Progression

The rule in my family has never been "Practice makes perfect" because if you expect perfection you'll be miserable and dissatisfied when you never achieve it. Our rule has always been "The more you practice, the better you get," which is absolutely true. The more you practice, the more comfortable you get with whatever it is that you're doing, and your ability to finess the fine details grows. This year, so far, has been a year of progression, meaning I'm practicing a lot and getting better. Evidence?



Or, take for instance, pistol yesterday. It started with a target like this:



Not that great, some very lovely 4s and a lot of inconsistancy. I kept shooting though, and my next target looked like this:



Getting better! Less variation in the shots and more in the black. No 10s, meaning I am still a bit inconsistant. I kept shooting though, and here's my next target:



10 shots, 5 of which are tens. Apart from the 6, the precision is almost dead on. This is the best I've ever shot, until my next target:



One shot one kill.

It's about practice, persistance, and wanting to get better. If you put in the effort, you will get better. The hardest part is just motivating yourself to put in the work. I have a pistol competition tomorrow, we'll see if the practice has paid off.

Progression

The rule in my family has never been "Practice makes perfect" because if you expect perfection you'll be miserable and dissatisfied when you never achieve it. Our rule has always been "The more you practice, the better you get," which is absolutely true. The more you practice, the more comfortable you get with whatever it is that you're doing, and your ability to finess the fine details grows. This year, so far, has been a year of progression, meaning I'm practicing a lot and getting better. Evidence?



Or, take for instance, pistol yesterday. It started with a target like this:



Not that great, some very lovely 4s and a lot of inconsistancy. I kept shooting though, and my next target looked like this:



Getting better! Less variation in the shots and more in the black. No 10s, meaning I am still a bit inconsistant. I kept shooting though, and here's my next target:



10 shots, 5 of which are tens. Apart from the 6, the precision is almost dead on. This is the best I've ever shot, until my next target:



One shot one kill.

It's about practice, persistance, and wanting to get better. If you put in the effort, you will get better. The hardest part is just motivating yourself to put in the work. I have a pistol competition tomorrow, we'll see if the practice has paid off.

One of these things is not like the others

Did you enjoy that little song? I know I did, cookie monster rocks (god rest his soul).

As hopefully you know, I like numbers, graphs, and other statistical devices. That's why I have a hit-counter on my blog, it's fun to look at projected visitors and who visited from where. Today I looked at my monthly visitations graph and was pretty surprised by what I saw. It seems this last month was a pretty popular month!



There could be several explanations for this:
1) Family and friends are reading my blog to keep track of me now that I'm in college.
2) Application season is in full swing at MIT again and I tend to talk about MIT a lot here (I'm kinda sorta an admissions blogger)
3) I've all of a sudden become super cool and am on the verge of being the next internet phenomenon!

Now, I'm hoping it's all three, but I may be a bit optimistic in thinking that I could be the next dramatic prairie dog or turtle kid.

Regardless, keep on reading readers! I love hearing from you in the comments and I only keep writing because I know you're reading! Thanks!

One of these things is not like the others

Did you enjoy that little song? I know I did, cookie monster rocks (god rest his soul).

As hopefully you know, I like numbers, graphs, and other statistical devices. That's why I have a hit-counter on my blog, it's fun to look at projected visitors and who visited from where. Today I looked at my monthly visitations graph and was pretty surprised by what I saw. It seems this last month was a pretty popular month!



There could be several explanations for this:
1) Family and friends are reading my blog to keep track of me now that I'm in college.
2) Application season is in full swing at MIT again and I tend to talk about MIT a lot here (I'm kinda sorta an admissions blogger)
3) I've all of a sudden become super cool and am on the verge of being the next internet phenomenon!

Now, I'm hoping it's all three, but I may be a bit optimistic in thinking that I could be the next dramatic prairie dog or turtle kid.

Regardless, keep on reading readers! I love hearing from you in the comments and I only keep writing because I know you're reading! Thanks!

Catching Up

I'm feeling pretty guilty, I haven't put out a legitimate blog entry in a while, so I figure today (the end of a four day weekend) would be a good time to do it. There are a couple of main things that I want to touch on. The first is a followup to a past blog entry:

After realizing that almost nobody in Massachusetts knew what an overhard egg was, I set out on a mission to prove that in actuality, overhard eggs really do exist over here. To help prove my point, I enlisted the help of a helpful little poll which I mounted on the side of my blog for a month. Surely, with a larger sample size, it would be apparent that most people know what an overhard egg is.



Obviously the situation was worse than I feared. There had to be a way to prove that overhard eggs existed in Boston, but how!? The answer came in the form of an invitation to IHOP. IHOP, a pancake place, MUST know what an overhard egg is!

Me: "So, if I ordered an overhard egg, would you have any idea what I was talking about?"
Waiter: "Sure, you want one?"
Me: "Absolutely!" (this was said way to excitedly and much to the bemusement of the waiter)

Out came my egg and sure enough, a perfectly cooked overhard egg. Now, always the pessimist, I knew that you guys wouldn't just believe me if I told you this story, so I decided I needed proof. The proof? Look what the waiter had to say:



HA! PROOF! Just, um, ignore the semi-colon. . .and the "a egg" . . . and the fact that runny doesn't rhyme with yummy. Other than that, indisputable proof that restaurants in Boston do in fact know what overhard eggs are. Case closed.

---

I got a nifty assignment in chemistry the other day and I want to share with you what I wrote.

Here's the assignment:


And my answers (definitely click each one so it gets bigger and you can see what I wrote):







There now, did you learn something about chemistry? Basically, if two ions have equal and opposite charges, the sum of their radii determines which has the higher boiling point. Smaller radii = higher boiling point.

---

And now, for a story that happened two years ago that I'd completely forgotten to blog about!

2 years ago I attended a marching band leadership camp at the U of O. Basically, we march in the 100 degree weather all day long, play a game of ultimate frisbee, and then go to bed. One night, our little routine was interrupted. Turns out somebody thought they'd be cute and steal another camper's name badge and food card and throw them into a urinal before urinating on them. The head counselor/instructor didn't find this cute at all, and at 10:00 pm after frisbee and right we were settling into bed, we got a knock on our door. It was a counselor, he told us to go to the second floor because the head counselor needed to see us.

At first, we panicked. We may or may not have pulled a prank some 10 minutes earlier and we thought we'd gotten busted (we rubbed powdered sugar into somebody's white sheets). Turns out we were in the clear for the sugar, but not for the name tags. When we got to the second floor we were led to a bathroom that was absolutely filled to the brim with guys. We're talking 90 guys. One bathroom. We looked in and then turned to the guy who led us to the bathroom.

"You don't actually want us to go in there, do you?"
"Yes"
"We won't fit!"
"Now"

Alright, for those of you who didn't know, being smashed into a tiny bathroom with 90 guys is NOT my idea of a good time. Especially since

a) nobody had showered after the Frisbee and the marching
b) I wasn't wearing shoes or socks
c) it was 10:00 pm and I was tired

The director, who was in there with us, had only two rules:

1) No talking
2) We stay there until somebody confesses to putting the name tags into the urinal

Let me try to paint a picture for you. Here's an approximate layout of the bathroom:



Now imagine somebody standing on each sink, 8 people in each stall, a dozen people sitting on the stall walls, and the rest of the bathroom floor filled with people. There was a closet in there that had three people in it, two people on top, and many others trying to get on top. There was a window with a ledge that could fit about 4 people (not comfortably). The window was the coveted location because the temperature of the bathroom with 90 guys was stifling. Gasps of air were sweeter than life itself. For me especially, because I had a shirtless guy next to me who decided it'd be a good idea to press his hand onto the ceiling, right by my face.

Also in the bathroom was a motion-sensing hand dryer. The four lucky people that stood by that had to remain absolutely statue-like, for fear of triggering it, pumping the room full of more hot air, and being jeered at by 90 of the people they were stuck in a very small room with.

How long were we in there? 2 hours. During those two hours a lot of thoughts cross your mind. Should I confess? Who's hand just touched my butt? Is that kid complaining of confined-space-nausea kidding? Um, I think that kid's foot just slipped into the urinal. *gasp for air from window* This sucks. I'm tired. PUT YOUR FREAKING ARM DOWN!

In the end, we were released from our temporary prison. It turns out that the culprit wasn't even in the bathroom, he had escaped the counselors and was hiding outside the entire time.

All in all, my advice would be this. Don't steal from people, and don't throw stolen goods in toilets. Also, if stuck in a bathroom with 90 guys, try to escape AT ALL COSTS!

Catching Up

I'm feeling pretty guilty, I haven't put out a legitimate blog entry in a while, so I figure today (the end of a four day weekend) would be a good time to do it. There are a couple of main things that I want to touch on. The first is a followup to a past blog entry:

After realizing that almost nobody in Massachusetts knew what an overhard egg was, I set out on a mission to prove that in actuality, overhard eggs really do exist over here. To help prove my point, I enlisted the help of a helpful little poll which I mounted on the side of my blog for a month. Surely, with a larger sample size, it would be apparent that most people know what an overhard egg is.



Obviously the situation was worse than I feared. There had to be a way to prove that overhard eggs existed in Boston, but how!? The answer came in the form of an invitation to IHOP. IHOP, a pancake place, MUST know what an overhard egg is!

Me: "So, if I ordered an overhard egg, would you have any idea what I was talking about?"
Waiter: "Sure, you want one?"
Me: "Absolutely!" (this was said way to excitedly and much to the bemusement of the waiter)

Out came my egg and sure enough, a perfectly cooked overhard egg. Now, always the pessimist, I knew that you guys wouldn't just believe me if I told you this story, so I decided I needed proof. The proof? Look what the waiter had to say:



HA! PROOF! Just, um, ignore the semi-colon. . .and the "a egg" . . . and the fact that runny doesn't rhyme with yummy. Other than that, indisputable proof that restaurants in Boston do in fact know what overhard eggs are. Case closed.

---

I got a nifty assignment in chemistry the other day and I want to share with you what I wrote.

Here's the assignment:


And my answers (definitely click each one so it gets bigger and you can see what I wrote):







There now, did you learn something about chemistry? Basically, if two ions have equal and opposite charges, the sum of their radii determines which has the higher boiling point. Smaller radii = higher boiling point.

---

And now, for a story that happened two years ago that I'd completely forgotten to blog about!

2 years ago I attended a marching band leadership camp at the U of O. Basically, we march in the 100 degree weather all day long, play a game of ultimate frisbee, and then go to bed. One night, our little routine was interrupted. Turns out somebody thought they'd be cute and steal another camper's name badge and food card and throw them into a urinal before urinating on them. The head counselor/instructor didn't find this cute at all, and at 10:00 pm after frisbee and right we were settling into bed, we got a knock on our door. It was a counselor, he told us to go to the second floor because the head counselor needed to see us.

At first, we panicked. We may or may not have pulled a prank some 10 minutes earlier and we thought we'd gotten busted (we rubbed powdered sugar into somebody's white sheets). Turns out we were in the clear for the sugar, but not for the name tags. When we got to the second floor we were led to a bathroom that was absolutely filled to the brim with guys. We're talking 90 guys. One bathroom. We looked in and then turned to the guy who led us to the bathroom.

"You don't actually want us to go in there, do you?"
"Yes"
"We won't fit!"
"Now"

Alright, for those of you who didn't know, being smashed into a tiny bathroom with 90 guys is NOT my idea of a good time. Especially since

a) nobody had showered after the Frisbee and the marching
b) I wasn't wearing shoes or socks
c) it was 10:00 pm and I was tired

The director, who was in there with us, had only two rules:

1) No talking
2) We stay there until somebody confesses to putting the name tags into the urinal

Let me try to paint a picture for you. Here's an approximate layout of the bathroom:



Now imagine somebody standing on each sink, 8 people in each stall, a dozen people sitting on the stall walls, and the rest of the bathroom floor filled with people. There was a closet in there that had three people in it, two people on top, and many others trying to get on top. There was a window with a ledge that could fit about 4 people (not comfortably). The window was the coveted location because the temperature of the bathroom with 90 guys was stifling. Gasps of air were sweeter than life itself. For me especially, because I had a shirtless guy next to me who decided it'd be a good idea to press his hand onto the ceiling, right by my face.

Also in the bathroom was a motion-sensing hand dryer. The four lucky people that stood by that had to remain absolutely statue-like, for fear of triggering it, pumping the room full of more hot air, and being jeered at by 90 of the people they were stuck in a very small room with.

How long were we in there? 2 hours. During those two hours a lot of thoughts cross your mind. Should I confess? Who's hand just touched my butt? Is that kid complaining of confined-space-nausea kidding? Um, I think that kid's foot just slipped into the urinal. *gasp for air from window* This sucks. I'm tired. PUT YOUR FREAKING ARM DOWN!

In the end, we were released from our temporary prison. It turns out that the culprit wasn't even in the bathroom, he had escaped the counselors and was hiding outside the entire time.

All in all, my advice would be this. Don't steal from people, and don't throw stolen goods in toilets. Also, if stuck in a bathroom with 90 guys, try to escape AT ALL COSTS!

Swearing in Kids' Movies

One movie that I watched a lot when I was little was called "Little Nemo in Slumberland," which as I now realized, was the most frightening movie ever. That's not the reason for this post. The reason for this post is because, while re-watching this video on YouTube, I realized that the squirrel has a REALLY foul mouth. What do I mean? Listen to exactly what he says at 4:58 remaining.



WTF is right little squirrel, way to brainwash the youth of yesterday!