Outcome: "Win"
Record: 115-9
Streak: Won 2

Summary: I stayed up late last night reading Eva's essay, and because of that, I gave myself another excused morning pages absence. What's crazy is that I woke up on my own, at the proper time, and did them, even though I already excused myself from them. That was one of the most virtuous things I've done since the start of my series.
I finished my 20 week French program today, worked, weighed in at 171, biked, toured the state house for my artist's date, finished my homework for class, cleaned up, ran an errand, filed my taxes, and did some miscellaneous administrative work. I've set myself up fantastically for a great Saturday and Sunday. Remember, ideally, Saturday night is for hardcore reading. Sunday is for hardcore relaxing. It seems that there's nothing that should obstruct either of those activities.
I've often stressed the importance of health (diet, sleep, exercise, rest, etc.) over mental strategies. And while I still think that mental strategies are garbage for the most part, there is one that has worked consistently for me. This is to view my mind as a drama between different characters. There is a reasoning and judging character, and if I mentally commit myself to granting complete sovereignty to that "self", then it helps to move along in a positive direction. For example, when I get pumped up about something, all of my selves are unified in will. The problem with that is that inspiration is fleeting, and soon I'm conflicted--my reasoning, judging self concludes that x action is the best action in order to forward my goals, but some other parts of myself, more viscerally present in my consciousness rebels and has a terrible attitude. So then I basically sign a mental contract with the reasoning mind, and then I can do whatever I want. It's like being scared of doing something and then overcoming it (enough that you can move forward) by just signing up for it, mailing your payment, and then getting scared later, rather than let your fear present the possibility of not doing the thing. So in my mental drama, there's the whining self that wants the raspberry mocha. My reaction is not to battle with that self, but just to let it be, and calmly hand the scepter to the reasoning self, which knows that I'm on a diet (and making progress), and which knows the steps that need to be taken in order to get there (those steps don't include a mocha at the moment). So basically I say, "all right fine, throw your fit. You're just making it harder on yourself, because yo, you're going to do it, one way or another. Do you want to drag yourself through pain in order to do it? Or do you want to embrace the inevitable, thus rendering it more pleasant? Whatever, you can do whatever you want, because really it doesn't matter in the end."
Perhaps my strategy sounds lame, but for whatever reason, it has worked well for me. Maybe another way to explain it is to draw a parallel with the experience that Dan and I had with vegetarianism, which was that we made the commitment, and after that point, it wasn't hard at all. It wasn't even an option. It didn't feel like deprivation, it was just the way it was. Well this is like that, except there's another self that whines and carries on constantly about the choice, but the key is that your better half has made a commitment analogous to the vegetarian commitment, which is iron clad. Acknowledge your weak, asshole self, don't get freaked out when its voice creeps into your consciousness, just basically let it stand in the corner and throw it's tantrum. It kind of quiets down after a while once it figures out that it's not going to get what it wants (I've noticed that on individual points, if I let myself slide a few times, it gets immensely more difficult to ignore the voice).

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 114-9
Streak: Won 1

Summary: Last night I worked so hard, had such good etiquette, and just generally carried myself with such a virtuous comportment, that I was tempted to change my loss to a win. However, I believe that there are certain core requisites for a win, such as doing my morning pages.
This morning I did do my morning pages, followed by the usual routine. I spent 4 hours in the studio working on one of my projects.
I came up with an idea for a possible schedule adjustment. I'm going to have 40 more dollars a month because I'm ceasing my Sprint internet service. My idea was to keep my budget the same, and work 5 hours a week less and use those 5 hours (1 each day), to work on my book. This would take effect at the beginning of my next budget cycle, which nicely coincides with the completion of Artist's Way (a week and a half from now). This way I'd only have class, 1/2 hour of admin, 1/2 hour of cleaning, and homework to complete after work. That will be more sustainable.

Outcome: "Loss"
Record: 113-9
Streak: Lost 1

Summary: Damn these Wednesdays! Nah, I don't know what to say. I've been getting little sleep lately due to unforeseen stuff that has to be dealt with, and when I don't get sleep, I lose my power to be virtuous. The main thing here is that I didn't write my morning pages again and I drank 2 (I'm so ashamed) raspberry mochas today. But from now until when I go to sleep, I'm going to be going all out so that I can be excellent at class.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 113-8
Streak: Won 6

Summary: Motivational thought--what if the fate of humanity depended on you? Or, before you say "fuck it" and get a raspberry mocha, make sure you're OK with the idea that you're shrugging off the course of the world by succumbing to that opiate-like haze.
Today was a day of exceptions, because unexpected things happened. My car malfunctioned last night while leaving school, so I didn't get home until very late. Thus, I gave myself an excused absence from the dining room table during morning pages time. Then, after work, I had to deal with the car and get it to a garage, which ate up a ton of time. Even with my modified schedule, I still did all right: bike, work, weight at 172, French, homework, cleaning, and later I will do a bit of admin, probably tax return. I came perilously close to losing today, because partially through work I started thinking, "dude, today is so fucked up because of the car and because of ... (yet another thing that happened which I won't get into here), so just chill for today, and get back on the horse tomorrow." Then the thoughts from above occurred to me, and I decided to act as though the fate of the world depended on me.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 112-8
Streak: Won 5

Summary: Morning pages, biked, worked hard, weighed in at 173, did French, biked home, made lunch, going to class. Maintained good attitude

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 111-8
Streak: Won 4

Summary: Nice day off.

Weekly summary: Overall, I'd say this week was more productive than last week, although I got that loss. The loss was on a technicality, and other than that, Wednesday was a productive day. The only things I'm going to try to do differently next week are that I'm going to reduce my AW exercises time by 1 1/2 hours and make sure that I have a quality artist's date. I should finish my French program this week.