back to school
I'm busy again, and I'm loving it. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the obscene amount of time that I spent lazing around in the sun over the holidays, but I'm enjoying the fact that my brain's being forced to exercise again. Unlike last year, I can associate this brain exercise with a significant amount of freedom. I'm not being pinned down by the stress of assessments and deadlines. I can toy around with my research in any way I see fit, and if it all goes awry, I can put it all behind me without having to worry about a permanent blemish on an academic transcript.
I've also got plenty of tutoring to keep me from falling off into the twilight zone of no responsibilities and no routine. Preparing for the classes is a chore, but once I've re-learnt the subject material that I'm tutoring, I feel better for it. Areas where my research could potentially end up going will have more potential to turn into nodes of creativity if my understanding of these areas improves. I've mentioned before that I love the feeling of seeing the limitations of what they taught us in class. Everything beyond these limitations is exhilarating. Through the tutoring, I get to go back to subjects that I had little choice but to cram through and appreciate them properly.
Basketball is also back. After our first training session I couldn't finish my dinner afterwards, I had cold chills, and I nearly threw up during the drive home. I was sore for about a week. Believe it or not, I reckon it was good for me. The second training session back, there was an extremely tangible difference. No cold chills, no nausea. I happily ate all of my dinner when I got home and my body almost felt good. "Almost feeling good" after basketball training translates to "feeling bloody brilliant" after a night of not going to basketball training. At the moment, I'm feeling so well it's as though I'm buzzing from the inside out.
Jen decided to come along to the training last week. I'm assuming that it was to see whether I'm just someone who's prone to exaggeration, or to see if I was secretly a member of some sort of Fight Club. I've never really tried to sit back and look at how I might appear when I'm willing myself to keep training well in the midst of feeling physically tortured. According to Jen, our personalities visibly change, and we develop a "shark mentality" when we're competing.
I thought about that. I don't think we change, we just become stripped raw. There's no room for manners and courtesy when your legs are cramping and you're seeing stars. My team-mates go through the same thing with me and we appreciate the positive intentions behind superficially strong sounding demands. Yelling out "push through it" may sound harsh, but those words are usually accompanied with an understanding that the person yelling out those words has gone through what you're going through, that they can empathise with you and that they know that you are capable of going further despite the fact that you may feel like passing out. With that understanding, the seemingly harsh demand becomes a great source of support.
When we're competing, there's the understanding that we'll compete hard. If we don't, if we go easy on our competitors, we genuinely feel that we're doing them a disservice. When you're exhausted, competing with others is just as much about focusing inwards as it is about seeing how your competitors are reacting. We know that by not holding back when we're competing, we are only helping our competitors get better, and we're giving them the understanding that we respect their ability to deal with a challenge in a positive manner. That's why you can yell at your team-mates to go at a person on the opposition who is cramping up, and everyone will be the best of buddies afterwards. Beyond the bad manners and the "shark mentality", there's nothing malicious there, only mutual respect. We believe in the capability of our team-mates to push through things that may feel intolerable, and as a result, as individuals we are given the privilege of working with ourselves once we are pushed to those limits.
I've also got plenty of tutoring to keep me from falling off into the twilight zone of no responsibilities and no routine. Preparing for the classes is a chore, but once I've re-learnt the subject material that I'm tutoring, I feel better for it. Areas where my research could potentially end up going will have more potential to turn into nodes of creativity if my understanding of these areas improves. I've mentioned before that I love the feeling of seeing the limitations of what they taught us in class. Everything beyond these limitations is exhilarating. Through the tutoring, I get to go back to subjects that I had little choice but to cram through and appreciate them properly.
Basketball is also back. After our first training session I couldn't finish my dinner afterwards, I had cold chills, and I nearly threw up during the drive home. I was sore for about a week. Believe it or not, I reckon it was good for me. The second training session back, there was an extremely tangible difference. No cold chills, no nausea. I happily ate all of my dinner when I got home and my body almost felt good. "Almost feeling good" after basketball training translates to "feeling bloody brilliant" after a night of not going to basketball training. At the moment, I'm feeling so well it's as though I'm buzzing from the inside out.
Jen decided to come along to the training last week. I'm assuming that it was to see whether I'm just someone who's prone to exaggeration, or to see if I was secretly a member of some sort of Fight Club. I've never really tried to sit back and look at how I might appear when I'm willing myself to keep training well in the midst of feeling physically tortured. According to Jen, our personalities visibly change, and we develop a "shark mentality" when we're competing.
I thought about that. I don't think we change, we just become stripped raw. There's no room for manners and courtesy when your legs are cramping and you're seeing stars. My team-mates go through the same thing with me and we appreciate the positive intentions behind superficially strong sounding demands. Yelling out "push through it" may sound harsh, but those words are usually accompanied with an understanding that the person yelling out those words has gone through what you're going through, that they can empathise with you and that they know that you are capable of going further despite the fact that you may feel like passing out. With that understanding, the seemingly harsh demand becomes a great source of support.
When we're competing, there's the understanding that we'll compete hard. If we don't, if we go easy on our competitors, we genuinely feel that we're doing them a disservice. When you're exhausted, competing with others is just as much about focusing inwards as it is about seeing how your competitors are reacting. We know that by not holding back when we're competing, we are only helping our competitors get better, and we're giving them the understanding that we respect their ability to deal with a challenge in a positive manner. That's why you can yell at your team-mates to go at a person on the opposition who is cramping up, and everyone will be the best of buddies afterwards. Beyond the bad manners and the "shark mentality", there's nothing malicious there, only mutual respect. We believe in the capability of our team-mates to push through things that may feel intolerable, and as a result, as individuals we are given the privilege of working with ourselves once we are pushed to those limits.
posted by Gene at 8:01 pm
Hey, if you get to quote me like that, i want a lawyer!
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