting, but I didn't want to get into it with somebody who takes criticism so badly.
I'm looking forward to bjj today. I should learn Perl so I can write a script that includes that line in everything I post on a Tuesday or Saturday. A. might even be back today. I hope she had fun in France.
I feel a little bad that I didn't sit the TA down and explain why I was dropping. I really felt like the class was being run into the ground, and that was what made me quit. I was getting a good grade in the class, participated in lectures, studied for the midterm I didn't even take, and I think those things would have made my opinion carry a little more weight. The thing is, when midterm evaluations came back pretty negative, this TA bitched out the class at the next lecture, in the "if you don't like how I teach you should drop" style. There's some truth to that, but if everyone in the class thinks you teach badly, there's probably something to it and you shouldn't write them off as whiners who should drop the class. That's bad form. So I felt like I could possibly have changed the class for the better (as sort of a public service) by explaining why I was quitting, but I didn't want to get into it with somebody who takes criticism so badly.
I'm looking forward to bjj today. I should learn Perl so I can write a script that includes that line in everything I post on a Tuesday or Saturday. A. might even be back today. I hope she had fun in France.
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