Outcome: "Loss"

Wins: 1
Losses: 1
Streak: 1 Loss

Quality of the day: Excellent

Days excellent: 1
Days not: 0
Streak: 1


Health: I got a great sleep, allowing myself to rise naturally without an alarm clock, ate a healthy breakfast, refrained from eating candy, worked out, ate a healthy lunch, and wore earplugs during the concert.

Material circumstances: I sorted out some things with my new bank account, made an initial deposit, updated my accounting books, made a phone call pertaining to my job search, interviewed someone regarding the same thing, and wrote an e-mail and letter to thank them. I was also frugal today and spent no unnecessary money.

Wisdom/Understanding: I read a chapter of Anna K, listened to NPR this morning, and read an article in Fortune magazine while waiting for my sister to fill out paperwork for her laptop repair. The interview also counts as a boost of understanding. I guess the concert gave me things to reflect about, which may lead to understanding.

Relationships: I spent somewhat quality time with all three of my immediate family members today, chatted with Dan and Will, and wrote an e-mail to Eva.

Improving the State of the World: This category was weak today. It will probably be weak for a while. I tried to be a good person around my family and my dad's friends--not swearing excessively and being polite. I made a point to be polite to the service people I interacted with today, i.e, at the bank, the repair place, concert, etc. One negative thing happened under the duress of my dad, which was when we were pulling out of the venue parking lot, I cut people off left and right because he was being impatient and telling me to go. I should have done what I thought was right and disregarded him, but that's not easy, especially when it's your dad.

Happiness: The concert was meant to bring happiness, but I don't like concerts that much anymore. It was loud, crowded, and idiotic, in a way. I liked Alice in Chains--they played a good set--but overall it was as harsh as it was enjoyable. Anna K and the rain made me happy. My egg rolls made me happy too.

Ok, breaking down posts by "ends" is too cumbersome, so I probably won't do that again. I will try to keep th excellent days count going.

Today was another good day, but I'm dissatisfied with my grading criteria. This has to do with an old objection that I had but I had forgotten about. Discipline is great, but it's a limited thing to focus on. Even if I follow all my orders exactly, did I go about things in the best way? What did I choose to spend my time on? How did I approach each of those things? I'm shifting to Excellent Days. While doing this, I'm not abandoning my struggle for discipline. An excellent day must be disciplined, or at least mostly disciplined. Things to think about: did this day strengthen or weaken my health? How about my financial picture? Happiness? Wisdom? Relationships? The state of the world? Can anyone else add some criteria?

Disciplined Day

Today was awesome. I got up at 7 sharp, got ready, ate a nutritious breakfast, read through a bunch of information relevant to my job search, e-mailed 2 people, created a contacts/networking database, applied for one position outright, had delicious Asian noodle soup for lunch, sent 3 more e-mails, downloaded Gimp, downloaded my trial version of CAD, messed around on LinkedIn, worked on domains for an hour, practiced French, worked out for 45 minutes, read a chapter of Anna K, wrote to Eva, now I'm cooking dinner (spanakopita), and at 7 I'm going to watch the Eagles game. E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

Disciplined Days: 1
Undisciplined Days: 7

2 Undisciplined Days

Yesterday because I didn't get up with enough time to have a proper breakfast and shower. As a result I was grouchy at first when Dan and I went into the city. I was pretty good the rest of the day and had a good day overall.
Today I woke and decided to take the day off. Taking a day off is fine, but I told myself that I would work today to make up for some of the lost time this past week. That's a little concerning, but I really do feel like I can get back on this tomorrow. 1) I underestimated how exhausted I would be after my summer program. Honestly, I think I needed 2 weeks off, at least. 2) I have done all the prep work and started my main work, so there's nothing stopping me from just going. Plus, on Sunday, most businesses are closes, which makes it hard for me to call people and set things up. The only thing I need to do today in terms of work is some laundry.

Disciplined Days: 0
Undisciplined Days: 7

Undisciplined Day

I'll keep piling these up, but I'll prevail eventually. I actually disqualified myself right away since I slept through my alarm. When I got up I was depressed that I had an immediate disqualification so I sat on the internet and ate a tastykake. I quickly snapped out of that, showered, brushed my teeth, and ate a very nutritious breakfast. Then I wrote up interview questions for the research phase of my job search, made 2 phone calls, wrote 2 e-mails, talked to one person for a long time, walked to Media, got my hair cut, got groceries, and set up a new checking account. In the evening I hung out with Dan at Borders and Dunkin Donuts. There was some productivity occurring there, mainly reading How To Read A Book and talking about Project X.

Undisciplined Days: 5
Disciplined Days: 0

Undisciplined Day

Same story: decent day, but not perfect. This one was weaker than the last few. TV is such a fuck. One of the best moves I ever made was not getting a TV when I'm not at my parents house.

Disciplined Days: 0
Undisciplined Days: 4

Undisciplined Day

I started strong today. I studied French, exercised even though it was hot as hell outside, and spent a long time taking notes from Parachute. I'm close to having a comprehensive gameplan now for the job search and I'm excited to get it fully underway.
The breech came when I started eating water ice around 5:30. It was a glorious treat, I was so glad to have it since the day was so hot. The problem was that I didn't eat moderately, as I intended to. The other thing was that I sat down to eat it in the living room, and half-way through, my sister came in and turned on the tv, which mesmerized me and made me sit there staring. I hate the television. Later I went to Pinnochios and Wawa and watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Drugs are such a fuck. I'll read Anna K for a bit tonight, and I've already set my alarm for 7 so I'll get up early and have an awesome day. The last three days have actually been pretty good--net result was definitely positive--but I'm still falling short of my goal. Tomorrow I want to notch my first victory.

Disciplined Days: 0
Undisciplined Days: 3

Undisciplined Day

It's a shame that this day needs to be marked as undisciplined, but I'm going for 100% obedience. When I woke up I complained to my sister and my mom about work. They were sympathetic, and the situation is less than ideal, but my complaining was not virtuous. I whined like a bratty child. Once I got to work, I was calm, methodical, and disciplined. After work ended, I ate a healthy dinner, wrote an e-mail to Eva, practiced French, went to Wawa with my sister (I had a small dessert from there), and before I go to sleep I will read a little bit of Anna K.
I want to work on appreciation. Taking a moment before eating to reflect on my good fortune for having food at all would be a good thing. I've been doing that the last few days. This would apply to drinks too, as many people don't have water to drink. Even under the worst conditions, it seems there are things to be thankful of, and wouldn't it be better to meditate on those things than to bemoan the perceived negatives? I really am incredibly fortunate, and if I am to be disciplined, I should not complain (unless the complaint will actually fix something that is unjust or unethical).

Disciplined days: 0
Undisciplined days: 2

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: discipline is my biggest shortcoming right now. I think my discipline is good, relatively speaking, but there's no reason why it can't be 100%. Dan advocates working 100% of our waking hours. I think this is impossible because of energy constraints on the body and the mind. However, I do think that it's possible to be 100% disciplined, which means that your calm, rational mind must give consent to every action before it happens. Does it take energy to muster force of will? When I put it like that, it sounds like it does. Who knows, maybe this is impossible, but I'm shooting for that goal.
Maybe I'll start a count of disciplined and non-disciplined days. To get a disciplined day, I need 100% discipline. I need to be like a fucking Roman soldier, iron willed, no weakness in my executive capacities. If I can continue to be perceptive and intelligent (allowing me to make good plans), and I can combine that with iron discipline (allowing me to methodically carry out my plans), then, "that's when you know it's on".

Disciplined days: 0
Non-disciplined days: 1

I'm back! I'm in Philly again, this time hopefully for good. Wow, it's surreal.
Yesterday I worked on domains, packed, had a lovely dinner, and watched most of Fanny pt.3. Today I rode the train in and read What Color Is Your Parachute, which I would recommend. Later we're getting Indian food at some new place on State Street. I meant to get a pretzel from a vendor at 30th Street Station, but I forgot. Oh well. There will be time for all of these things. I'm back, and things are about to get rolling. Today I want to regroup mentally and relax, and starting tomorrow I'm going to pursue the housing as priority #1.

It's on again.
Wow, my program just finished. I've never had a more "action-packed" 6 weeks. Actually, it was more like "full-throttle", beyond "action-packed". To my surprise my review went great, it seems like I did a good job. Maybe my instructor was just trying to push me, and I misinterprated that as dissaproval.
I need to relax. I'm trying to get back sleep and breathe deeply. There's a lot I want to read. Right now I'm waiting to scan pictures...and now it's ready to go, peace.

I'm going to stop blogging for a while. Here's the reason: the program here is absolutely ridiculous in terms of time demands. I can manage my time as well as I want, but the program still consumes nearly all of it. I know blogging is a little thing, but I want to reduce all my activities down to the most basic level so that I can do the best possible job while I'm here. And ultimately, if I can spend that 5 minutes thinking of a domain rather than blogging, that'll be for the best right now.

After I posted last night, I walked home, took care of my administrative stuff, and read some French. Shamefully, I gave into my temptation to eat a pop sickle, even though I had already had my dessert for the day.
Today I walked to the GSD, paid attention during an awesome lecture, sat through a second lecture, experimented with Photoshop, worked on my cube drawings, started working on my house project for Thursday, had Indian food for dinner at a place called Ghandi on Mass Ave, stopped by the art store, picked up the latest copy of Dwell magazine, and clipped out pictures to give me ideas for my design. After posting I plan to e-mail Eva, finish my cube 2 project, possibly do some more work on the house, and then walk home and possibly finish watching Fanny.
I haven't broken any of my principles yet today. The only thing I did was hesitate and act weakly for a short time this afternoon as I was getting frustrated with my projects.

I got in some walking on my way to class, listened carefully to a lecture on drawing, listened carefully to a lecture on perspectives, ate moderately and semi-frugally, finished my axon with good results, listened carefully during an informal pin-up/critique, completed my portion of the group assignment due tomorrow, e-mailed Eva, and learned some things on Photoshop. Before going to bed, I plan to walk back home, do 7 dive-bomber push-ups (they're an extreme version of a push-up that offers a much more comprehensive exercise), perform my nightly dental routine, and perhaps watch some of Fanny.
Shameful things: 1. being late enough to force me to take the bus. This was somewhat planned, since I allowed myself extra sleep, but still, I should have been able to make it without. 2. Taking too long at dinner--I was talking, it was pleasant, but I should have gotten back sooner 3. Not being as efficient as I could have been during the group exercise.
These are minor things.

So far today I enjoyed sleeping late, ate a healthy breakfast, talked to my Mom, walked to the GSD, created my block design, and enjoyed some pizza at Pinnochios (alas, not the one in Media). By the end of the evening I plan to create two sections and an axonometric of my design, which will complete my homework for the weekend. One thing I did shamefully was that I overindulged in snacks earlier this afternoon.

I stuck to my schedule for the most part. School until 7, and then dinner, French, and domain. I'm about to go to bed because I'm falling asleep in my chair. Why am I so tired? And why didn't I stick to my schedule? I went to bed 25 minutes late last night, which might have something to do with it. I also didn't sleep well, which I can't directly control. I didn't work efficiently enough at school today, so I got stressed out and tired. Overall I did decently though.

Ambition vs. health. It's tough to balance these interests, which often conflict. Sometimes I want to redo Artist's Way for the sake of health, but the time commitment would mean that I couldn't do anything else, including work on the domain name. Is it worth it? Putting aside the argument that doing the program again would ultimately enhance my creativity and thus allow me to fulfill my ambitions, I'm conflicted about this. Part of me thinks, "Just do the domain, then finish the book, and then your extra projects will be done and you can reduce your work load down to one thing--design and planning." The problem is that projects always come up and I always heap tasks upon myself. Specifically, as it concerns the present moment, it seems silly to throw away the opportunity to be a part of the website just to get a few extra hours right now. That's potential financial independence, at the low cost of maybe 20 hours. At least I worked like a champion today.

One point in favor of me choosing architecture as a career is that I like doing it. Today I listened to lectures on the topic from 9-12 and then worked from 1 until 10, without really stopping. I had a bag of trail mix from the vending machine at one point, but I didn't get that hungry, and I didn't get tired really. This is a big plus. I like this shit.

It's good to see posts appearing again from the crowd.
Today was action-packed, and I'll only do a quick gloss: lecture on drawing, studied book on modern architecture, worked on multi-view orthographics for my model from yesterday, started taking measurements for our analysis of the Carpenter Center, and then continued to work on my drawings with model expansion. That shit right there took from 9am to 10pm. I'm tired. Peace.