The Preparation
Monday
I started the day as usual. I made my bed, stretched, then ate. I had a list of things to do for the day, but only a motorcycle for transportation. Very doable but just cumbersome. But I devised to complete my duties accompanied by my dearest associate(and her four wheeled vehicle). So, an hour or so later, we were off. First stop: the bank to deposit my container of spare change. About half of of a thermos worth of coins amounted to a pleasant $28.98. After that, we embarked to goodwill. While I did have more than a sufficient amount of clothes, style was sparsely confined to two Outfits that were beginnig to become overused. After sifting the men’s section my friend and I gathered the good stuff. After thorough evaluation in and out of the dressing room we further filtered the clothes down to the what we left with. After acquiring the goods, we set off to the grocery store for ingredients to make chicken tacos. Then when we got to her house we prepared, then cooked the food(she is an fine chef). The tacos were quite delectable. After the meal, I went to wrestling. Today I practiced at a different gym than I usually do, about an hour away. I got to grapple with some new people, and it showed me I am nowhere near as conditioned as believed I was. It was an incredible workout. Definitely worth the hour drive. With that done, I had accomplished everything I had planned for the day. Despite being uncomfortably sore, on the ride back home I was quite euphoric. I felt so greatful for the place I was in, the people I knew, and the for the glorious shower that awaited me. Monday was a great day.
On the way to wrestling, in my teenaged virile impulse, I stook my hand out to slap a traffic cone. For some reason, I didn’t acknowledge that doing such a thing was equivalent to a equally dense traffic cone being wacking my hand at 50 or so mph. It felt like concrete. I didn’t notice it immediately but later found I further exaggerated an injury on my wrist. I am going to see a doctor about it.
It’s always good day to be great
Tuesday began no different than any other day. It was a sluggish day. I was feeling a little sick from the windy ride back home from practice. Along with that, the only goals I had for the day were to set up my referring account in order to get paid, and to wrestle. It had been several weeks of me waiting to receive a link from the school district so I could get paid. After the first time contacting them weeks ago, I had tried again and finally got to the right people. Within an hour I had received the link. It took a some extra effort to get it set up because my phone is broken, however, I prevailed. Or at least I thought I did, until I was notified some time later that my id and selfie needed to be resubmitted. So that is for tomorrow.
I had been contemplating whether to go to wrestling or rest and let my wrist and body heal. At the end, I reckoned that i would just go. if couldn’t wrestle I would just come back. Well, Practice was going smooth, it was much more light than the day before. I was rolling with my partner, then, while defending a single leg, my partner shoots for the takedown, and in the process I sprained the same ankle I had injured last year. So now, along with my injury I worsened yesterday, both my left extremities have been rendered febil. I groan at the thought of having to pause wrestling till I recover, but I would rather that then be permanently injured. Oh well.
It’s always a good day to be great. But they don’t always turnout that way.
Wednesday
Yet another mundane day. I have read a good portion of Atlas Shrugged. Dagny and Rearden finally completed construction of the “John Galt Line” and both went along for the first transport. They zipped to their destination going 100mph, proving the nation wrong and garnering the admiration of almost all who were sceptical. Unsurprisingly, they get together that same night. Most books could end right there, but I’m barely a quarter through. So I am expecting tragedy soon.
I had a tri meet at my home school in town. It lasted 4 uncomfortable limping hours. I did a mediocre job. No blatant misses, blunders, or serious injuries. Just lukewarm officiating. I let it get to my head a little. Right before I left, the mom of one of my fellow wrestlers began a conversation with me. She asked me if I missed wrestling. Of course, I responded yes, very much so. I mentioned that I would still be able to wrestle but that the competition is nowhere near as diverse as high school unless I go to the us open or something like that. “But I’m not that good.”
She told me not to talk about myself like that. That it is about confidence. That made me feel a lot better.
My coach once told us to keep your head up when you get taken down, because all that matters after that is your next score. It does no good to beat yourself up. Continue wrestling. Reflect on what you can improve, but keep wrestling.
It’s always a good day to be great.
Thursday
Today’s fruit has sprouted from this weeks music lesson. My teacher, Josh, is younger than me by about a year, but he is a marvelous pianist. Everytime before a lesson, I feel that he may not have something new to teach me that I would be capable of absorbing. Yet, Everytime, he throws a piece of knowledge at me that I can incorporate right away to improve, today esspecially. I was having trouble improvising. Like, what do I even do? I know improvising comes from the heart and all but, what I was playing out was not cutting it in the auditory department.
He gave me some exercises and clarified some things. And when I heard them I felt like the curtains obstructing my understanding were ripped off. I can see the light!
Specifically he told me that when I improvise that I should use the same scale in the melody as the chord you are playing. For example, play in F major, the two chord of which is G minor, however instead of playing the notes of F major in the right hand I will instead play the notes of G minor while I’m on that chord. It’s so simple. I was stuck before because I constrained myself to the notes of one scale. I am free at last!
God bless Josh. God bless Jazz.
My assignments are to listen to “In My Room” by Jacob Collier and to copy a cover of “My Foolish Heart” by Bill Evan down on a transcription software so we can print it out.
It’s always a good day to be great.
I listened to the Jacob collier album. It’s magical how some people can manipulate sound and even more so what feelings music can induce. My favorite song was “you and I.” It was like the sound of certain victory, Triumph, joy, and flight. Every song on the album was a delightful. The solo on the song “In my room” was like the sound of an angle gliding by, announcing the good news. I roughed my way through some of the first bars of my foolish heart. I’m just getting a grip on the software so progress was deathly slow. All day Saturday and Sunday I will be officiating. I spent Tonight doing early weigh—ins. While talking with a fellow official, we came around to Atlas Shrugged. Apparently he had written many papers on the book. He told me that the book was dangerous. He brought up that Rearden is the embodyment of “God is Dead” and that the book may influence one’s relationships with people to become either resourceful or not. While I argee that such a mindset towards other poeple would be rather blunt, sometimes, such a relationship with people, like with a business man, is necessary to accomplish one’s goals. I didn’t really understand his “Rearden Killed God” argument too well. It was quite abstract. I still will continue to read the book. Maybe the outlooks will give me some insight with further reading. What I love about the book is that Dagny and Rearden’s fierce, unwavering, and ceaseless pursuit towards their purpose. “The world will yield for the man who knows where he is going” or something like that.
As I was leaving the parking lot of the facility for weigh ins, my front wheel stuck the side the curb and I crashed down. I fell on my bad ankle and the bike got some bruises. Thankfully the only things broken were my left turn signal light and my arrogance. My foot could have easily been broken by the weight of the bike. Thank God.
Saturday
Lots of good wrestling today. One nugget I have cherished from my dig in officiating, is the fact that some coaches, wrestlers, and their parents will not like you. No matter how competent you are or appear it is a certainty. I’ve taken from this that, for the most part, what other people think about you and what you are doing holds very little weight. It is important to be open to ideas for improvement, but to also let some chatter leave as easily as it came in.
“If” by Rudyard Kipling
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minutE With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”
Another great week!