Crossfit at Foothill

Sorry to get your hopes up. Crossfit did not actually visit foothill, but some of their ideas did. Ryan Colemen, Stephen Hubbard, Karan Sharma, and I did some workouts at the football field today that were "constantly varied and high intensity". I was planning on just doing sprints and throwing with Ryan, but then my older brother came and had some really good crossfit-ish workouts. It ended up taking about 4 hours, but was all good fun. So here are the workouts so I don't forget. I also hope to repeat them later. After each work-out we tried to throw when we were tired. Each paragraph is each workout.

3x rounds of
Sprint 200m
Three-man marking drill
10 push-ups
Sprint 200m
Three-man marking drill
1 stair run

3x rounds of
Sprint 100m
5 burpees
Sprint 100m
5 burpees
20 second rest inbetween

For 12 minutes time
70 yard sprints holding 5 pound weights in each hand. (Rotating so that only one person was running at a time. Then the next person goes when the latter person finishes).

For 7 minutes time (lucky number 7's)
7 pull-ups
7 squats
7 burpees

6x rounds of
2 stair runs
sprint 50 yards
10 squats
sprint 50 yards
10 explosive jumps with 5 pound weights in each hand. (Hands touching the ground to hands in the air).

Physical Therapy

I finally am going to see a physical therapist today. How long has it been since my injury? Uhhh the day after Halloween. Dam. What I'm actually hoping will happen is for me to somehow acquire super human abilities because of my quadricep. Just like that one movie where the kid breaks his arm and when it heals he can throw baseballs over 100 Mph. He ends up becoming a professional pitcher for some baseball team (Cubs?). Moral of the story: will my body heal past it potential? Will I jump a 40 inch vertical with my abnormal quad defect/mutation? Hopefully.

Does He Like Me For Me?

I can't stand it when bitches say, "I don't know if he likes me, or if he likes the idea of me". It pisses me off because it turns an innocent guy into a scapegoat.

First off, usually it's both. I mean, if a guy likes a girl, he's also going to like the idea of the girl. Girls just say that their boyfriend only likes the idea of her because she's too scared to admit that she might have faults in the relationship too. If you want to break up with your boyfriend, you should do it because of how you feel, not of how you think he feels.

Guys are pretty good at hiding their emotions. So never never never try to judge his emotions on your own female scale. Don't think he doesn't love you just because he doesn't show it the way girls show it.

I know that I've made my own mistakes in the past, but I believe now that relationships should be built on trust and communication foremost. Although constant reminders of affection are nice, they can also be tedious, tiring, and frustrating always trying to please your partner.

Don't make your relationship a competition either. If he gives you one cute love letter for every ten you give him, don't make it a big deal. I guess you could talk about it a little bit, but never force him to love you. That's when people start pulling at strings to try and make things work, when they've been working all along.

What I'm trying to say is break up with your boyfriend for your own reasons, not reasons you think he has.

New Room

So Julie and I have been rearranging my room for the past couple hours. We switched my bed and desk and moved the fridge to the other side of Liam's bed. Ultimately, this made the room so much bigger! We now have a huge space when you enter the room. We are thinking about putting a couch there. We'll see. The best part about all this is that Liam has no idea. We switched desks too so it is a complete change. Also, when I get back from winter break I will have forgotten that we did this. So it will be a surprise for me too. We still have a lot of work to do. All of my stuff from my old desk is everywhere and right now I am just putting everything neatly on my new desk.

On a totally different note...Julie is sleeping over in Liam's bed tonight! Yay. I love sleepovers.

Pretend I'm Your Dearest Abby

You say that you wish you could start freshmen year over again. Good news is that freshmen year isn't even hardly over yet. Heal your body by drinking lots of water, the sweating it out at the gym on an elliptical machine or treadmill. Sweating releases a ton of impurities from your body that you don't get rid of otherwise. Don't forget getting lots of sleep. It never hurts to take some vitamins. The first one that comes to mind is Vitamin C. Stay away from alcohol for 2 months. Set goals for yourself that you know you can accomplish.

The ARC

First off, I want to admit to stealing two Christmas decoration candles from the DC the last two days. The reason I said that is not because I'm necessarily feeling apologetic, but because I needed a way to introduce the fact that I now have two candles. In lieu of that, I want to tell you that I starting to feel stressed out about finals. The biggest thing that calms my nerves is to light a candle then turn the lights out in my dorm room. I'm not sure if it's instinctual that watching fire calms me, or if it's just preference, but I do want to say that I've found something that works for me.

Now, onto my week. I've been working out a lot. A week or two before I hurt my quad, I had starting lifting weights and doing sprints. Then once I injured myself, I wasn't able to go to the ARC (our campus gym) for fear of hurting my injury even more. I had seen my improvements from my body after working out for a bit, but then once I got into the groove of regularly working out, I wasn't able to work out. Dam it really pissed me off. Even after I started feeling my quad heal, I still had to be smart about running or lifting. That means mostly working core, hip flexors, and arms.

I've gotten better though. I now feel like I've recovered 95ish%, with the rest of the 5% quickly on the way out. I even felt good enough to try practice last Thursday. It was 45 degrees out, and I didn't drop or throw-away the disc (wait maybe once that I admit could have had more touch) all of practice. My quad didn't hurt at all. Come to think of it, the only thing that hurt were my knees which kinda got bruised from doing burpees with Robby and Will the night before (Deck of Cards).

The point I'm trying to make is that I feel like an athlete again. I've got my full range of motion back and I guess that's why I treated myself to working out every single day this week. Yup I am addicted to working out.

Why do I enjoy working out so much now? Well I've got many reasons that I can think of. The easiest way to get them across is in list form:
- I now have direction in working out. I've been learning different workouts from many people who lead me like Taylor, Ashlin, or Robby. This would be compared to what I would do before that consisted of going to the Gym alone and do whatever machine I thought looked cool.
- People who make working out a sport such as my brother Stephen, or www.crossfit.com
- I made the A team, and I want to be good. I want to be somebodies fantasy pick.
- I realized that I'll probably never live as close to a gym as I do now in my entire life.

I also like what Taylor said last Thursday practice. It was when Roman was leading us in an ab workout, and when things started getting tough, Taylor yelled out, "Do it for her".

Recap of Beer Pong Tournament

I know of few of my fans out there have been asking me, "hey Ben! How'd Sudan do at the world cup of beer pong?". Well I'll tell you. First off, our costumes were me with a pillowcase (tightened with a headband) over my head to represent a turban and really tight clothes to represent starving children. Julie wore a shirt that said, "Stop genocide in Sudan" and that's it. Now that's what I call being a Debbie downer. Ahh just kidding Julie. We also taped a piece of paper to our back with our motto: "Finish your beer because somewhere in Sudan there is a staving child being forced into a terrorist rebel army." There was no way we could loose. Sadly, we found out that there were skills that people could have for beer pong that Julie and I just didn't have.

There were 20 teams/countries and only 5 tables. We got a round 1 bye, so we ended up going to Jack in the Box with Jake Ellis and his partner Josh Shiffman (some hotshot Beer Pong brother from AEpi. They were also our first opponent (Israel) for round 2, so we weren't worried about missing the game. They ended up winning the flip (we flipped discs to see who would go first) and they came out knocking out 4 of our cups. When it was finally our turn, I think we both missed our first shots. In the end I don't think Julie made a single cup. Lol julie. She also had trouble finishing her beers, so I had to drink them.

I also had a full cup of beer during round 1 because I was anxious to start drinking since the last time I had beer was in Chico CHUG 4 weeks earlier.

After losing to Jake and Josh, I'm pretty sure we had another bye. During this time, I think julie had a beer in her hand, and she was complaining about how she had such a hard time drinking it. So I took it out of her hand, and kindly demonstrated how to chug a full cup of beer. Oh man she was so impressed! Lol.

Our next game was against Will Long and Jed from the B team. I forget their country but it was the country with the highest amount of AIDS. We lost the flip again, and again they came out really strong and knocked out 3 or 4 of our cups. Then on our turns, we would get one every now and then. They beat us really quickly and Julies beers that she had to drink kept on adding up. I tried to show her how to focus and stabilize her chi, but by doing this, I ended up finishing most of her beer. And she still couldn't finish her cup... so I did.

We had played 2 games out of our 4 for pool play, and I was already ridiculously drunk out of my mind. I tried to dance a little bit, but since it was a beer pong tournament, there wasn't really a dance floor; they just had speakers blasting ska music. I also hung out with some smokers outside, but I told them I didn't smoke which I'm proud of myself for. I mean, even when my inhibitions are out of the window, I still know that smoking pot and fucking retarded. Apparently Julie wasn't feeling too great, and she went home. After telling me this, I thought it about how I would have to play the next two games alone, and how that seemed like it would be ok to me. So I told her I was fine if she wanted to walk home, but I was going to stay. Thirty seconds after she left, I walked around outside to the back of the house and threw up in the bushes. Yikes I know! It was only 9:30 and I was throwing up already (games started at 6). I went in the basement to relax on the couches.

Just my luck though, because my third game against Dijibuti was in the basement. This girl on the woman's ultimate team named Brynne that I didn't know before said that she would be on my team. I told her that I had already thrown up and she was going to have to drink most of the beer cups. Good thing that Dijibuti didn't beat us AS BAD as the two teams I played before me. I was 0-3 at that point. That's when I began to start feeling really bad.

I went up to Tommy's room and almost passed out on his chair. I remember someone coming up to me and telling me to take off my shoes so people wouldn't write on me. So I took off my shoes, but then I thought it would be funny if people wrote on me, so I tried to put my shoes back on. I couldn't even do that though, which made me kind of frustrated :(. Brynne was there trying to help me out, and we went outside. I guess something about being outside drunk with a girl makes me want to take my clothes off. I remember Brynne saying something like, "Although you have a good body, I can't be out here with you if your going to take your clothes off". She was being really helpful to me, and I didn't want her to leave so I put my clothes back on. It didn't make any sense to me afterward because I looked on her facebook and it said she was single.

Back inside I said I had to use the bathroom, which inevitably lead to me throwing up again. This time Brynne was right next to me watching which was lame. She didn't seem too disgusted which was nice. That was alot better than the one time I threw up in front of Alexis at her party in Pleasanton, then she didn't talk to me the rest of the year.

After throwing up twice, I felt like I deserved to start feeling good again, but my stomach felt like it was on fire. I've never heard of any other cases where people's stomachs were on fire. Will Bower said it was probably my stomach acid. It still hurt like a bitch. Like, it hurt to walk or even open my eyes. I kinda just sat crunched in a ball in Tommy's chair when Rawb came up and gave me some granola bar. Then I began telling people I was going to walk home, but Robby Merk gave me 2 bucks and called Tipsy Taxi for me. What a nice guy. It's time's like that where you realize people actually care about you.

I ended up going home to lay on my bed and the fire in my stomach didn't stop hurting until about 1 o'clock in the morning. I also had to forfeit my last game. Overall it was a fun night. I think I ended up pee'ing 7 or 8 times outsid of Taylor and Tommy's house in the front bushes. And I went 0-4 in the tournament. That's alright I guess because it was only my second time playing beer pong. Moral of the story is to not get anxious and drink a beer, or drink extra beer to show off if your in a beer pong tournament where you are playing at least 4 games already. Take it slow and let the beer come to you. Also another moral of the story: don't pick girls to be beer pong partners. Lol Julie.

First Beer Pong Tournament

World cup of Beer pong tournament tonight at Tommy and Taylor's house. Julie and I will go representing the country of Sudan. I think the only dress up we'll have are pillow cases on our heads. Otherwise I'm excited because it's been so long since I've had beer. I think the last time was the Chico CHUG ultimate party. It's also going to be my second time playing beer pong. The first time was at a frat party in Berkeley with Ryan Coleman before Davis started.

P.S. Krysten is not so awesome anymore at all.

P.P.S I'll be home on Tuesday morning, and I really want to go to the LPC practice with Foothill players that night. The only thing holding me back is my quadricep that is still tensed up. I hope it's nothing serious.

Sean Ryan 08 Recap

I didn't write this, our coach Will Griffin did. I don't have time to write/remember what happened, but he wrote this lovely recap which I'm going to post.

Saturday:

First game was at 11 which was nice as we were able to sleep in a bit and get a good breakfast. We got to the fields about 9:40 and started running before 10. We got a solid warm up in and were prepared for our first game against UC Santa Barbara who is a totally different team then a year ago. The Dogs came out fired up and with great down field D and aggresive D's on the marks as well as only turning the disc once in the first Half. We took a 7-1 lead going into half. Coming out of half we were looking to close out and after trading the first few points out of half we closed it out 7-4. A great start.

Next was LPC. We had a close game with them at Chico and this was no different. They went up a break early and I think they took half 7-6, (could be wrong.). We were able to keep battling and after a few long points the game was tied at 9's. This point seemed to take forever with both teams battling and throwing near misses. LPC kept throwing it out of the back of the end zone. Eventually they took the point to lead 10-9. We tied it up at 10's to force Universe. They worked it up patiently then threw a mid field huck that Tyler nearly D'd, but they ripped it down and we go down 11-10.

UC Santa Cruz B was a good game to get people lots of playing time and work on our zones. We won 13-5 or so.

Pre-Quarters against Cal. Again we came out fired up and quickly went up 3-0. Cal was fiesty and determined to come back. they got a few breaks back and we were able to take half 7-5. Coming out of half we traded points to lead 8-6. Cal then came out agressive determined to get back into the game. They were able to frustrate our cutters and play aggresive on the dumps to quickly change the game in our favor and go up 10-8. We gathered our selves and realized all we needed to do was finish our cuts and throws. We were able to stop the bleeding and put one in 10-9. Then we came down on D with the Box D and were able to get a D and put it in. tied at 10's. Again came down on D with a tough man to force another turn and put it in going up 11-10. As we started the next point the hard cap came on so we score we win, they score it forces Universe. We came down in Man and Robert Gromely got a huge lay out D catching the disc in the process, but we weren't able to capitalize and turned it back. They put it in and tied it at 11's to force Universe. We put our line in and we patiently worked it up breaking the mark and cutting where every we wanted. We got it about 10 yards out and taylor threw a blady flick to Ashlin who literally Tea Bags a guy in as he catches the game winning goal. Great game with contributions from everyone as well as big play from Taylor who threw 9 scores and Ashlin who caught 8.

Sunday:

Quarter final match up with Sant Cruz A. Good Game. They broke us to start but we traded for a bid so we were tied at 4's or so. Our box was giving them trouble while going up wind. we were able to get a few D's and we went up 6-5. Getting a turn and having a chance to take half we couldn't put it in and went they tied it. They came down on D and with a huge lay out and a quick look took half at 7-6. We pulled to them after half and and were able to get the D by forcing them to huck it on the down wind side so the disc tailed out of bounds. We put it in with patient O to tie it at 7's. We came down again and forced them to huck it on the down wind side so they threw it out of bounds once again. We put it in for another break going up 8-7 and the momentum switching in our favor. We traded a bit to tie it at 9's then came down in a box again and Robert Gromely again had a nice D on a Hammer attempt. We were able to get it about 5 yards out but called a time out on stall 7. We came in and Robert, Mertz, and Aslin worked our endzone O to put it in we lead 10-9. We come down with a hard Man and get another turn and quickly put it in to go up 11-9. Hard cap goes on and we have technically won, but had to finish the point. Instead of letting them score the last point we force another turn and work it up. Sky gets it and gives it to Roman, sky goes up line and Roman puts it and Sky makes a ridculous grab to end the game 12-9 we win. Off to the Semis.

Semi's againsnt again LPC. We come out well and throw what looks like an easy score but an unfortunate drop allows them to break us. Our throws were just a little off to start this game and they quickly capitalized as we went down 3-0. We called a time out to regroup and got a few breaks back to get the score back to 5-4. They were able to score then break us again to take half 7-4. We kept battling but it was clear that they had fresher legs since playing one less game then us (we had universe on Cal) as well as having a relatively easy quarter final game against Humboldt. We traded out the rest of the game to lose 13-8.

All in all we played well and turned some heads this weekend. We took down the number one seed, as well as a good Cal team that we will see again. Although we played well the Dogs are all still fired up for the next tourney will be working hard over the break.

Awards:
8th Man: Chris Bishop and Robbie (with the bad ankle)
Rookie of the Tourney: Ben Hubbard
Sickest Play(Catch of the Day): Sky with the game winner against Cruz
Tourney MVP: New Dog Robert Gormley


Ok. I'm really tired right now but I want to make an outline of this weekend so I can write about it later. This is just a bunch of bullet points that won't make sense until I describe them later.

-Who we played (UCSB, LPC, UCSC-B, CAL, UCSC, LPC)
- (13-4, 11-12, 13-5, 13-12, 13-10, 7-13)
-The House we stayed in
-Ping-pong
-My quadricep

BBC (Ben's Book Club)

I got fed up with all my friends watching too many movies all the time. So I started a book club. Right now it's just an idea, but I made a facebook group and got some people who wanted to join it. The first book I want everyone is read is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. I've already read it, but I want other people to read it, and I'm actually looking forward to discussing it with friends. Right now I just have to figure out how to get 6 or so copies for everyone. I think I'm either going to talk with a Davis bookstore, or figure out how to use my campus library to get reading books.

Wikipedia for "Perks of Being a Wallflower"

Here is a Youtube video that someone made of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" if it was made into a movie. It's got quotes from the book, which makes me tingle because I thought Stephen Chbosky really nailed every single sentence in the book.

Perks of Being a Wallflower Hypothetical Movie Trailer

Just Took A Shower

Yep, the title says it all. I just took a shower. And now that Liam is out watching some soccer game, I'm sitting here naked (letting myself dry out) and typing in my blog spot. This time though I remembered to close the blinds. Only until recently I realized that Michael Cody, who lives in the dorm room next to mine, has a window right next to his top bunk that can see directly through my window. Basically what I'm trying to say is that Michael Cody has probably seen me naked like 10 times since the start of school.

Awkward I know! It's alright though. You know how I know Michael Cody isn't gay?: He is always surrounded my 20 girls.

Davis Dogs are going to Sean Ryan this weekend at UCSC. I'm stoked and I can't wait to fuck shit up... since we were placed 9th and I know we are better than that. We play Santa Barbara, LPC, and then Santa Cruz-B on Saturday. I'm definitely going to have a sore throat by the end up the weekend.

Btw I'm still naked!

Work-Out With Taylor

Julie told me that I should still post a few sentences everyday to get back into the groove. Sounds reasonable. There won't be anything too great in my sentences though, just talking.

I went to the Gym tonight with Sean to meet up with Taylor for another workout. Taylor knows his stuff, and I want to learn everything he has to teach (whether it be in the gym or on the field). I was actually considering not going tonight because I had a really long day of school today and alot of homework, but then I thought about how Taylor might not invite me to workout with him as much, so I decided to bite the bullet and work out for an hour of my day (not too bad) (and I feel great and able to finish all my work, so my plan worked out in the end)

Taylor's leg/core workouts are pretty simple. We start out with our hip-flexors (Tommy calls it the vagina stretch) where you sit down and open or close your legs with weights to work on your side to side flex/moveablility. After that we move on to hamstrings which is right next to the vagina machines, which works out very nicely. Then quadriceps with a touch of calf muscle training on the machine where you push a platform back with your legs. Thats it for legs. We walk over to the matt and do planks and sit-ups, then work on our oblieks (stomach sex muscles) using a medicine ball going side to side.

Yea, that was the workout that Sean and I did tonight, and the workout I plan to do twice or three times a week at the ARC.

Afterwards we went to the DC for food. Tommy sat with us because he was at the DC, and I thought it was cool how I was with Taylor and Tommy in the same night! I know it's not that exciting, but it was like a coincidence to see both captains in different places.

A side note on that, I see lots of people that I know everywhere I go. Before I came to college, and Foothill had 40 people going to Davis (only 2 or 3 of which I was friends with), other people said things like, "Oh it's such a big campus, you'll never see them anyways". Well I see alot of people that I know all the time. Like biking to or from class. In the hallways. At the DC. At the ARC. Although there are times when I'll be in a lecture and realize that I am surrounded by strangers that I'll never be friends with, there are other times when I'll see a friend like 3 times in one day. Soooo, college isn't that big afterall I guess.

Back to my night, Sean and I went back to the ARC to play some ping pong after dinner, but the Pavilion was closed, so fuck dat shit.

Lol

I have all these ideas for new posts, but I don't have any time to write them down. Do'h

How To Eat For Tournaments

You want to be elite, you cannot argue with physiology. If you want to play at the top level you must prepare the body as well as the mind. This is courtesy of Ben Wiggins, Seattle Sockeye #5

As developed over the years, through a combination of trial-and-error, professional advice, and scientific literature...

For a typical 2-day, weekend tournament, and assuming your goals are to play your best ultimate all weekend, and peak on Sunday afternoon.

Monday/Tuesday: Protein Loading
Why: Body cycles protein slower than other food constituents. Protein loading allows storage of long-term energy.
What to Eat: 3/4 meals per day, with at least one meal being primarily a main protein source (meat, eggs, tofu). Better if two meals focus on protein. Avoiding fat is nice, but no more necessary than any other day.

Omelette for breakfast, chicken or fish for dinner will do it, as long as everything else is balanced.

When this will help: Throughout the weekend, but primarily after
burning through daily reserves. Think "second-wind" on Saturday/Sunday afternoon.

Wednesday/Thursday: Vitamin Loading
Why: Body processes require vitamins to function. These cycle more quickly than protein, but can still be stockpiled during the week.
What to Eat: At least one large, complex salad each day. Focus here is on eating balanced meals that will allow intake of excess vitamins and minerals. Drink a smoothie. Balance the other food groups, make sure you get some protein (especially because you will likely be recovering from a practice or workout on 3-4 of these days). Steam, don't boil, your vegetables...and drink the juice. A Vit C pill isn't a bad idea. Garlic is amazing.

When this will help: Any injury or illness you pick up over the
weekend needs to be fought off quickly, which your body is fully able to do given the right materials. Saturday night you body will heal as fast as you allow it to through what you eat on these days.

Thursday Night/Friday: Carbo Loading
Why: The levels of enzymes that use carbohydrates to make energy can be raised by intaking large carbohydrate meals, and this will also store energy in the short term in sugar form.
What to Eat: At least one full meal of a carbohydrate like bread,
pasta, or rice. The more "hippie" it is, the better, meaning go for
whole-grain instead of bleached white. Keep balanced meals. Get more fluids to help digest (and to hydrate). Keep hydrated, but DO NOT drink gallons and gallons of water solely. This throws your mineral/water balance out of whack just as much as losing all of your water. Actually, pounding salt-water mixes helped a former team of mine. Hyperhydration is a serious threat in hot temperatures: it manifests as the same symptoms as dehydration (cause the same water/mineral imbalance is happening) or as heat exhaustion except without the raised body temperature.
When this will help: Your maximum stored energy will be on Saturday, and this might give you an extra boost in terms of energy usage.


Saturday Morning: Pre-Game Meal
Why: You are about to play 4 games. You must have fuel.
What to Eat: A mix of carbohydrates, simple sugars, and protein.
Fruits/vegetables will help keep mineral levels high, but right now you are mostly concerned with energy for the day. Pancakes/waffles make for good carbohydrate energy. Do not neglect protein, though- fats and proteins make for longer energy throughout the day. No sense in crashing after game #1. This is why Sausage Mcmuffiins and the like are more than just a humorous choice- they actually give a pretty good spread of carbs, protein, and fat.

Those with "weak" stomachs will want to eat at least an hour before you hit the field to allow digestion and give blood that localizes to the stomach time to spread back out. This requires, of course, that you get up earlier.

On-Field Meals: Recovery and Fueling
On the field, you need a mix of fluids and food. Quick energy like
"Goo" is great when you have to have it now, but if you can, try to eat immediately following games, to maximize digestion. Drink sports drinks or something similar to keep water/mineral levels high. Get some protein: sausage or Clif Bars are good for fat/protein intake. A head of lettuce (green) is basically like eating a cup of water with a vitamin pill in it. Pickles, a tried and true favorite, are great for salt (minerals) and for vitamins from the vegetable. Drink more.
Do not allow yourself to EVER feel hungry on the field. Hunger will
lead to your body pulling resources back for safety, leading to lowered energy availability. Eat before you are hungry.

Saturday Night Meal: Recovery Mode
One day down, one to go. You need to heal all the damage you have done and maximize your chances of waking up Sunday feeling good. Eat soon after playing. Cagging at the field is fun, but you have a 90-minute "glycogen window" after exercise in which to replace sugars, or else the body will start to break itself down to feed metabolism. If dinner is going to take a while, eat something right then, to stave off the breakdown.
Eat a balanced meal. You need some of everything to maximize your recovery: minerals, vitamins, protein, carbs. A big plate of Mexican food gives a great mix of resources. Indian food is good. Saltworks II is optimum. Drink water and sports drinks.

Weekend After 1st Chem Mid-Term

Dam things have been going by fast. I can't remember if I've been in college for a month, or two months? Let me try to give short glimpses of my days and nights so I won't forget them

Thursday: Well Happy Birthday Ben! You've been 18 for a year! Isn't that excited... well I thought so. For my birthday I ended up not going to Frisbee practice because I felt stressed over my chemistry mid-term the next day, then I ended up pulling an all-nighter studying for the mid-term. I like all-nighters because they make me feel worthy to call myself a dedicated student for some reason. I had printed out five practice mid-terms and their keys (which turned out to be around 120 pages) from the the Tech center in the SAAC earlier that day, so I forced myself to practice each mid-term all night long. I did end up going to breakfast with the crew team sans Liam because he wanted to study more around 7:30. We took the test at 9:00 and I felt really good about it minus not finishing it. No one else finished it either, so that worked out for a nice curve. We got our tests back Monday after chem lab. I got a middle B which I'm happy with.

Friday: My Friday started after I took my chemistry mid-term. It began falling all downhill from there. I fell asleep in calculus class while listening to my ipod. Then when I got back from that lecture, I realized I forgot my key to get inside my room. I figured I would just lay down and wait for Liam to come to the room. I knocked on the door, but nobody came, so I guessed that he was either in the bath or at class. Well waiting got really boring, and I was really tired. I ended up closing my eyes for a few seconds... which turned into two hours. Lol, I practically passed out for two hours on the hard floor right outside my dorm room. When I woke up, there was an outline of empty bottles around my body and a sign that said, "Ben Hubbard is passed out on the floor. Take pictures of him and write on his face". Luckily nobody wrote on my face, but I did see pictures of myself laying on the ground later on from Sean's phone. My door was still locked and I had no way to find Liam. He was probably out to lunch or something, I really didn't care about that thought. All I was thinking about was finding more places to sleep at. Brooke ended up letting me use her bed to sleep from 2 to 4 until my Stat class. Nice bed and all, which makes me feel bad about farting all over it. Hopefully it didn't smell too much like me afterward. Then I had my first Chico team practice from 5:30-7. Lol it went surprisingly well, but I do need to start skying more people.

Saturday: Chico team practice from 10am-1pm. This was really fun. They video taped whenever we played, so I hope I look good when I watch the tape at Taylor's house on Thursday night. After that, Mom, Dad, and Michael came up to visit me for a birthday celebration. We biked around downtown Davis (which I secretly wish I could do more often) and had lunch at Chipotle. Then we biked the entire Arboretum. That is a beautiful bike ride. I definitely want to do that at least once a month. We stopped at one point along the way and watched Michael play with the geese. Later on at night we went to Fuzio for a nice dinner which rocked my socks off because I hadn't eaten that much all day long after practice. Food just tastes better when your hungry. After my parents and Michael left to go back to Pleasanton, I went up to floor 2 and began to get my drink on. It wasn't exactly right away, but we did end up finishing around 7/8ths of Sean's handle before going to the bonfire. Then we came back to the room after the bonfire and drank some more. Tonight was the night that everyone was going to my Frisbee party. It was at Kevin's house on Vassar which is right behind Cuarto. They told me to bring girls, so I brought around 9 girls and 4 guys. I invited all the girls from my floor along with Natasha and her friend. The Frisbee party was legit and I was having fun, but I think most of the girls from floor 2 were being wet towels, and I was having fun with Sean, Isaiah, Natasha, Samantha, and Tonhu, so I'm pretty sure we just ended up leaving and then going to watch airplane in the main lounge while still being semi-drunk. I think I ended up sleeping in the lounge until about 7:30am when a cleaning guy was doing his thing moving chairs around. I waited until he was in the kitchen, then I rushed up to my room and slept until around noon.

Sunday: Not as much happens during days when you wake up at noon compared to other days. I remember we played an IM ultimate game (and lost), but I got Natasha to come out and give our team more girls. She seemed interested in playing or getting better. But I still had to teach her everything new. First practices are always hard for ultimate because you drop the disc more than catch it, and then you only catch it once or twice. Most of the time your just running around confused. Later that night we ended up watching Amelie in the main lounge. Now I had alot of chemistry homework for Lab that needed doing... but this was Amelie, which I just couldn't pass up. I'm sure anyone in my position whose seen Amelie before and liked it would have done the same thing. Anyways, movie was as bomb as I remember :) This time I did not sleep in the lounge. For the future, I hope I don't turn into one of those people who watch movies because they have nothing else to do.

Monday: What else is there to say other than it's my hardest day of the week. I wake up and wash my face, then go to chemistry lecture. Then I come home and take a shower. I decided to skip calculus for two reasons: 1) I had chemistry homework to finish and 2) They are learning about shortcuts for differentiations which I already know. After lab in my stat class, I realized that I hadn't eaten any food at all today. This kinda worried me, but I just blew it off because I knew I could have all-you-can-eat for dinner at the DC. After I got back from my nutrition class, I called Natasha and asked if she wanted to throw. She said that people had just gone to the DC and that I should come. Well, I came, I saw, I conquered. I had 8 different dishes with 4 cups of liquid (one of them was cappuccino which might be one of the reasons I'm up so late). Everyone ended up leaving except Natasha before I ate a huge salad and two more slices of pizza. We tried out drinking coffee and reading the newspaper on the nice couches (conclusion: it still rocks). After dinner Natasha, Sean, and I all went to the ARC/Pavilion to play some racquetball. It was fun, but just "playing around" racquetball. When we got bored of that, we went back to the main ARC because Sean wanted to practice some wrestling moves on me. I also taught both Sean and Natasha how to do the moonwalk, and they taught me how to balance on my head and do a cartwheel. Now I do believe I'm all caught up on my life. Gonna go take a shower because my Stat teacher gave us an extra day for homework (Wednesday 3:00am instead of Tuesday 3:00am)

Jetman

Oh man I just owned this one girl on Jetman!

Scavenger Hunt

Tonight was the most bomb-diggity night so far in Davis. Better than parties, and way better than studying. Around 7 o'clock I had this idea to make a scavenger hunt for all the Thompson residents. This came about because I was playing around with my Thompson '08-'09 facebook group that I made to keep a directory of everyone in my building. There is a button that lets me message everyone in the group, so I sent out a message saying I was going to make a scavenger hunt.

This got me thinking about everything I could do for the scavenger hunt. Usually once I get rolling with an idea, more ideas come even more quickly to me and I had an entire scavenger hunt planned out in my mind in about ten minutes. The plan was to have people come to my room for the first clue, then I would have pieces of paper with more clue directions on them for where to go next. There was something witty written on the paper like, "Where can I study for my mid-terms at on the first floor" (answer: study room) or, "Lets make some popcorn in the microwave" (answer: a clue in the microwave).

This is my list of places I was going to have people go to:
1. Laundry room
2. Floor 4 trash chute
3. Study room
4. Floor 2 lounge area
5. Piano room
6. Floor 3 emergency exit
7. Next to the soda machines
8. Kitchen fridge
9. Floor 4 Lounge area behind a couch
10. Kitchen microwave
11. ?????

I sat and thought about what the prize should be at the end. Then it hit me. Have everyone go to Ashley's (my floor R.A.) room and wish her happy birthday. Her birthday is the same day as mine (October 16th) which is tomorrow. But I gotta make it a cool prize though. So what I did was I went out about bought a bag of 75 small airhead candy stuff. Then I went to Ashley's room and told her that I wanted to give her a birthday present, which was the bag of candy. The last clue was in place. The final paper from the microwave said something like, "Go up to room 201A and say 'Happy Early Birthday Ashley! Can I have some candy', but make sure you don't say anything about the scavenger hunt. If she asks, just play dumb".

Such a fucking good idea. In the end I had like 15 people doing the scavenger hunt all from Thompson Hall. I got on my R.A.'s total good side. And to a bunch of people, I'm no longer that one guy who walks around in his underwear.

Why I Picked My Major

My career discovery group for nutrition assigns us to write her emails with prompts every Friday. This was her prompt this week:

"Tell me how you picked your major? What sort of process did you use to determine that you liked nutrition or food science enough to specialize in it in college? Tell me some of your fears or worries about focusing on this subject (i.e. you are not sure you will like the jobs, but you know you like the subject, or salary worries, hours required per week worries, etc.) I am looking for some thoughtful answers that are 1-2 paragraphs in length."

This is my response

"Good afternoon Joelle,

I only became interested in bodies nutrition in the past year or two. My older brother (UCSD ’09) would always come home from college on holidays and then the summer to cook up amazing meals that would blow my mind. He would also help me out with food secrets to make my body function better when doing a sport like ultimate Frisbee. My family has also always been food conscience by never having soda or white bread in the house, or things like that, but my brother made me realize how extremely important it is for your body to eat the right diet. I began eating right, and I got interested in reading food labels then making connections between what I ate and how I functioned or felt. I’m pretty sure that everyone in my family had read fast food nation like three or four years ago, but then we started getting into books like “The Omnivores Dilemma” or “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. So basically right now, where I am in my life, I take pride in being aware of everything I eat, and I think that having knowledge of metabolism is valuable.

I’m not thinking about jobs at all right now that require a nutrition science degree. I mean, yes, I do want to work more under the biochemistry side of nutrition compared to the community approach, but I’m not concerning myself with which companies I should apply to in four years. I am a little worried that most jobs for nutrition don’t pay around 200,000 a year, which would be nice, but I’ll worry about that after 4 years.

Another problem I foresee in my future is that I really like chemistry, but I’m just not good at it. I love the idea of chemistry and learning about it. Sadly I’ve never done that well in any chemistry classes that I have taken though. This makes me worried because in the future, I’m probably going to want to take a lot of chemistry classes, but not do so well in them. I will probably have to go to tutoring a lot more often.

Best of wishes,

Ben Hubbard"

Cappuccinos

Almost every time I go to the DC now, after my meal I pick up the Aggie newspaper and sit down on the nice chairs with a cappuccino. It makes me feel like an adult college student. Sometimes I cross my legs if I wanna feel extra college.

Getting Better

In the short amount of time since my last post, I've done a lot of productive things that have made me feel good about myself. After I finished writing my "Ugh" post, Liam told me that we had to schedule an appointment with a person to talk about being written up, so I got the number and called the lady without thinking twice. We scheduled to talk with this guy in the SAC (brick building) on Tuesday at 1. Then Jake called me and I agreed to fill in his spot at a Intramural-Captain meeting at 9:45-10:15 tonight because he can't make it. This makes me happy because I'm able to fulfill these promises I am making to people, and people are being able to rely on me again. After that, I went to Jake's room in Gilmore to pick up "The Game" by Neil Strauss. It's a great book on how to meet women and I think the author writes amazingly well. Walking back to Thompson, I stopped by the junction to put 10 dollars on my WEB Laundry card! Now I'm going downstairs to do a load before ultimate practice at 4. In between now and practice, I plan on focusing my undivided attention to studying chemistry.

Ugh Life Is A Downer

Lots of things have been bringing me down lately. Most of the occurrences that happen are pretty small, but I've been getting a lot of them, and I'm not used to being down. Thanks for Mr. Schneider's wall junior year, I remembered a quote from Dave Mathews:

"To change the world
Start with one step
However Small
The first step is hardest of all"

So my first step to fixing the problems in my life is to write down the thoughts from my head and figure out what I need to do in order to change. By writing down the things that have brought me down in the past couple of days, I want to look for connections between them and come up with solutions that will help all of them.

Don't laugh at me, or tell me that my problems don't mean anything, because they mean something to me and they are affecting me. Of course I'm happy to be alive and all that other shit, I just want to fix my problems and make myself happier.

Here is a list of things that I can think off the top of my head that have brought me down.
- Going to the DC (Dining Commons) alone
- Losing all my money on Facebook Poker
- Afraid of asking people for their phone number
- Giving myself enough time to study for Chemistry or Statistics
- Not giving myself enough time to arrive to my lecture halls
- Not wanting to do my laundry
- Not wanting to lift weights after I run in the ARC
- Spending too much time in the bathroom for showers
- Cluttered desk
- Worried about maybe not getting the things I need for my Halloween costume
- Being sucky at defense during Frisbee practice
- I know I'm going to Chico CHUG, but I still might not make the A team
- Not taking good care of my immune system
- Being written up for taking the screen off our window

What I need to do is focus on one thing at a time and figure out how to get out of that rut, instead of trying to fix everything at once.

Running Thoughts

Sometimes I exercise when I get frustrated. It lets me put my emotions into something that is productive and healthy. Certain people vacuum, I exercise. Right now I feel like putting on shoes and running alot... like a fucking shitload. Then a thought came into my head, "What did I have for dinner". That thought made me realize that I felt like running until I threw up. As I recall, I had a hamburger, salad, focaccia bread, 2 glasses of fruit juice, a cup of cappuccino, and some fruit. It would be ok if I ran until I threw up. I feel fine about pushing my body now.

Jesus Shirts

It's fucking rediculous. I own two shirts that I bought from a Christian Supply store and people keep fucking complimenting me on it. I'm disgusted by these real Christians.

Katie is Dropping Band

Katie Yost said she was thinking about dropping band. I think that once you get that idea in your head, there must be a reason that makes you think that after 3 years. This is what I told her, and I think it's a good read for anyone worried about what colleges think about them during the application process.

"wowowowowow. Ok so Moorf only writes recommendations if you are doing marching band in college... which you wont. And you probably wouldn't do that anyways. Secondly, if your not enjoying band, there is no reason to stick it out because it will not help you in the long run. Senior year really pissed me off (but you already know that katie). Also, ... Read Morethere is no formula that colleges use when they accept people that will make the difference between 3 years of band and 4 years. Like, if there was a point system going on: AP classes would give you 20 points and a year of band would give you 1. They care about leadership abilities that mostly come from band, but you've already taken 3 years. And you've got lifegaurd experience. Seriously drop band if you want, and then take your extra time and money to explore who you are and discover things that you've never done before. 3 years if enough. Btw apply for colleges in unimpacted majors. You'll get in. BTW APPLY TO DAVIS

Understand the application process first before you make assumptions about what it takes to get into college. For CSU's, All you write down are your grades for classes that fulfill credits to graduate high school. Just make sure you check the box yes for that one question asking if you were ever in a leadership position. For UC's, you write down ... Read Moreyour grades (remember that they only register one year of band for your GPA) so it obviously is significantly less important doing band compared to a legitimate course. After you give your GPA, there is a spot where you write down 5 achievements or certificates. Remember that people who aren't in band, also get into college. I know you Katie, and you've got many things under your belt that will show how much character you have. Then their are two essays.

Don't write about band. Don't write about band. Don't write about band.

All the UC's get probably 8,000 essays from kids explaining how being apart of the flute section gave them such leadership and how much they learned with the discipline they achieved during marching band. Application readers can see through that bullshit, and they know that probably only 4% of those essays are true. Either way, you want to write about something that MAKES YOU UNIQUE. That is the most important part of the college application process. If you ... Read Morewant to drop band, and instead do something that will give you purpose and expose you to new ideas and new lights.... thats exactly what colleges should look for and praise. Make sure you're UNIQUE in your essays and if colleges realize how much diversity and experience you can bring to their campus, you'll be admitted."

To Ami

Alright Ami, so I've got three questions for you.

1) Is there any one specific thing you want me to talk to you about?
2) When do you want me to talk to you about it?
3) What should we cook the next time I come to your house?

Get back to me about that :)

Late Night Music

Sitting here with Liam at 1 in the morning. We got back from hanging out at the Crew house with all crew people... and me. That's ok though because it was a really chill house. I also feel like I'm getting really close with Julian, Haley, and Bianca which I think is great. Right now we are just sitting here, smelling incenses, and listening to music. Not talking or anything which is fine. He is on facebook talking with people while I sit and think post-post-modernisticly about my life.

Right now I'm at a point in my life where I don't completely disregard my upcoming responsibilities in the future, but I do believe I'm living around 98% in the moment. Independence is not an excuse, it is a building block. I like where I am in my life, and I think I'm doing what is best for me.

The amazing part of living in a collective student body that cares about higher knowledge as much as you do is... well that's the amazing part. We are all fully functional capable human beings put together along with the highest outlets for learning given throughout the world. Everyone here is basically a well rounded person (they had to be to be accepted), and the combination of everyone working towards creating the world a better, faster, or more efficient place with the tools to do it at our fingertips makes for an excellent blend.

Frisbee With Sean

I was still writing/editing a super long email to my Career Discovery: Food Science/Nutrition teacher when Sean came into my room and asked me if I wanted to throw a Frisbee around with him. My response was, "I still have to edit my email to my teacher, and I have class in 20 minutes, and it's raining outside: Yes let's throw". Oh man I love Frisbee.

I have been bruising a lot from ultimate practices though. I've got a huge bruise on my upper palm (makes me look like that creature from Pan's Labyrinth with eyes on his hands), and a bruise mysteriously on my inner wrist. Then my blister (from a frisbee) is finally starting to heal back to the color of my skin on my pinkie. I think the bruising though is from not getting enough iron in my diet. I only eat twice a day at the DC and when I do I average around 6 plates to fill up my stomach for 12 hours at a time. I think I need to start eating more salads or something like that to stop brusing.

Well tonight I plan on going bowling with Liam, then play raquetball with Liam, Jake, and Victor. That will be fun. I also plan on doing all of this weeks homework tonight because I havn't even started any homework yet. My dad is coming up to visit tomarrow and he is bringing my real bike. Yay!

Team 4 Catholic Justice

At Frisbee practice today, we split up into 4 teams that we are going to keep until next Tuesday. The idea is that we play games against each other so the captains can see us in a team setting. They want to see how we react with our teammates from the sideline as well as in play along with how well we can bond as a team. Our team was called Catholic Justice which was cool with me and also apparently the other 2 Jewish guys on my team. We went 2-0 tonight and I'd like to think that I caught a lot of points, but my left hand was fucked (too short of a nail on my index finger and a popped blister on my pinkie) so I didn't catch much. It was funny because we were white and the other team that went 2-0 was also white; that's what I call oppression for the darks. I played well and had two catches in the end zone that I had to drag my feet to stay in which made me "seem" like an awesome ultimate player. On Thursday we stay with the same teams, so watch out for Catholic Justice. You'll also probably see us next Tuesday at the championship game.

In the beginning of practice after we had already chosen teams, I overheard Ashlin ask Taylor what team he should be on. Ashlin had just gotten to practice, so I said join team 4 very enthusiastically. Ashlin is basically my idol/mentor/hero when it comes to ultimate Frisbee. Hopefully he reads this. Well he was totally into me (because I'm into him) and he was like, "Yo Taylor let me be on team 4 because Ben and I have to start working together".Taylor was like, "Ok I buy it". That means at least two things: 1) Ashlin and Taylor thinks that Ashlin and I will be working together this year and 2) I have a good shot at the A team because Ashlin is on the A team.

I've been thinking about it, and I think I want to cook Ashlin a nice dinner and use my Tea Candles. Go Catholic Justice!

I'm Going To Sleep Well Tonight

Today was probably my busiest day I've have since Junior year which was the last time period in my life where I actually took real classes. I woke up early to go to Liam's Crew practice at 5:30. I just wanted to see what it was like, and don't worry because I'm still in love in Ultimate Frisbee. Rowing on the lake was fun as the sun rose into the sky. The only bad part was getting the boat in and out of the water. After that we came back to take showers and then we had Chemistry at 9. When that got out, Liam and I both got breakfast and we were planning to eat with Alex (a girl Liam thinks is rad), but than Brooke Isreal sat down with us... Oh man, oh man totally ruined it. After that, I had a Calculus class at 11 which was awesome. I know everything already in the class, but I still feel like I'm learning. Then I came back to the room to study up my Statistics some more, but then had to leave for a 1:10-4:00 Chem Lab which was pretty boring. All we did was go over safety instructions and how to use equipment. We got let out early, but I was beggining to see that Mondays would be hard days for me. I had a 4:10 Statistics class which rocked. I think there is a phenominon that says, "The closer to sit to the front of the lecture hall, the better your notes turn out". Well I sat in the front row. After Stat, I had a 5:10-6 Food Science/Nutrition Career Discovery group slash freshmen seminar. It was something I was looking forward to all day long, but I was a little dissapointed in how cool the people in the class were. There are only two boys out of 20 or so kids. The teacher who is a grad student seems like someone I could get on their goodside and I ended up being a leader in a group thing we did. Looks like I'm going to pass that class compared to not pass. When all my classes were done, I rode home but ended up having my bike pedal fall off my bike which leaves me with a tiny rotating stick to keep my left foot on. After dinner at the DC, I went to the gym and ended up running 4 different miles in 1 mile increments. It was intense and I ended up going really fast. I raced Bianca for my forth miles where I had to run the second story track, and she could run on a treadmill. I ended up finishing my mile when she was only .75% done with her miles. Lol I lapped her. And that was my day. From 5:30am to midnight.

Moral of the story: You'll be happy with your life as long as you give yourself a purpose.

Keeping A Log

Liam and I are going to keep a log of our weights. Cool idea huh. We also checked our blood pressure today at Rite Aid along with Kevin Hero who is a brother at AEpi. Liam and I had normal systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and both our pulse rates were mid-50s. When Kevin checked his arm, his systolic and diastolic were both hypertension as I recall, and his pulse rate was in the 80's. That is the difference between college athletes and frat brothers: significant ends of the spectrum for blood pressure.

Anyway, the log won't be every day, but I do want to record it.
Ben - 177 pounds
Liam - 173 pounds

Because both of us love eating food at the DC (Dinning Commons), we both have the same goal to reach 195 pounds before the end of the school year. It will be fun, and don't worry, all the food will be turned into muscle....wink*

People People People

People

Party... Nah, Not Tonight

It's the Friday night after the first week of school. There are parties going on, but I don't really feel like going out tonight. So why am I sitting half naked in my dorm room right now? Isn't that the question. I feel fine, and I have friends at parties right now so I would feel comfortable over there. For some reason though, I feel right now as if I don't deserve to have fun at parties. I've been ingrained to think "work, then play" and I haven't really gotten any work done. Nothing school wise has been accomplished and there are still clean clothes bunched up under my bed just waiting to be put in my drawers. I want to prove to myself that I can be a responsible student before I go haywire at frat houses each weekend. I want to show myself how I can discipline myself about my time.

Tomorrow I plan on waking up early to go running in the ARC or around the arboretum. Then cracking open my Calculus book and doing some problems. After that I'll probably start feeling more set into the student life that I want to live. If I went to AEpi tonight or Pike, I would feel like I didn't deserve having the fun I could presumably have. I guess I'm just weird like that.

College is something that I want to make important. I want my classes to be a top priority, and I am promising myself tonight to never aim for a grade C in a class.

First Day of School

So far my schedule looks like this:

6:00 - Wake up and try to beat Liam to the good shower in our bathroom. He is also waking up at six for his early 7:30 class
7:00 - Ride bikes with Julie 2.3 miles to see a dentist about my chipped tooth
9:00 - First class of the year... Statistics. Maybe I'll like it. Hope I don't have to meet many people with a gaping hole in my mouth
12:10 - Freshmen Seminar that is 2 credits instead of 1 credits. Wanna know what it's about? Too bad, I don't even know really. Sisweb doesn't even say who my teacher is, it just says "The Staff"
2:30 - Swimming with Liam and Julie (fun in the sun)

Julie has been really nice to me about my tooth. I appreciate it and I know that she'll be reading this sometime tomorrow. It's incredible that she would wake up at 6 to help me go see a dentist. I can't wait to start looking normal again because I hate it when people stare without asking what happened. That's gotta be the worst.

Last Day of Summer

Welcome week was fun and definitely made me appreciate coming to Davis. I've gone to three frat parties three nights in a row. Got shitface drunk. Danced. Played Ukulele for my Frisbee team. On that note, I hope I'm really making a good impression on those ultimate guys. I'm also getting on good terms with my dorm mates and Alder Hall floor 4. I'd say that I've spent around 30 hours with Julie in the past two days and it's always been fun. One thing that I do hope she never realizes is that I'm super wierd in a way that makes her not like me. Otherwise if she never realizes I can be retarded most of the time, I think I made a new best friend. (Also I'm not so mad that she knocked out my front tooth with her head). (Don't worry, it was just a filling, not the actual real tooth).

Anyway, the one thing that I've been avoiding this entire week is actually putting away my clothes and cleaning my desk. It's just so hard, you know? Seriously though, I'm going to go clean my side of the dorm. Liam's side is practically spotless...

Julie's roommate Remy gave me a book to read. It's called Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I'm gonna read it and then talk about it with Remy. I want to make a good impression for some reason. Maybe it's because I had a chipped tooth when I first met her. I look like a hillbilly or someone who would vote for McCain.

Ok So I Stole A Bike

When we drove up to Davis, a bike wasn't going to fit into the car. I thought that not having a bike wouldn't be that big of a deal and then the next time my dad or mom came to visit, they could bring a bike. This was fine because I think my dad is coming up October 4th (two weeks from now). Well oh well, cause I found myself a bike.

I was walking back from the dinning hall around noon. Liam had left to check something at the bookstore, and I was almost inside my building when I saw it. This bike was at the end of the bike rake with a lock around its frame, but wasn't locked to the bike rack. It sorta looked locked I guess, but it wasn't fooling me :) I took it out, rolled the wheels to make sure nothing was flat, then I just took off. Lol but I had nowhere to go. I went to the bookstore to find Liam who could help me lock it up, but I had no way of getting inside without getting my bike stolen from me. After not finding Liam, I figured I could go to some discreet bike structure behind our Thompson hall while only taking 2 minutes to run upstairs to get my phone to call someone for a lock. On the way back though, I saw Taylor Lahey throwing a frisbee with another freshmen named Paul. I rode over to say hi and evidentually ended up throwing with them for half an hour. Taylor said he had a lock at his house which we could pick up around one. SWEET. I get a new bike and get to see Taylor's house. AWESOME. lol but really he has a cool house, and I finnally met Tommy McCormmack who is the other captain of the Davis team. Then I rode my bike back home and ran upstairs to get to a important roommate/RA meeting that I ended up being 2 minutes late for.

First Night In Davis

Life is great. I moved in on Sunday the 21st of September. There are so many people that if I'm interested in meeting them, I'll just go up and shake hands with them. It's incredibly easy to meet people now becasue everyone is in the same position of being in a new foreign place. There are people who say that they are "not ready" for college, or that they are worried about "not meeting anybody". Yea that doesn't happen. Walking up to girls is also getting really easy too. Like I'll find myself walking up to a girl, and then something pops in my head to talk about. Talking to girls is a skill that you have to train. I'm not gonna say I'm a pro or anything like that, but I definitely think I'm getting better really quickly.

Last night Dan called me saying they were going to a frat party at a house called PIKE. This phone call happened probably 5 minutes after Jake called me saying they were gonna go to AEpi with Victory and Olivia. Both cool people, but I wanted to hang out with Dan, and if that PIKE party wasn't working, I would head over to AEpi. We (Liam and I) meet up with Dan and John in front the ARC with Andrew Jilwon too. We apparently wait for this one friend of Andrew's who knows where the house is. During this small amount of time, around 20 more people show up. This is freaking rediculous because I know that Frat houses usually don't like letting in huge bunches of crowds, especially since we are all freshmen. Walking over to there, we get around 10 more people following us, and the first thought in my head is: I gotta get to the front of the line, so when they start cutting off people I'm already inside. This got me in, but for some reason everyone else came in with us. It was like the party was desperate. We quickly got some redbulls, but the line for the one keg was really crowded.

Dan, John, Liam, and I were hanging out ouside waiting for the keg to get less crowded. Something we noticed at this PIKE house (besides everyone smoking pot) was that there was like a 10-1 ratio of guys to girls. It's not like I had plans to hook up with a girl, but it definitly throws a groove of a party off if there are way too many guys. This was around 10 oclock, and we decided to leave and look for the AEpi house. It's a Jewish Fraternity and was the same one that Ami, Ryan, Tash, and I had met Jake at two days earlier in berkeley. We found it on C street so it wasn't that far away. We walk in and it's a very chill environment. There were 3 tables for beer pong, which I didn't get to play, but the line for the keg wasn't long at all because people had already started drinking. Very fun house and I met alot of brothers of the Frat, and I met alot of girls who were fun to talk to. I hope to become really good friends with Julie and Olivia who live on the 4th floor Alder hall. I did meet up with a friend of mine from orientation, Nellie. We decided to try and play some baseball but it didn't exactly work out. No problem though. Definitly a fun night. I'm also really excited to be with Liam for this year because he and I are turning into the awesome guys to talk to. Like, we are good partners and shit I think when it comes to living and junk like that. Someone told us today that it seemed like we had been friends from high school or something.

Why I Was Not At The Senior Banquet

I recently wrote a note on Facebook detailing what happened the one night, on the Foothill Band Cruise, when I didn't show up to the Senior Banquet. I guess a lot of people read it and thought it was interesting. Kurt even told me that people at school were talking about it. If you were on the band cruise last year (May 2008), you might not understand it but apparently I write well or something.... Here is the note I made. :)



I don't want people thinking that I'm hung up over this. It wasn't that big of a deal, or at least I never thought so. Weirdly though I will still get people asking me, "Why did you do it".

For those who don't know, during the Band Cruise to Canada last year I did not attend the Senior Banquet for my own reasons, and apparently some people thought that I had fallen over the side of the boat into the ocean. That then caused a 15 minute search party that if was not successful in finding me would legally cause the cruise ship to actually turn around and look for me in the water. Luckily I was "located" around minute ten. This created a huge hullabaloo with the entire staff of our band, which in turn led me to have everyone and their grandmother think I was scum who couldn't be trusted. It was ridiculous and I was forced to stay with my chaperon Mrs. Naylor for the rest of the cruise (2 days worth I think). Mr. Moorfield tried to single me out and make an example of me whenever he could, and laughed at my face when I asked kindly if I could be relieved of having to fallow around a chaperon since even Mrs. Naylor agreed that I was a good kid who did not need someone looming over my head.

Anyways, I never really told my story of what actually happened. I would usually brush people off when they asked me why I never stayed at "my senior banquet". According to most people apparently, opportunities to be acknowledged for being in band for 4 years and sit in front of everyone for a fancy fancy dinner, is a really really big deal. I, however, did not give a shit whatsoever. In having those feelings, I would tell people that I just didn't care about the dinner so I didn't show up. That's not the 100% true story. Of course it's part of the true story, but I would guesstimate about 35% of the story.

I plan to just write what happened so I am no longer known infamously as some screw up from band. Then you bandies who were there who read this won't assume anything about me anymore. It would probably be even cooler if someone printed this out and then posted it in front of the band room at Foothill. I'm staying up late on this night (gotta wake up in 5 hours to help set up a Ultimate Frisbee tournament at Stanford)) not only because I want people to know that what I did wasn't as crazy as some people must think, but also because my sister Emily last year in middle school was confronted by a sibling of a band student on the trip who said, "Your brother is an idiot". That pisses me off, and I don't want people thinking that Emily is a trouble maker like me, when she isn't. It wouldn't be fair for people to have those preconceptions of her when she is just a freshmen in pit.

Here is the story as much as I remember it. I don't think what happened should have been as big of a deal as it was made into. I also don't regret what I did at all. It was completely worth it, and I would even do it again even if it meant having to go through the hell of dealing with all the retarded chaperons again.

Forty-Five minutes or so before the Senior Banquet was supposed to happen, Max Mensigner and I were hanging out. We had promised each other before the trip happened that once we were on the ship, we just HAD to run the entire perimeter of the ship. I'm pretty sure it was the one thing that I had true excitement and anticipation for. Well we did it. And it fucking rocked. I'm telling you right now that I metaphorically phelt (sp) like I was on top of the world. Max and I ran with our hands in the air slobbering like we were zombies will be something I will always remember because I felt like nothing could hurt me or get in my way. I was laughing hysterically along with Max over our sillyness. Hopefully he will never loose his sillyness because it makes him shine like gold. After finishing our run at the back of the boat while sweating, we realized neither of us had watches and that it was probably time to go back to our rooms and change into our suits for the senior banquet. Thinking back on it, I realize that going from being a complete carefree child to a conforming-suit wearing-banquet attending adult was probably just an accident waiting to happen.

When I got to the room, I believe that my roommate Kirk Naylor had already changed and gone down to the room on the boat where we were supposed to be at. I still had no clue what time it was and when I was actually supposed to be down stairs. Whatever, it took me probably 2 minutes to put on my suit since it was the third time I was to wear it in the past two days. After I dress fancy, I look at myself in the mirror wearing a suit, and let me tell you, I look damn smashing. After trying on my pink FHS ultimate hat to see if that looked good enough to go downstairs in didn't work out, I rushed downstairs to the banquet room. (Sidenote: the pink hat did looking amazing with a black suit, I just didn't think I had the balls to pull it off). Luckily I was there with time to spare. Everyone was mingling while wearing fancy dresses or clean suits. No one had really taken seats so I realized I had alot of time before it actually started. As I looked around I realized this was not the place I wanted to be. People where taking pictures of each other all dressed up or talking about something that seemed insignificant, that I really didn't give a shit about because I had just felt on top of the world 10 minutes earlier. I'm sure that I would of had fun talking with my friends like Dan, Kirk, Greg, Max, Tony, or Jose, but I just didn't feeling like talking. Usually when I don't want to be somewhere and I don't feel like talking to anyone there, I know one friend who usually will feel the same about the environment. So I met up with Kurt Pretzel and asked him if he wanted to go outside. We went right out the first door leading outside and then sat directly on the lounge chairs next to the door.

It was pretty sweet. We were both dressed in long sleeves and pants (from the suits) so the wind didn't bother us, and watching the waves was something we just hadn't done yet on the trip for one reason or another. So we sat there admiring the silence and serenity that would have been hard to find inside. After awhile we went back inside and I went to the front toward the senior table where most of my other friends were. People were settling down and obviously most of the seniors were having a good time playing around with each other and excited for the speeches that they were about to give or receive. Now, I've been to three other senior banquets in my years of band, and I have never ever wanted to give or receive a speech. It was partially a fear of fear of speaking into a microphone combined with the fear of standing up doing nothing in front of 200 people, while someone else talked. For the most part, I ended up not caring about it, so obviously I thought the entire banquet would be something I just wouldn't care about. No biggy. Anyways, another thing that I didn't care for was wearing a senior flower. I didn't wear it at the last field show. I've never liked the idea of being praised for being a senior. It just never seemed like an accomplishment to me. Anyone could do it, you just wait your turn... zero specialness. I also disagree with the idea of singling some out in band. I just feel like the ideal of uniformity was ingrained so much into my head from 4 years of marching, that something like recognizing one student over another for being in band longer was hypocritical. I ended up giving my flower to Marci Gross during the last field show because I thought she looked nice in it.

Back to my story, Mrs. Whitbread came up to me and told me that I had to see Mr. Moorfield for him to pin another senior flower to my lapel (suit chest thing). The last thing I wanted was to have one of my top ten despised men pin one of my top ten despised symbols on my body. So I politely said to Mrs. Whitbread, "No thanks I don't want one". I'm pretty sure I was polite about it, because then she politely told me that I needed to have one. I hold nothing against Mrs. Whitbread, I think she's a legit woman and a very laid back chaperon, and I respect her for simply following her orders to get all the seniors to wear their flowers. No hard feelings, I just didn't want to wear a fucking flower. So I walked away when she turned to get Moorf. I met up with Tony Maciel and asked if he wanted to go outside for a bit and watch the waves. I was addicted to the peaceful atmosphere. I needed it. So we went outside and sat on the very fine lounge chairs and of course, only talked about "choice" things. After awhile we decided to go back inside. AHHHH they had started the senior banquet without us. No big deal, we walked in from the back while everyone was paying attention to the seniors giving senior awards. Tony sat at the ho-bag table I think with Jose and Spencer, and since I didn't want to sit at that table, I sat at a back table with Trumpet Frank and his girlfriend.

Here was went through my head: Sitting in the back of the room while everyone was laughing and having a good time listening to the Dan, Kirk, and Greg speaking in the microphone and being on the televisions. I didn't want to walk all the way though everyone to sit at the front table where the seniors were supposed to be because then everyone would stop and look at me. Someone would probably say something stupid on the microphone. Moorf would probably laugh at me and say some stupid joke that would piss the fuck out of me. Everyone would know I was late. Also I wouldn't be wearing a senior flower like everyone else at the senior table in the front. I would do all of that with a stone face because I'm not going to have an outburst in front of 200 people plus parents all dressed up. Luckily for me, I didn't give a shit about the banquet, so I got up and walked out the back door when nobody noticed. I did wave goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Baker on the way out, even though neither of them recall that happening.

Well what did I do. I figured I would go to my room to take a nap and listen to music. I figured I had alot of time on my hands, but I wasn't sure how long. I assumed they were going to eat dinner there and then come back to the room. That way Kirk would get me and everything would be fine and dandy. Funny part about that trip is that I never knew what was gonna happen after everything we did. I never had an itinerary, and even if I did, I didn't have a watch to know what time it was.

I laid on my bed in my suit while listening to my ipod. It was uncomfortable being in a suit on the bed, so I changed into (and I remember clearly because it's still the most comfortable thing I own) double socks, athletic tights, stafford boxer briefs, jeans, 2005 fiesta bowl white t-shirt, and Vans sweatshirt. Now that was waaaay too comfortable.

Something that most people know is that I had ended a 18 month long relationship with my girlfriend Katie Yost just 4 or 5 days before, and while I was laying on the bed, I began thinking about my life. I never felt any remorse for the breakup, I was just thinking about the choices I made in my life. This was the part of my life that I felt like I needed to spread my wings and explore things that would lead me to discover what kind of person I was. I mean, I was going to graduate high school, and I wanted to experience everything. Katie on the other hand was very anchored to the ground and very rarely approved of my choices or desires of which direction I wanted my life to be in before I went to college. One of them was my decision to go to a Ultimate Frisbee Tournament at UC Santa Cruz instead of going to the senior prom. Things like that would infuriate Katie, and it just sucks because after 18 months, Katie would think I was retarded for things that I liked and didn't like. It's actually really surprising that she didn't break up with me first. Cool girl and all, she just wasn't what I could have my last couple of months before college. I also got the impression that she would tell all her family and friends the things that I did in a way that would make them agree with her, so whenever I was around her family and friends, I was immediately the "bad guy" to be looked down upon. So as I laid in bed listening to my ipod and thinking about how inevitably easy it was to make a person sound evil, I started to cry. I wasn't balling, just tears here and there. I had gone from a unanimously popular/easy going/hip/chill guy (freshmen, sophomore, junior years) to someone to sneer at all because I wanted to live my life a certain nonconformist way. Then I began thinking about my Frisbee friends. I enjoyed playing Frisbee so much. I enjoy the people. I think the ethics of the game are perfect, where fouls are called by players, and there is such as thing as a spirit foul. Everyone is friendly at tournament. A good game is based on how even the score is and points are scored back and forth, not on how much you can crush the other team. And I decided that these are the people I want to surround myself with the next four years of college and later on in life. I was sick and tired of band where 90% of the chaperons were D-Bags and the teachers laughed at your face. Then I began thinking about Ami and how much I wished she could have been with me at the moment. Now this was before Ami and I were in a relationship, but I just remember thinking that this girl was everything I wanted to have in my life. She was the amazing women who believed in music, Frisbee, and life. She was a girl who could make me feel smart and funny, and we basically had the same exact wit when it came to life. So I wished that she was there with me. Thats about the time I stopped crying.

Then I had the best idea! I would go up to the top floor of the boat, which was open air, and lay on a lounge chair while soaking up some sun, listening to my ipod, and basking in peaceful serenity that was greatly needed. It was a perfect idea. There were twenty or so-odd lounge chairs that were all open, and I took one and faced it towards the ocean and sat down. It was perfect weather and my body had the perfect temperature. The sun slanted down upon the ocean in a way that I could see a distinct line where reflections from the sun stopped and pure blue ocean began. I listened to Coldplay, Cat Powe (check out the song "Sea of Love")r, Regina Spektor, and Death cab for Cutie (Album: Transatlanticism) . The slow rocking of the cruise ship made me slowly drift asleep. Breathing the fresh ocean air with not a single worry in the world made me feel on top again. It was definitely a special day.

I fell asleep feeling unaware of any other trials that were about to be partaken upon me. When I did wake up though, my lounge chair was the only one not put away yet on the top deck. I guess they take them down at night. Obviously someone had to work around me to do their job. It was very nice of the crew to not wake me up. Not sure exactly how long I was asleep for, but it was probably only 15 minutes or so.

I figure it's time to take a piss and then walk down to find a band mate walking around the ship and ask him where I was supposed to be. For some reason I went to the main lobby and up to the front desk. After standing there at least 20 seconds looking for a friend of mine, a small bald Indian man came up to me and asked if I was Ben Hubbard from room C414 (I find it odd that I remember the room number, but its understandable because it freaked me out so much). I said yes and then stood there while he ran off to find someone. He came back with the main cruise guy who was in charge of the Foothill band. Now I was in alot of shock and didn't really know what was going on, and didn't know why everyone was out of breath. The main cruise guy made me walk with him and he told me that the Foothill Band people reported a missing person to the front desk. Apparently that's a big fucking deal on a boat when only 4 days ago there was a CIA investigation on another cruise in the Caribbean about someone who fell overboard. So standard procedure when a missing person is to give an allotted 15 minutes to find that person, and if that doesn't work, then turn the ship around and start looking in the water. Foothill wasn't aware that was going to happen, and I'm sure they must have flipped when they heard what they had to do. They should not have been that worried though because I guess the Princess Cruise Ship would have billed me instead of Foothill for turning the ship around.

After all Foothill staff had learned that I was found, they all drifted back toward the dinning area to watch Mr. Moorfield yell at me. I don't remember this happening, but my mom told me that someone told her that Moorf was like, "Ben are you ok?" which I replied yes to, in which he replied, "Ok now I'm going to kill you". Lol I guess it's funny and I didn't really know what was going on so I wasn't freaking out at all. Inside my head, I was just following the people who told me to follow them. Mrs. Moorfield did sit down with me and try and tell me how to act when I walked into the dinning area. She said that I scared the fucking bejesuzss out of alot of people (ok didn't ask for that so fuck em'). She also said that I should not smile for the rest of the night because it would piss off people (those who know me well know that I reflexively smile when I think situations are ridiculous).

One large thing I remember is when she looked at me and said, "You know, he's never home". This was going to get emotional, "You know, he pours his heart out to you guys, he loves you guys". There was Mrs. Moorfield talking to me one on one about how she allowed her husband to stay out late and go away on weekends even during retirement because she believed that he was truly helping us. I believed her and I slightly was able to view into a side of Mr. Moorfield that make me a true contributor to society. Either way I don't like how to laughs at people to their face.

Mrs. Moorfield also told me that she hates Senior Banquets. She said someone always gets hurt, and it just isn't worth it. She said that she understands if that was my reason for not wanting to be there. It wasn't the reason, but I was definitely getting some sympathy from a high up source.

Everyone kept saying that they thought my leaving was because I had broken up with Katie, I guess they couldn't fathom me not caring about such a nice banquet. I got a few chaperons that said I practically spat on their hard work putting that banquet together. Fuck em' because I never asked for the banquet anyways

My punishment was to be with my chaperon Mrs. Naylor the rest of the cruise. It's wierd because Kirk Naylor is a cool ass mofo, but his mom is the lamest lady of the land. She would literally do hall checks where she wanted to walk up and down the halls to check and make sure no kids were horsing around in the halls. Did she seriously fucking think that kids would be screwing around in the small halls... of a fucking cruise ship. It was ridiculous what she felt she had to do as a chaperon. I did end up convincing her to do things I wanted to do though like sitting near my friend during concerts or going to the comedy lounge during that one night. But I swear to god that she thought her duty as my chaperon was to be with me for every second, which was stupid because she wasn't with her husband or daughter whom were also on the cruise for a large part of the time she was with me. She was waaaay too shy to tell the Foothill Band Staff that I probably could use a longer lease, so she just stuck with what she thought were her duties. I ended up getting really pissy at her the last day of the cruise, and hardly making eye contact with her when we did things. Whatever.

The most hypocritical part of my punishment was when Brad Sorria went missing. The day or so after I had been "missing", Brad decided not to show up to either breakfast or a morning concert. They checked his room and he wasn't there. All the chaperons (including me) huddled together to decide what to do. Even though I was there, Mrs. Rossman said, "Ok we can't tell the ship that we have a missing person because then they only give us 15 minutes before they turn the ship around". Whoa Whoa Whoa! Hold Up! All of a sudden a person like BRAD goes missing, and they are going to make it less of a deal than when I went missing! Image if Brad had actually fallen over the edge of the ship. I knew this probably wasn't the case becasue I had seen Brad make friends with some older people who weren't in the band. I figured he was in a room or somewhere with the older people getting drunk or smoking weed, but I didn't say anything because I knew he wasn't in any harm. But it was all of a sudden the chaperons jobs to split up, not tell the ship staff, and look for Brad. God forbid he actually did fall over the edge, but no matter the case, I still had to search with Mrs. Naylor and Mrs. Masri (Jean-Luc's mom) for about 45 minutes in the most random locations. I kid you not, there was a time when we were walking down a room hall and Mrs. Naylor stopped to look into a laundry room, and then went further to open the cabinets in HOPES THAT BRAD THAT HIDING IN THERE. Are you fucking serious???? They seriously thought Brad would be hiding in a cubbard away from band chaperons. We looked everywhere for some reason, but never found him. He did turn up somewhere, and I think he was just in another persons room.

So I think the reason what I did was made into such a big deal was because they were given a time limit from the Ship. They didn't know that was the standard procedure of the ship, and if they never told the ship, I would have been done at dinner like nothing happened. They obviously didn't tell the entire staff because I was wide out in the open laying on the lounge chair on the top deck. Somebody had to even work around me to set away the lounge chairs. I also assume that they searched for me in hallways instead of places a person would be (i.e. top deck). Also, those of my friends who went up to me and told me that they knew I was probably on the top deck listening to my Ipod, you can blame Mrs. Moorfield for not letting you search for me. She said to me that she told the staff not to let the kids look for me because she didn't want everyone being hectic.

This was made into too much of a big deal. One that I never asked for. I didn't like the Senior Banquet so I left it. No reasons like girlfriend problems or emotional issues, just pure apathy for the ceremony itself. It's a good thing high school is over because that place was starting to get on my nerves.

In conclusion, I don't think that watching the waves on any other time would have meant as much to me. There was something in the fact that I was my decision to stop and smell the roses. Something in the fact that I was happy and more than satisfied with the choices I was making for myself. This is the part of your life where you need to spread your wings and fly. It's never to late to try to surround yourself with the atmosphere, environment, and people you want to be surrounded with. Even choices to not surround yourself in certain situations have value. Taking charge of your life and not being a pushover is extremely important. Become an active participant in your life, and keep fighting the good fight.

New Wind Offense

Just an idea I had in the shower this morning. Instead of the basic 3 handlers and 4 cutters when it's windy, I think there should be an offense with 4 handlers and 3 cutters. It's easier to give short passes and dumps, which is pretty safe during windy times. And 4 cutters usually end up crowding the short throws in front of the person with the disc. Imagine if the offense was made up almost entirely of upline dump throws or dishes. I don't think it would get crowded if the dumps were moving around, and more open space is exactly what a down field cutter needs in the wind. Think about it Taylor.

Nothing Else to Do

Yesterday was a really busy day. I don't remember what time it was exactly when I woke up, but not too soon after I did wake up, Stephen asked me if I wanted to come to the gym with Jerry. We don't own gym memberships, but I figured it wouldn't be that hard to get into a gym for a one time gig with no loss of money. When we got the 24 hour fitness (which Jerry is a member to), Stephen handed a little couple that he got at a street fair during the beginning of the summer to the front desk. It said something like, "Ask Brian about a free two week trial at 24 hour fitness!". Stephen and I thought that they would just let us in for free, but instead the front desk guy said, "Oh your in luck, Brian is here today." Fuck. Seriously Fuck. They made us fill out a form with all our information (I didn't think about it until later in the day that it must have looked weird that Stephen Hubbard lived at 3218 Cheryl Cir, while Ben Hubbard lived at 3975 Olive Dr). Brain ended up giving us a 45 minute tour of the gym. He thought we just joking when we asked if we could get some free time in the tanning machine, but guess what Brian, we were not joking. Anyways we ended up giving him the line, "We were actually gonna try out alot of other gyms before we committed to a single gym". I'm sure he has heard that line a million times, but just in case we were legit, he scheduled an appointment with us next Tuesday at 11:30.... What!?!?! is he crazy? Just see through our bullshit and realize we just want to workout for one time. Seriously, yeesh. Lol but it's his job to try and get as many membership sign ups, so I do think he did do a good job trying; too bad Stephen and I were lost causes.

Brian: "So do you guys play any sports"
Stephen: "Yea, we play Ultimate Frisbee"
Brian: "Huh what?"
Stephen: "Ultimate Frisbee"
Brian: "Ohhhhh yea, you can definitely get a good workout here"

I fucking don't like dumbells. If there are machines in one area while dumbells in another, I'll usually stay completely in the machine section. I like how the machines will work single muscles, or an area on the body. Most of them I can do sitting down and concentrating on that single area of my body. They even have little signs on them describing what muscles are being worked on that machine. Dumbells just work your upperbody, and even then I'm never sure if I'm doing the exercise exactly right to maximize muscle gain and minimize strain. I can still get a full body workout if I have it in my head that I have certain machines that I need to do. I also love doing the eliptical machine and stair master. The eliptical machine makes me feel like I'm experiencing how robots walk/run. I'm almost 100% certain that eliptical machines will be the transportation of the future. Then the stair master makes me feel so badass. It will get my sweating so much that sweat drips down my face, then falls onto the steps. Then what do I do, I keep walking right over it. The stair master makes me feel like I'm able to concur pain while still moving up and up. It's also great because it puts me up really high up so I get a great view of everyone (ladies) else working out cardiovascuclarly.

We got home around 1 and I took a shower. Stephen and Jerry made some lunch for themselves, and when I got out of the shower I made myself a tuna fish sandwich and a bagel. Tuna fish is like a drug to me. I couldn't image not living in a house without tuna fish. It so quick, easy, and practical. It goes into sandwiches most of the time which makes it delicious, and it's got protein which makes me happy. The bagel and cream cheese was ok too. I ate both of those while watching another "It's always sunny in philedelphia" on Hulu.

At 2:30 I drove out to 7-11 to pick up some protein bars and a gaterade. Then drove to Sunol where the Foothill Ultimate Club was going to run up the ridge. I had run up the ridge with Karan and Eric Ling three times during the summer, and it would pretty fun, but it was quite a physical challange so I wanted to see how everyone would hold up. They ended up only going halfway up the mountain than what I've usually done, but that was ok and everyone did great. Eric and Thoe were always at the front of the pack with me trailing behind (I was cramping from my lunch). There was this one time where I pissed my name onto the trial right before everyone was about to run over it. Some people got angry at me, but they could stay mad at me because c'mon, writing your name in pee is pretty cool.

Got home around 5 from doing that, and I was really tired. But I had LPC practice tonight with Jake, and I couldn't give up now. I did go to the store instead of showing up to do drills, so when I got to practice around 7:10, they were just about to start playing. Perfect. It was rediculously windy and cold at the field, so my throws were complete shit. I ended up throwing more turnovers that completed passes. I felt kinda bad, but I still wanted to keep playing. We played 4 different games hardcapped at five. The dark team (my team) lost all of them. This meant that after each game we had to do sprints.

This surprised the shit out of me. I thought that I was exhausted and gonna be one of the last people crossing the line. But I constantly was the second person to cross the line (to taylor lahey) on long sprints, or the first person to cross the line on short suicides. Are you seriously, did I seriously just become the fastest person on the team. Did I somehow increase my speed from all the workouts I've been doing currently. It felt good and I just wanted to keep running. That's exactly what I did and I felt amazing. Last night at practice, I did score a single goal which is odd for me, but I did end up having two good layouts which I'm happy about. The first layout was through Dave (another guy with height) to catch a throw Karan threw to me when he thought I was cutting in when I began cutting deep. The second layout was to try and catch (but miss) a throw from Bob which was to far to my left, but I still layedout from a full sprint to try and get it. Oh, and I also D'd Zip in his endzone while unintentionally giving him kneeing him in the stomach. I jumped without knowing anything about my surroundings, I tip'd it while Zip jumped right into my knee. This made me flip over and slide on the turf about 4 yards while scraping my lower back and hitting my head. I felt so pumped up that I hardly felt it, and Zip was ok afterward too which is good. In the end, I felt amazing about my body from the entire day. I wasn't even tired or exhausted at In-N-Out afterwards.

Moral of the story: exercising your body when you have nothing else to do is alot better than just sitting around the house moping all day. Mise well right?

My goal is to get a heart rate in the 40's sometime this year. That would be legit. I'll document it here with a cell phone pic when I do achive that goal.