…I don’t know what to say.
I read this for the first time in Sports Illustrated several years ago. If I ever had a post that I’d want the world to read, it would most certainly be this one. If I had a more continuous blogging career, I’d blog this every single year: This is one of those stories that once you hear it for the first time, you’ll never forget it. Make sure you watch the video at the end too.
Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.
Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an Institution.”
But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”
“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want To do that.”
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”
That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”
And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992–only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” One doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.” So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”
I started up a tumblr. I’m thinking at the moment that I’ll still throw up longer-form thoughts and posts (such as an end-of-freshman-year wrap soon) on wordpress from time to time, but more of the tidbit-y stuff will go on the tumblr. So look for stuff there.
In a way, I’m getting back into this blogging/writing/stream-of-consciousness/brain vomit (hence, the title). My wordpress has sort of fallen by the wayside; what was once an intriguing vision has become less so. More substantial than Twitter, but more effortless than a standard blog, perhaps this so-called micro-blogging Tumblr thing will work better for me. As the title of one of the many to-be-read books on my bookshelf suggests, the human brain is a “kluge,” a software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task; mine certainly fits this description, especially the inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together notion.
Too often, my blogging is halted by thoughts of “nothing really blog-worthy happened today.” Perhaps Tumblr will also cure this blogging antagonism; less false pretenses + less filtering = better recording of my life? We shall see. Obviously, with any kind of blogging there’s a little bit of an “ooh look at what I have to say because I aM sO cOoOoOoOoL” aspect. I’m not going to go out and say I don’t give a flying fuck about what the outside world thinks; however, I’m honestly shooting for more of “what do I actually do with my life?” with this thing.
In case you were counting, I used 4 semicolons in this post. What a nerd…
I apologize for the long and unannounced hiatus, but there are reasons.
Recent events have shaken my faith tremendously. What was once solid and secure has become tenuous at best. I don’t claim to have experienced a lot of the world, but of the 19 years, 2 months, and 2 days that I’ve been around, the two things that have most negatively affected me have bookended my last month, month and a half. The time in between hasn’t been so hot either.
What frustrates me so much is the lack of control – not over myself, but the world at-large. While I am certainly not omnipotent, I wish a little more was in my hands. Something that I could do, something that I could work for, because by golly, I would. I would throw all of my body, all of my fire, all of my passion into rectifying things the way I would like. But what am I supposed to do? What can I do? The answers to these questions seem to be impossible to know. Or worse, “Nothing.”
Even still, I feel like I am experiencing more than just a combative reaction to what has happened, something simmering. A pervasive, constant feeling that something is missing. An unsettling doubt, perhaps.
I’ll admit that I’ve had suicidal thoughts, thoughts about gods and God, yearnings for a different life, a different self. These are all extremely out of character for me, but also, very in character as well.
It has been very difficult for me, although I may not have shown it. I don’t know if it’s exactly going through the motions, but I have devolved into a shell of my former self. Would I want to regain that former self? I do not know. I have been struggling through, but struggling through for what? I still have plans, goals, and aspirations – doesn’t everyone? – but they are relatively indefinite, stretching off into the future. My more immediate sense of direction seems to have fallen by the wayside. I feel as though stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for something meaningful to latch onto and carry me away. As one Mr. Jason Mraz might say, I’m waiting for my rocket to come.
And yet, I continue to persevere.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. – Voltaire
NO, I’M IN A SNUGGIE.
I have a snuggie.
I win.
The end.
Bahhh. Lack of post-iness. Dui bu qi.
Some of the themes of the last couple of weeks:
Ice Climbing is BAMF.
Zomgoggles. That’s me all the way up there! :O
SO. Fierce.
Imagine a “This is SPARTA!!!” kick with one of these.
I was a Boy Scout for 7 years and got all the way to Eagle Scout. Did I think I was awesome in the outdoors? Yes. Did I think that I had generally done all manner of badass outdoor activities (other than say, mountaineering Everest-style)? Yes. Was I wrong? YES. Let me tell you, ice climbing…wow. Rock climbing times a hundred. Compared to ice climbing, rock climbing is for wusses. You have to make your own holds by hacking and kicking away at the wall of ice and then you have to pull yourself up. There were so many times that the ice axes would just clang off of the ice, and I’d be like “Shittttttt……” Or I had my axes or crampons un-anchor themselves from the ice. Yeah, bad news bears. Like really, at least the holds on a rock wall are anchored, and basically any slippage is your fault. BUT, when ice climbing, you can whack your axes or kick your feet into the ice well, and still fall. NOT TOTALLY MY FAULT. I tore up my pants a little bit because I grazed them with my crampons, probably because my previous hold sucked ass. Plus, it didn’t help that the ice was SO HARD and SO COLD. There were also some badass Ukrainian (imagine if there were ex-Soviet ice climbing spies :O ) guys with walkie talkies a little ways away. They were so pro and basically just made everyone else look bad.
It was also my first time at the Loj, which is a cabin way up in New Hampshire owned by the Tufts Mountain Club. I now know why everyone wants to go there: no RAs or neighbors to call the cops. I kind of wish I had taken a picture of that dining table, just for the novelty of seeing it completely covered with beer bottles. Jeez. Completely crazy. There also was a lot of TMC-cest, aka mad spooning and hugging and loving. The outdoors tends to do that to people.
Birthdays are fun.
Dave’s birthday was last Tuesday. Chris’ birthday was last Wednesday. Mine was Sunday. Partay?!? I think so. We rounded up 20 people and went down to Redbones, a BBQ place in Davis Square. The restaurant was kind of on a side street, but man, was that place busy. They also didn’t take reservations…lame. So Dave went early and waited for everyone. Good thing too, because the food was so good. I didn’t bring my camera, but pretty much, my plate was 90% covered with meat. Phenomenal. The vegetarians in the group found a way to subsist in such a carnivorous joint, but I am not sure how.
I’d give a thumbs up to the pulled pork too (but not the stupid face…oh wait, jk)!!
I am planning to open up an Asian grocery store.
Mmmm yummy.
Actually, not really. But I do have a lot of Asian snacks. Thanks, family. I know I’m fairly white-washed, but I don’t exactly need any help being Asian in the sea of Jewry that is Tufts. Of course, I still appreciate the food. Om nom nom. (:
Other happenings.
-Um…so Katie asked me if I wanted to go to the AOPi sorority formal with her friend that I don’t know. I generally avoid Greek events, I have a girlfriend, and I don’t know the (in my view, unattractive) friend. >.> What an awkward situation.
-One of the Tufts Dance Collective (TDC) dances that I’m in, “Hey Juliet,” is no longer just that, because another song has been spliced in. What song and by who, you ask? Note that the aim of this dance is to be as boy band-y as possible. That’s right. N’Sync. Pop. Dirty pop…Sick and tired of hearing all these people talk about/What’s the deal with this pop life and when’s it gonna fade out… Hahahaha, this stuff is so fun(ny).
-I have been listening to a lot of Michael Jackson lately. Damn it. He was so good. Then he decided to turn white and crazy (haha NOT being racist here, you excessively-PC-punk). He still sells crazy numbers of albums, but he’s really dropped off. :/ “Man In The Mirror” is my current most played song of his.
-Copy editing training is going well. I have come to realize that I’m really good at being nitpicky and finding every little error. I hope people don’t hate me. Also, news layout by myself starts tomorrow! :O
-My mommy changed my return flight to Boston so that I am now leaving home as late as possible on the 22nd of March. WIN.
That is all for now. Sleep calls to me.
-Brian
Indeed, he was.
Hahahaha this has nothing to do with anything: “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night just happens to be playing as I start this post, and perhaps you’d like to listen to the song while starting to read this post. Three Dog Night – Joy To The World By the way, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” is one of the greatest opening lines to a song. Evarrrrrr.
I apologize for a lack of blogging prolificacy (yes, that is a word). There, I said it. Sorry. I suppose if one blogs frequently, they don’t have to resort to mega-gigantic categorical update posts. Wait what? Durr..
UPDATE ON STUDYING.
I am progressing on my goal to become a better student. In the past week, the percentage of awake time spent studying hovered somewhere above 33% (this is an improvement, yes); I’m finding myself more in the studying-mood. What has changed, Brian, you might ask.
Seriously, the best study spot on Tufts’ campus.
I have discovered a new studying location, that’s what. Up on the top floor of the campus center, there’s a hidden room with couches and tables. I’ve never been a big fan of libraries: they’re too quiet, you can’t eat, and it’s weird if you get a sudden impulse to get up and dance. And you know me, very loud, always eating, and VERY restless. If I’m reading a textbook, in the space of about an hour I am prone to trying out 10 different positions before going back to the original restless position. “But wait, Brian! Doesn’t all this activity detract from your focus?” Well, yes a little, but results are much worse if I just sit still and read for an hour. Plus, late at night, my tummy growls a lot, desirous of sustenance. Om nom nom.
After a late night of studying, I glance up and the dead leaves remind me of the animal carcasses hanging up in the front window of a Chinatown butcher’s shop. lolwut?
UPDATE ON THE BATHROOM.
Um yeah…so recent shenanigans have, well…see for yourself:
BAM.
The guys’ bathroom across the hallway has had its share of troubles. If you turn the cold water faucet on the second sink, no water comes out whatsoever. Since the beginning of the year, one of the stall doors has been a little sticky, meaning that you have to jiggle with the door for a bit before you can lock it; this has resulted in people just walking in to crap without locking the door – and subsequently getting exposed, in a way. But now, one of the stalls has no door, effectively turning one of the two toilets into a urinal. The screws had been loose for awhile, but it didn’t seem like it’d come off its hinges…until someone trucked it this past week. This makes going to the bathroom quite the adventure, since there is now one stall for the 12 guys in my hallway. Wonderful!
The potty humor is also ramping up. In my opinion, this is a good thing though; adds a little character to the floor, you know?
“Only 50 cent is enough to feel the magic atmosphere”
Hahahaha I am curious to see where this takes us in the coming weeks 
UPDATE ON SPRING BREAK PLANS.
I am going home for spring break! Yesssssssss. Exactly 4 weeks away. March 13-19, mark it. If you’re too dense to figure it out, this means I’ll be in Berkeley at least a few days in the middle of March fosheezy.
UPDATE ON SUMMER PLANS.
I invite you to gaze in bewilderment at the following data I have compiled:
Tuition for summer session classes (4 units)
DeAnza College (2009): $89.50
SCU (2009): $1135
SJSU (2008): $804
Stanford (2009): $3661
UC Berkeley: $1160
What the hell, Ram. Make your school not be a money-grubbing whore. JEEZ. Yes, Stanford is a private school that has the leeway to charge more, but then so is SCU. So yeah, I dunno. Berkeley has the course offerings that match up best to what I’d probably be taking by far, but of course, it has to be the farthest away. Which, unless I suddenly learned how to apparate, would mean I’d have to pay extra money to live in Berkeley. Lame.
I had a meeting with my advisor to see what the heck I should do with my life this summer, but it wasn’t all that helpful. So as of now, I’m collecting info on internships and the like, and we’ll see where that takes me.
UPDATE ON WEATHER.
Recently, there’s been a spate of “warm weather” over here in New England.
Are you seeing what I’m seeing? GRASS?
Yes, that’s right. 50s and sunny is considered excellent weather (why did I come here for college anyway?) In the past few days, I’ve broken out the sandals and the shorts. GO ME.
And now for something completely different. If you consider yourself anything this side of hip, you must watch this YouTube gem:
“That Soviet Union with their Russians were already getting it on with the moves! This should have been some real propaganda during the Cold War!”
What a great video. Mad LULZ!
UPDATE ON THIS WEEKEND.
In about 3 and a half hours, I’ll be zipping my way up I93 to New Hampshire! I’m going ice climbing!
TOTALLY EPIC.
At the beginning of the semester, I signed up on a whim: “Hey I’ve never gone ice climbing before! Oh what the hell, it sounds like fun *send*.” But now, after looking at a bunch of ice climbing photos, I’m STOKED. I promise to take as many pictures as possible. WOOT.
Until I have successfully conquered beastly walls of ice,
Brian
Salutations!
Today (so far) has been a peculiar day. After going to sleep really really late (I’ve been sleeping earlier on average, I SWEAR), I woke up to a phone call…and I did not feel tired at all. Like, WTF? That never happens, especially not on 5 hours of sleep! Usually I’m very groggy and almost NEVER wake up before noon on weekends. What a bizarre start to the day.
Carmichael is getting worse. It’s not that I’m getting sick and tired of dining hall food – they are just going downhill. The french fries, potato wedges, and onion rings have been getting noticeably less crispy and more wilted. Pizzas are getting oilier. Caesar dressing is almost nowhere to be found. Meat is more overcooked. Today there was NO roast beef out at the sandwich bar (Katie had to make a special trip to Hodgdon for her roast beef fix). WHY CARMICHAEL, WHY?
Please serve food that will make me lick my lips in anticipation, kthx.
After lunch, I had to get trained on laying out the template for the Daily. Wait, non-tangential interruption. Another one of my resolutions that I forgot to include in the last post is that I will take more pictures. More often than not, with the random happenings of Houston Hall and Tufts in general (sometimes I think I’m living in a ridiculous sitcom on some crappy cable channel), I reach into my pockets, only to find no camera. This is something that needs to be corrected. After all, I do have a sweet 10x lens on my camera (perfect for stalker photos, actually ) as well as 720p HD movie recording capability, so I decided that I should take advantage of these things. Thus, from here on out, there will be more original Brian Lim-taken pictures rather than unoriginal Brian Lim-googled pictures. Like this one:
What the HELL is that? Damn Hannah Gogel.
Anyway, so I took my camera with me on my trip down to the Daily. GOOD CALL, BRIAN. It was just a nice regular stroll on the quad, until I found this golden image:
Snowmenz can haz Kung Fu?!?
What kind of ludicrosity (not a word, I know) is this!?!? This is just such an offbeat situation. A little bit of juxtaposition to be sure, but it’s still o.0. Lulz, icy roundhouse kick FTW. And Tufts Martial Arts club, what are you guys smoking? I imagine it’s pretty hard to practice Kung Fu in snow boots or to stand on snow barefoot for long periods of time. In the middle of the afternoon on Super Bowl Sunday, I’m sure there’s SOME room on campus that you could book to practice in. I guess it’s called dedication.
So. Super Bowl Sunday. Normally, this would be an easy game to predict, but the Cardinals (especially Larry Fitzgerald) are taking some mad steroids. Of course, being a 49ers fan, if you had told me earlier in the season that the NFC West division winner would be going to the Super Bowl, I would have laughed for hours. Two games this season, two fairly unimpressive showings by the Cards. In the first game of the season, at Candlestick, the final score was only 23-13. The real difference of the game was the 49ers’ 4 lost fumbles (I hate J.T. O’LOSER). The Niners actually had more yards, 60% greater average yards per play, and were never down by more than 10 points. In Week 10, in Glendale, AZ, the Cardinals never had the lead until 4:16 LEFT IN THE GAME. On a day where Frank Gore was averaging a decent 4.3 yards a carry on 23 carries, and the 49ers down by 5 with seconds left, Martz decided to run Michael Robinson up the middle, where he promptly got stuffed. 29-24, game over. Most frustrating loss of the season, in my book. And if the Cards with the Super Bowl…goddamnit, how did this team even get there?
Well, for starters, Fitzgerald took a bunch of steroids (not really) at the beginning of the playoffs. I expect the Steelers to play a lot more press coverage (they tend to play more zone so they can allow Polamalu and Clark to run around like crazy and blast receivers) and/or bracket the receivers (at least Fitzgerald) with a safety over the top, so it’ll be interesting to see how they adjust. Also, Dick LeBeau likes to call a fair number (read: A LOT) of zone blitzes, but the Cards’ receivers run lots of little hitch routes and crossing routes anyway, so the zone blitzes could be negated. If Mr. SOB Kurt Warner takes more than a 3-step drop on more than 40% of his throws, Haley and Whisenhunt are retarded. Farrior, Foote, Woodley and Harrison need to really be on their toes with covering the mid-range zones and disguising their blitzes.
Two words for the Steelers: Willie Parker. Run the ball, and chances are they will eat up mad chunks of clock. The Cards’ D is averaging 4 takeaways a game in the playoffs, but Willie Parker does not fumble that much. Plus, by keeping the defense on the field, the Steelers will tire them out, and Big Ben will be more likely to convert one of those crazy scramble-out-of-the-pocket-and-shrug-off-a-few-tacklers-to-throw-a-50-yard-bomb broken plays against a tired D. I also think that Heath Miller is going to need to have a huge game. The Cards will be very focused on the Steelers’ very good set of receivers, which should free up Miller to find the holes in the D. They really need him to move the chains.
On special teams, both kickers are among the best in the league with high 80s kicking percentages. Both have kicked for quite awhile, although Jeff Reed has more experience in pressure-filled playoff kicking. Mitch Berger is a much better punter than Ben Graham, however. More experience and better directional punting. Field position will play a big role in this game. If Berger can drop his punts inside the 10, the Cards will have to work a lot harder for their points. Santonio Holmes is a bit better than Steve Breaston as a returner. A little more speed, a little more shiftyness, and he’s broken off more returns for big gains.
The Cardinals are certainly peaking right now, which is exactly what they wanted. Perhaps the Steelers’ most prominent intangible going for them is less conventional: their fans. Yes, the game is in Tampa, a neutral site far away from both teams’ home cities, but Steelers fans know how to travel and they know how to be TERRRRIBLE. I am curious to see how many fans in attendance will be waving those yellow Terrible Towels. Truly a sight to see.
This is such a tough choice. Steelers by 7. 27-20.
mymomisafob.com has had some pretty hilarious posts of late, such as…
Self-congratulatory card
January 29, 2009
My birthday card from my parents looked very fancy, with a ribbon and everything, until I opened it…
“our son a result of good parenting.”
“Signed,
Mom and Dad.”
A new kind of seduction?!
Mom: They had sexy harassment training at work today.
Me: What?
Mom: You know, sexy harassment training
Me: Mom! that’s not how you say it! It’s called sexual harassment!
Mom: O! I know. I just don’t like saying the word “Sexual”…it sounds so dirty!
Me: I hope no one sexy harasses you then.
LOLOL. LULZ. If you don’t read mymomisafob.com, you’re either not Asian or you’re missing out. Or both.
Now I have to go follow through on my resolution to be a better student.
Until the next snowman punch,
Brian
CHINESE NEW YEAR?!?!?!? GONG HAY FAT CHOY, or GONG XI FA CAI (that’s your Chinese lesson for the day, Erika Brown).
Today is Official Hug An Asian Day, according to the ‘Book (Facebook, for the uninitiated.) That said, I have been the recipient of a disproportionately high number of hugs today (although none were from a certain Berkeley student…). Life is good.
I suppose I should break up this massive amount of mumbojumbo that comprises the 6 weeks since I last blogged. Note: unfortunately I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember what happened to my camera cable, so there are no actual pictures from my life (“But wait Brian, you spend most of your life online, so you could just google pictures and it would suffice!” Sadly, no..not how it works). Godspeed, my dear father: find my camera cable lost in the depths of my room at home ASAP.
BREAK
Lots of time was spent hanging out with Yangdi dearest. DUH. Spent a lot of time being silly with the sibs. What a bunch of silly kids. Saw some other noobs like Akash, Rawei, Sameep, Drugs, Poojie, etc. Going back to high school as a college student is so bizarre. Had a number of ridiculous dance-party-Gtalk-video-chats with Miss Katherine Hu. Went with my grandpa to the 49ers game at Candlestick (going on 14 seasons!!!) and watched them BEAT THE REDSKINS (there were some ridiculous 20-somethings behind us that met at a Redskins sports bar in L.A. Yeah..WTF.)
NEW YEAR’S/NEW SEMESTER’S RESOLUTIONS
1. SLEEP. So far, this one isn’t working out so well. People are still asking me why I stay up so late and I still don’t have many sufficient answers. Damn it. I am working on it, though.
It is, indeed.
2. Be more organized. For example, I set iCal to open on startup, which is supposed to get me to use it, with all the jazzy colors and calendars and such. Presumably, this would aid in achieving numero tres…
This is about par for the course for my desk…
3. Be a better, more focused, more motivated student. My classes are such that I have a more consistent level of work, which is good. It’s a good balance. And on the whole, I like my classes better this semester. Chem is at 8:30AM three days a week, so I have to be ALIVE, AWAKE, ALERT, ENTHUSIASTIC..earlier, which presumably aids in achieving numero uno.
If only 8:30 Chem could make me this excited to wake up…
4. Be a more healthy person. Obviously number one factors into this. Also, I’ve eaten breakfast on half of the days since the semester started! Hoorah! AND…I’ve made it to the gym twice in the last few days. I’m currently on a streak of one, but here’s to hoping it’ll be at least every other day so I can regain my bodybuilder’s physique (HA).
I’m working my way up to the top job in Sacramento, obviously.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
1. Brian Lim is returning to the world of journalism! Over break, Pooja Shah and I talked about meeting up in NYC at the CSPA Convention to pick up our GOLD OR SILVER CROWN for El Estoque 07-08. Nothing like a little ego boost/pat on the back for inspiration, I always say! Anyway, I’m starting out with layout and copy editing for the Tufts Daily for a couple hours a couple days a week. I really didn’t feel like writing, because I hate talking to people – just kidding, I’m just too lazy to do it for an article. The Daily just got Adobe CS3 in, even though Adobe just released CS4 3 months ago. Oh well, now I really won’t have to learn any new software.
El Estoque: Always hard at work.
2. Brian Lim is returning to the world of dance! Yup, I did it. I joined Tufts Dance Collective (TDC). Two hours of dancing back-to-back! Sunday just moved up the list of my favorite days of the week. I am so much excite!! ^__^ One of the dances is to the “Tangerine Speedo” song from Charlie’s Angels. Such a weird song. No telling if I actually have to wear a tangerine-colored speedo for the show on April 18th.
Tangerine Speedo. Yeah…
The other dance – like, can I get an OMG? Hey. Juliet. By. LMNT. Yeah, you’re jealous. My boy band music video dance moves were a little dusty coming out of the closet, but you know, once you hear that opening riff…
Only the cheesiest (greatest) song evarrrrrrrrrr.
It’s okay, I wish I was as cool as these guys too…
3. Brian Lim finally has a settled schedule. Uhm, this part might be kind of boring so you can just read the last part of the paragraph if you like. First I was trying to get into Stats for Behavioral Sciences (which has a required lab) because it’s required for the Cognitive and Brain Sciences (CBS) major. Also, according to my master plan I’m taking several lab courses in the next few semesters so I wanted to take this class this semester to aid in spreading them out and to give me greater scheduling flexibility. Anyway, out of six lab sections, only two could fit into my schedule, and even as a early-registration-time freshman, there was no getting into the class, so I went on the waitlist for one of the two potential sections. Of course, the damn prof scheduled labs to start this week, where the deadline for adding classes is Wednesday, so I couldn’t afford to wait to see if someone would drop out of my desired section. POO. Then I figured Philosophy of Mind, a course to knock out one of the advanced CBS requirements, would be a logical continuation of Philosophy 1 – Epistemology, but boy, was I wrong. All juniors and seniors, a crazy smart professor, completely out of my league. I was going to try and stick with it, but I realized that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Nor would the class ever become in my league, so I decided to just settle for a prerequisite course for another advanced CBS requirement. So now, I’m in Human Neuropsychology with my buddy WOODY KELLER (W****, to some).
Other courses:
Intensive Chinese 3/4 (same prof, same classmates as Intensive 1/2, but Chinese is getting a lot harder)
Chem 1 (the prof is the craziest old geezer ever. Seriously. Same book, same material as AP Chem at MVHS – damn repeat classes. Oh, and 8:30 classes three days a week are RIDICULOUS -__-)
Intro to Cognitive and Brain Sciences (very dry prof, but it’s required for the CBS major, it’s interesting material, and damn Hannah Gogel is in it with me )
4. Brian Lim made a few AWEEEEEEESOOOOOMMMMME online purchases.
Reppin’ the Bay! Winning the NFC West in 2009. SCREW THE CARDINALS. Pittsburgh better smash them in the Super Bowl. Really.
ONLY THE BEST BOARD GAME EVER.
I win. A beautiful, future-proof 22″ 1080p HD LCD for $170. Best. Deal. Evarrrr.
5. Brian Lim has started watching TV again. Kathy Hu, this is where you start reading I’ve been starting in on the 45 episodes so far of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and I must say, the characters are a RIOT. It’s a really great show, especially in how it deals with “taboo subjects” – it pretty much doesn’t give a flying fuck. Um, I’d write more but it’s getting late, a.k.a. violating Resolution #1! Crap.
Sometimes I wish I owned a bar…whoops, did I say that?
Uhm yeah, so I probably forgot a lot of stuff, but congratulations on being able to mouse-scroll like mad!
Until the next hug-because-I’m-Asian-except-I’m-not-really,
Brian
Or so it would seem. Usually I don’t look at the blog stats preview, but I saw an abundance of “nudity” (the term, not the real thing) related to my NQR post. I guess everyone is searching “nudity” or “naked quad run” on Google or on WordPress tags…yeah.
Today I was going to wake up at 10am. I woke up at 2:37pm. Wonderful.
…I guess I’ll blog.
Today I woke up at the bright and early time of 10:46am to give a presentation on stem cells to AP Bio and Physio kids at Somerville High. Oh boy. Bad decision. Cut down on my sleep, cut down on my work time, etc. The two people I was presenting with were just not cut out for this job. No speaking skills, no knowledge of the kids’ knowledge, inability to connect with the audience, etc. I thought I’d at least enjoy doing it, but the kids were also mostly unreceptive and obviously not there out of choice. Furthermore, I just felt so disillusioned afterward that I was completely unproductive for the three hours that I tried to write my paper. Damn it.
Dinner was spectacular though. To wrap up the semester, my Intro to Afro-Brazilian Culture advising class went to Oasis, a Brazilian restaurant in Medford. For some reason, the area around Tufts has a sizable immigrant Brazilian community. Anyway, there was SO MUCH GOOD FOOD. Big heaping plates of yucca, linguica sausage, and bacon. Bowls of fried plantains. Mounds of rice. Many two-foot-long swords/skewers of barbecued chicken, sausage, steak, and pork chops. Flan, coconut flan, chocolate flan, and passion fruit mousse for dessert. I felt so bloated, and there were many jokes about having to “roll people back to Tufts” or the like. There was also live music, with a singer and a guitar player, which was nice. Again, SO MUCH GOOD FOOD. Definitely going back sometime.
They even deliver to Tufts!
Fit for a king!
Everyone took home enough leftovers to feed a hungry family!
Unfortunately, full stomachs and productivity do not go well together, so I’m strongly considering taking a nap.
With a slight yawn,
Brian
