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Hard Work

Surprisingly I only started last week, and I'm already really busy. Maybe it's becuase I have to do so much reading and learning or I don't know my stuff. I've had 10 hour work days all this week, which are tiring. I missed bball this week, because my feet are so sore from climbing so many stairs today. Although, I was lucky today, because I worked out at the GTAA. Got to see Kitty and all my past coworkers. In fact I'll be working with some of my past coworkers again. That's really wacky, because by the end of the term, I'll have know some of those people for a year. Never really thought about that...

But upon meeting one of my former bosses, the first thing we talked about was Ghost Recon (a fps (first person shooter (ie a really fun computer game!!!))). He mentioned how he was a now a Ghost Recon Clan Leader. I wonder if I'll be playing games when i get older and when I have kids....i can't imagine it....but it's different nowadays since our generation grew up w/ video games as an integral part of our lives (at least for some of us...). So it might be the norm in the future, parents who keep up with gaming as much as their kids do....am I talking crazy here?

Just got my marks back last week....pretty depressing again. They say this is the hardest term, so maybe I can pull it up from here. My goal next term is to get an average of at least 80%...which is a pretty low standard nowadays, but at least it's a realistic one. While on the same topic, Keith and I decide to even out the bets for this round. I think I would have lost again (by only a bit this time), but Keith was merciful. I really have to change to the structure of this betting arrangement or else find a new betting/competing partner (or be boring and not do any betting at all).

One course that really pulled up my mark was Sociology 101. It turned out to be pretty interesting and I'm glad I took it. I've never taken an arts course before. I don't know about other ones, but this one was so easy! The most perplexing part of the course was how insanely low the class average was. And the final was so easy! I finished with half the allotted time and left. It was kinda weird not taking a technical course, where the majority of the work is just piece of cake reading. Another big difference was the class' demographs. It's full of non Asians and mostly female. I didn't even realize there were so many white people on campus! It was also my first night class...which meant that I was awake for the whole class. I even went to the lecture across the hall, econ101, on break (instead of sleeping). The econ prof, Larry Smith, was so interesting. He had very entertaining, but relevant stories. I'm strongly considering taking an econ course in the near future. Learned cool things in that class...like when you're eating gravy, what you are actually eating is blood!

But seriously, learned some cool things in soc class too. Like how all professional hockey players have early birth months. This is because when they were kids, they were more physically developed than the slightly younger kids, so they were picked to play with the better players. This process continued from season to season, and each time they got to play with the better kids they were able to hone their skills. So eventually, you look at the NHL and almost all the players have an early birth month. Something as seemingly insignificant as birth month can have an effect on your outcome in life. Actually the main idea in sociology is that your place in society (by birth a lot of the time), will have a large determination on your path in life. Also that some social problems, such as suicide, which is seeminly a very personal decision, is constant within different societies from year to year. Which implies that your society you live in determines how many suicide occur per year. This figure does not fluctuate greatly from year to year. I guess you could sum it up as we are products of our society, which makes a lot of sense. But it is kinda scary to think that the person you are today is not really a product of your own choosing, but one created by our society. No wonder there are wars in this world.

Which reminds me...I watched Bush's State of the Union address the other night. The most surprising thing was watching the Democratic response, because it was delivered by a chinese dude! Couldn't believe it, but the Governor of Washington, Gary Locke is Chinese. I don't know if any of you watched it, because he has a great personal story (but his speech was just a tad boring because it was all domestic issues). Never heard of Chinese politicians in America. Quite a surprise to me, but I was happy to see Gary Locke representin' and breaking down the stereotypes (just like Yao Ming...hahaha).

Inspiring.

--Nelson

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