Day Two - Project 2

  I'm going to share a story.  Americans like standardized tests.  They're like education melting pots.  It makes me think they ought to get some Confucian-era civil service exams going on and just give the jobs to the top ranked.  But then that would negate the opportunity for the high school and college level standardized tests.  I think I had a point at one...point.  Oh, yes.  I had to prepare for a standardized test a few years ago when I made my first leap towards competence.  In order to take a liberal arts degree - Teacher Certification, you needed to take a high school level math/language assessment test.  I panicked.  I had grade 11 Math, and I had taken it in 1992.  So I bought the test guide, and I studied it.  I pored over everything, everyday, until I thought I could maybe take a test and squeak by with a barely passing score.  I wasn't chuffed* about the English, because one of my Not-Majors was English, so I'm awesome, right?

  I got a nearly perfect score on the math, beating the English score by 3 points.

  This was not a story of hard work and perseverance.  This is a story of me thinking that simple part-of-the-process tasks are nigh impossible.  I tell this story because today was day two of my Improve Flexibility project.  I have added two inches to my distance between left and right toes for the splits, and held it for 30 seconds instead of 10.  My standing toe touch attempt is only four inches from the floor instead of six.  And during my second and third stretching sessions, I briefly touched my toes at the end of a 30 second hold while sitting with my legs straight in front of me.  I'm happy with this, but what I am bringing away from this early success is this:
 
  I am lazy in the creation of my hurdles.  I had such an assumption of inability, I didn't even bother to check if I could do these things easily.  So I am now going to really try to accomplish the splits, not just get close enough, expect to be able to touch my toes standing or sitting and go as far as possible (I saw some of those yoga people putting their heads on their shins, so that's what I'm aiming for).  I also think I have to find a few moments to really see what my maximum bench press is like, because I'm just assuming it's pathetically low because I feel weak.

  Gee, as self-absorbed as I am, is it possible I also have low self-esteem?  Wow, how fabulously unique and compelling I am with my one-of-a-kind personality flaws.

  Okay, enough of the down-on-myself bullshark**.  I'm going at this confidently, but not going to get too overconfident.  I have a long way too go, and I'm not getting complacent or accepting early success as total.

  Gotta choose my training montage theme song.

 -Mike

* Aren't the Harry Potter books just wonderful?

** I and everyone else swear too much.  I'm going to try to treat my life as if I'm in an edited for airplanes movie.  OOOH, maybe go without swearing could be a project.  Or am I making something too easy for myself again?  I need more data.

 

Day One - Project 2 (Improve Flexibility)

  To be clear.  It is easier to touch one's toes if one can also see one's toes.

  I spent a lot of today stretching.  I also gained a little measurable data.  When I attempt to touch my toes, my fingers are six inches from the floor (which is improved from the seven I recorded at the beginning of the day).  I think doing the splits is a long way off, but I have and will continue to put myself through some serious awkward pain to test that assumption.   It's 60 inches from left big toe to right big toe.  I have no idea what kind of mathematical operation I could use to tell me how far away doing the splits is, but I bet there's like long division in it.  And variables.  I'm too sore to solve for X right now.

  My kid helped immensely.  She's the kind of delightful sort of sociopath (you know, a three year old) that will grab your thumbs and hang from them without warning you this is coming.  I tried putting that depraved indifference to parental life to use today.  See if she could pull my arms past the comfort zone and drag my hands closer to my feet.  Mostly, she wanted to show me that SHE can touch HER toes.  I went into my whole "Gifted!  My toddler knows what onomatopoeia is!" type spiel, but Mary, who is smarter and more experienced in the bio-metric range of under five capability than me, assures me this is normal.

  I think the stretching was good today, because I don't know if you're in my hemisphere or not, but there's like a metric buttload of snow out there.  Normally, I shovel in a way that always hurts my back (yeah, I know, lift with your legs, but like, shut up, y'know?), but I feel a little better than normal.  Oh yes, project making me....less worse.....already.

  I think tomorrow I will look up information on improving flexibility.  I could have done that today, but I thought it was more important to get into the habit of trying some fun stretching in short periods throughout the day, to train out the instinct to not have fun stretching periods throughout the day.  Also, I had this weird fear that the internet was going to say that fat guys nearing 40 shouldn't be trying to do the splits and touch their toes because they missed their window.  I kind of want to make it true, and someone else's fancy data is just going to slow me down.

  Onward and Downward!

  -Mike

Day Ten - Project 1 - Complete

  I will now share my ten days of accumulated wisdom and experience about bjournals.  It's important that I don't use "Easy to do, hard to do well" in this, because that's a dangerously lazy precedent to set.  I could say that about the next ninety-nine projects as well.

  Writing your journal online is egotistical in the extreme if you're not trying to provide something to a reader. My partner reviews books, and she does it very well on her Cozy Little Book Journal.  My oldest friend writes comical, anecdotal stuff (you probably heard about his snowblower ad on kijiji, if you live in Atlantic Canada).  Me, I've been talking about the bjournal itself, complaining about it.  There are people who can just set out to improve themselves, get up and be better.  If you can't, you (and by you I mean I) can write about yourself (Iself).  Suddenly, you create an imaginary audience that is fascinated with your struggle.  And disappointed when you let them down.  Pre-Internet, didn't you wonder about the person you knew who wanted you to read their diary?  Worry about them, worry about their need for that level of attention, or that even in their own personal book recalling their innermost thoughts, they might be holding back because of what an eventual audience might think?

  Not now.  Now our diaries are public domain.  We want people to laugh, commiserate, and write notes in the margins.

  So, there it is.  I have a bjournal.  I have a place to make myself report on my attempts to learn new information and new skills.  I have personal guilt-based motivation and a worry about what a presumed society will think if I backslide.  I believe I have created an imaginary religion of one.

  Tomorrow begins project 2 - Improve Flexibility (Touch my toes, try to do the splits).  I can do it at home, My daughter can help me, and it will probably amuse anyone if I get some pictures.  Decided to change categories after all.

-Mike

Day Nine - Project 1

  Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you three, we are coming to the end of bjournal for bjournal's sake.  Project Two in two nights. I've done some thinking today, and more importantly have heard the weather people's voices of doom about the Maritimes this weekend.  I think the message I'm getting is "You probably don't want to start biking to work or jogging outside each night."  That might be supposition, but supposing is a position I like.  I think the next project will be a reading one, with no guilt about it.  I have a new side goal, and that is to make sure that  when I finish the list, there will be a near equal amount of humanities, academics and athletic projects.  Obviously, I can't go exactly equal, or I'd have 99 projects.  OOOOOOH, maybe the 100th project could be a combination of all three.  Astronaut training.  Yeah.  Or something I'd be allowed to do.

  I have decided to let the project list grow organically, as good ideas hit me, or are thrown at me (and I want to thank my friends who threw so many great ideas at me before I got started).  If this works the way I want it to, this time next year I'll have a number of new things I know and can do.  That might make it easier to choose new projects.  Also, I'd hate to have to tear things down from the list if I find something better.  I've decided to shoot for no more than a handful of new ideas a week, put them on, and get back to the project at hand.

  I had a thought about this project today, and the thought has been growing right up to this sentence.  I wanted to give some advice today, some piece of wisdom, some way to help another person do their own One Thousand Days.  The full grown thought is this.

  Don't.  Don't get to the point in your life where you have to create a schedule to make yourself a better, more active person.  Just do stuff.  Read stuff.  Learn stuff.  Stuff is pretty awesome.  If you are younger than me, you have more time to get out there.  I have heard a few people tell me they thought this was a good idea, and each person who said this made me think "This woman/man doesn't need Remedial Life.  She/He has a ton of skills already."  It resonated with them because they like people who carpe their diems, and we all of us tend to like those who share mindsets.  But I don't share their mindsets.  I am dragging myself kicking and screaming towards human competence.

  If you are my age or older and you truly don't think you've done anything with your spare time, then maybe, MAYBE, give this a try.  You don't have to wait to the thousand mark, and if it's passed by already, who cares?  There's a scene in an episode of South Park that I really like.  The parents go to fantastical lengths to scare their children into avoiding marijuana, which eventually blow up in their faces.  One of the main character's dad finally says something like, "Marijuana probably isn't as bad as people say, but it makes you feel okay about being bored and doing nothing.  And that's when you should be out learning a new hobby or sport or something."*  I don't have Marijuana as an excuse.  I like doing nothing.  And I think it is even more important that I use my spare time to get some new hobbies.

  Tomorrow, the Exit Interview.

  - Mike

* Just to be clear, I know the names of the characters, and I deliberately didn't say the quote as true to the episode as I know I could have.  Like I said, I spent a lot of time sitting on my butt.

Day Eight - Project 1

  This is the eighth day of my first project (for those of you who don't dig on titles).  I think I have to really choose another project in the next 48 because this is really happening.  I added a couple more to the list, but nothing is really popping out at me.  I want to do them all, but all the physical ones seem to be better suited for warmer weather, and the academic ones feel like a cop out because I think I'm being lazy about physical activities in colder weather.

  I'll probably choose a reading project, to give me time to line up someone to help me with my first physical project.  I think I'll also use some of my allotted time on day nine and ten of this one for the same purpose.

  In related news, I am starting to implement other small changes life-wise, with an eye to making future projects easier.  I am cutting out eating in the evening.  It's a horrible habit from my years of night work, and at this age, it is neutralizing all the stationary bike work I do.  Plus, my little girl is taking an introductory gym/movement class, so maybe if I lose some more weight, at some point in the next couple years, she'll be able to be one of my flexibility/gymnastics mentors.

  Again, if anyone nearby wants to team up for a project, let me know.

 I am sleepy, and will see you tomorrow.  Only did the minimum today, and most was looking at my notes for the list.

-Mike

Day Seven - Project 1

  I'm currently suffering through my second reading of The Merchant of Venice in my life, and as I painfully bear witness to the simple honest racism (against Jewish people, against Africans, and Indians, and I've still got twelve pages left) of the piece, part of me is asking myself, "What the heck is so great about being a Renaissance man?"

  Obviously, my goal isn't to line my closet with pantaloons and compose sonnets, and is Elizabethan England even really the Renaissance?  I always liked "Jack of all Trades" better,  even with the qualifier "Master of None" attached.  I actually preferred it that way.  There's something about specialization that screams warnings to my rather Darwinian outlook.  I'm not saying I want my heart surgeon to be only as good at chest cracking and bypasses as she/he is at stage lighting or sushi rolling.  Obviously, we're not creating humans who can only survive in certain career strata.  Only so much is passed on to our kids.  I mean, my parents are hardworking and successful.  Until my kid was born, the most impressive thing I had created was ...wow, started that sentence before I knew how it would end.  Kinda wish I had something, even a pathetic, "How much time at your minimum wage job did you spend making that instead of doing your work" sort of thing.  Really.  I got nothing.

  Okay, forget I said anything.  Specialists are awesome.  I like technology.  I like services.

  But for me, I think the problem is my intelligence.  There's a quote by Twain that I put on the whiteboard for a "Quote of the Day" for my English students, where he said something like, "There is no appreciable difference between the man who does not read, and the man who cannot read."  For me, I think it reads, "If you choose to be ignorant long enough, you're not ignorant anymore, you're just stupid."

  I think I was that way.  I feel like my background knowledge covers the surface of a lot of things, but doesn't go very deep.  37 feels late in the game to try to develop depth.  Gravitas.

  On the other hand, I don't actually WANT to become a specialist in some field right now.  I am not interested in struggling to get a Masters degree in one specific area of teaching.  If I got that, I'd be kicking myself for not studying palaeontology, or anthropology, or one of the other things I'd be wasting my time reading about while I was running out of time for thesis work.

  I know myself.  And I think that my self-image is more improved by the idea of getting off my butt and creating my own opportunities to learn.

  If I can do that without dumping a whole lot of money at university, that'd be okay, too.

  Renaissance means to "Be reborn".  There is no person in the world who learns as many new things as a very young child.  Not knowing Jack is a good place to start.

-Mike

Day Six - Project 1

Yeah, that's about right.

  My partner Mary has reminded me that if I am writing/riting/wrighting/righting my Bjournal, I should not complain about having to do it.  Like I had any say in the matter.  She just doesn't get me, y'know?

  Man, I hate when she's correct (too many uses of right, already).  So henceforth, I will put equal  effort into the regular posting, the furtherance of the 10 day ritual, the crafting of the Bjournal itself, and the fixing of problems.

  See what I did there?

  Homonyms are gnarly.

  I like Vitruvian Man.  Art does not speak to me, unless it is funny.  I have wept at plays and movies, and books will make me feel something powerful and profound (especially if they're funny), but visual mediums are just something I see.  In one of the upcoming projects, I'm going to try to go to a large number of museums in Nova Scotia in ten days (shooting for a minimum of ten, but who knows?), and I just sighed aloud in thinking about having to look at paintings.

  But like homonyms, Vitruvian Man is gnarly.  Also, like a homonym, one thing is performing a bunch of different possible functions.  Da Vinci apparently got this idea from Marcus Vitruvius, a Roman scholar in the field of architecture, who, in a fit of Roman calling-it-like-unus-sees-it, called his work De Architectura.  The human form can touch the line of a perfect square and circle.  From what I can comprehend, this can allow the human form to be the basis for proportion in the building of temples and other urban structures, which would be rather pointless without human forms in them in the first place.

  I like Vitruvian Man because of the history it drags along with it.  Vitruvius lived through the era of the Late Republic, Spartacus' slave revolt, Julius Caesar, and Augustus.  De Architectura was available to Leonardo Da Vinci and his mentor because of the mini-renaissance that sort of blossomed in Aachen under Charlemagne allowed it to be copied and survive the Dark Ages.  And it's just a cool sketch, when you get down to it, an intellectual exercise doodled by a genius thinking about mathematics and buildings and people and I guess everything about human existence.

  I like science when it's artistic.  And I like art when it's being scientific.

  Okay, the bjournal is available to my monoglot brethren elsewhere in the world, and the post is done.

  If I had a PhD, and I was creating an online journal as part of my thesis and research, would the document I uploaded be part of a post-doc doc-post?

  I bet that won't translate.

  -Mike

Day Five - Project 1

  I am boring myself.  I think other bjournals have the benefit of a writer who is writing about something.  Soon enough, I am going to have to consult the list and decide about Project Two, but in the meantime, I am feeling entirely too self-aggrandizing.  That's not remotely the right word.  There is nothing grand about sitting in one's tee shirt and underpants trying to think of an interesting fact or anecdote to share.

  Yup.  Still thinking.

  Okay.  Anecdotal.  Keep in mind this is derived from anecdotal evidence.  Did you know that ninth graders are the most hypothetically-minded humans ever?  Check it out.  anecdotal, unsubstantiated, and let's face it, hyperbolic.  Really, though.  Check out these totally not-just-from-questionable-memory FACKEDS*:

  "Mr. Swinemer, what if you had the choice between a Pegasus or a Unicorn?"  -Science class

  "Mr. Swim-a-nur, what if zombies attacked the school?"  -English class

  "Mr. Swim, what if you could run faster than light speed?"  -Math class

  "Mr. S, what if we are all in the Matrix now?"  -English class

  "Mr....Aahh (yes, two months in the same teaching position, forgot even the semblance of my name), what if the Hulk fought Superman?"  -Chess club

  "Miss......ter (remembered eventually teacher is male), what if I pulled my TECH-NINE on you?  Would you be scared?"  -Social Studies class

  I try not to let my students waste too much time, but jeez....

  Pegasus, save my chess players, go back in time by running real fast to save non-chess players, float in gelatin I suppose, Superman would beat the angry snot from the green idiot, wish for the super-speed again.

  Why are you still reading this?  I have a fervent belief that when I get into a project where this bjournal is not the message, only the medium, the three of you and I will be much more interested/interesting.  I'm sure you are all interesting already.

You can follow me now.  I mean there are links that you should allow you to follow my online bjournal entries, not serve as the first recruits in what would became a vast army of theocratic soldiers devoted to my will.  The online one.



You CAN follow me now.


-Mike



*  "Wow!  These are easy to swallow!"  "They're low-carb, too!"  "What are they?"  "Just the FACKEDS (tm), Ma'am."

Day Four - Project 1

 It has not taken me very long to start resenting this process.  I have managed to externalize my One Thousand Days, and now seem to believe it has been foisted upon me without my consent or control.

  I don't think my brain works at factory standards.  I think the fact that I feel trapped by my project(s) bodes well for completion, but it makes me wonder if I am simply a prisoner of my own obsessive behaviour.

  Case Study:  Mike and Diabetes

  Mike spent his late teens and early twenties eating and drinking unbelievably sweet tasty things.  His metabolism didn't deal with this well, and two weeks before his kid was born, his doctor called him at home on the day of the Diabetes diagnosis and the doctor's subsequent reading of priority rush bloodwork (the second in a week), to suggest Mike go to the hospital so professionals could catch him when he fell into his coma.  Mike had started to eat more healthily that day, and went for a long walk, and said he would be fine.  His doctor is a really good guy, and waited on the phone to hear Mike test his blood glucose level again.  After that day, Mike's average blood sugar fell about 1-2 points per day, till it was a normal human's and not an Oompah Loompah's.  Mike did 65 minutes of cardio on exercise bikes (he is on his 4th, having worn out 3 in the 3 years since the diagnosis) every night, making up minutes if he didn't do a full 65.  He never eats desserts or sugary pop/juice.

  I am crazy.  I have been told by people who know how to moderate that you don't need to work out every day, and you can have sweets and treats every now and again.  I know I have to do it this way.  It is actually easier psychologically for me to do a workout every day than four days a week, and easier to give up chocolate cookies, yule logs, pie, double chocolate cookies, chocolate bars, chocolate milk, ice cream, man I would like some dessert, than it is to have them once in a while.  In fact, my daily regimen and forgoing sweets is just another form of my overindulgence.  My inability to moderate.

  And now I am trapped in a project of my own making.  It's like I'm Billy Pilgrim, not so much unstuck in time, but still moving down a set road into my future.  That stupid two-weeks-ago-version-of-me, if he ever catches up with me I'm gonna punch him in his busted-ass pancreas.

  Man, I could be playing Skyrim right now.

  Okay, I posted the in-progress list.  Please comment, question, critique, suggest.  I'm no longer a person, I'm a character.  and a democratic one at that.

-Mike

Day Three - Project 1

  So, yeah.  There.  That's a picture of me there.  This may shock you, but I don't actually photograph well.  My partner Mary suggested she simply take pictures without my knowledge throughout the first project, for the really candid effect.  To let you know what it's like to REALLY sit in a somewhat comfortable chair.  To know the wonder of not having a second to suck in the gut that's back with a vengeance.

  I think she's right, actually.  The whole point of this is to become more than I was when I started.  More metaphorically.  So hopefully less, quantitatively, in one way.

  I weigh 252 pounds, and am 5'9" tall.  That's actually 40 pounds less than than my worst, but about 40 pounds worse than my most recent best.

  This isn't a weight loss bjournal.  I had an idea for one of those, where the idea would be to actually try to really get into shape and lose a lot of weight, because the idea was a fictional weight loss journal that turns into a guy in a Zombie apocalypse videotaping his thoughts for posterity.  See, if I was losing weight, it would look like I was doing it because I had to ration food.

  Never did anything with the idea.  Again, lazy.  Hey, if someone wants to do that, it's free, but I want to watch it, and I want it to be well done, in a minimalist way.  You don't even need to see the zombies.

  I have lost my way.

  Okay.  Overweight.  I still have 997 days, and a bunch of Physical Challenge projects.  I think the goal should be to try as hard as is fat-humanly possible, because if it doesn't work, hey, the internet gets more entertainment.  I'll try to videotape some of it.

 
  I thought I should also give you my first ever "Selfie", but I have tiny little lips so I can't pout well.  Plus, I want you to know what I'm like on the inside.

  Today was very little time on the digital element of this project, and more analog work.  I can't decide whether I should post a personally made video tomorrow, or provide the "List So Far" of the projects I am definitely going to do.

  I will sleep-apnia on it and get back to you.

-Mike