I've been meaning to make a post about this for awhile. The situation happened a few months ago. I was driving home from school to my apartment in the city (around Penn and 122nd st). Now, in this area there are a lot of people who stand on the corner asking for money. Whenever I see them, it really aches me not to help them...and it's generally awkward for me to just keep looking ahead and ignore them. Occasionally I would roll down my window and give them a dollar or two if I had the money on me at the time. But at this situation, I just ignored the man, like most of the other drivers at that spot, and I finished driving back to my apartment. This was around noon-1pm. I left my apartment that afternoon around 5ish, and driving back to the same corner, I saw another man standing there with kids who had posters saying that they were a football team that needed money for new jerseys or something like that. The response from the other drivers at that stoplight was pretty tremendous. A lot of them were rolling down their windows and tossing money into the little bucket, me included. After giving them the money and starting to drive off, I remembered that earlier I hadn't given the money to the man that previously stood at that corner.
So here's the deal. The drivers that I saw [including myself] were more willing to give money to kids for a recreational sport as opposed to another fellow man for necessities. Okay, so the kids won't get new jerseys for their team, but this guy gets to eat tonight or make a purchase that will ensure longer term survival. True, the man could have been standing there looking for money to score drugs or alcohol; however, even if whatever statistics support the likelihood of this claim, we are judging this man by actions that we have no proof of knowing.
I realize that my argumentation is not the best here, and I know there are reasons for giving the money to the kids as opposed to the man, but it kinda bothers me that I would value giving money to benefit these random kids recreation as opposed to helping feed the random person. It just seems like the priorities seem a little skewed...
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Birthdays
So, this last weekend I celebrated my 26th birthday. I guess I get it from my family, but we usually don't celebrate birthdays. Maybe go out to dinner, gifts generally are not involved, no real parties...for me, it's just another day.
I also try not to celebrate my bday because of the amount of thinking I usually do. It reminds me of filling out applications for schools and stuff or like quarterly or yearly reviews, where I sit down, look at my life and weigh what I ended up doing for the year. The pros, the cons, the triumphs and failures. Usually this kind of thinking ends with me being depressed for the rest of the weekend (nothing a little EtOH can't solve though...teehee).
Although I didn't really make plans for the weekend, I had a great impromptu dinner at Panavinos with a great set of friends, and then I hosted a dinner/game/movie night with a small group at my parent's place. Then the following night, I went over to Plyos' house and cooked for him and his family. Apparently I had a lot of food this weekend all-around.
For a weekend that I planned to sit around the house and mull things over (which would eventually lead to the previously stated depression), I ended up keeping pretty busy and realizing something. [This is where you insert the Southpark "You know, I learned something today" quotation].
Yes, birthday's can be a day of reflection, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it alone. Sure I could judge myself on my failures and criticize my life decisions. But being with the people I care about reminds me that there are good things in my life that I should also consider. I mean, these people care enough about me to want to come out and celebrate, this would imply that there is something about me to care about. And regardless of my shortcomings [and I know I have quite a few], I'm glad to see these people stand by my side.
Again...Thanks for the Birthday wishes for those who posted on my Facebook. Thanks for dinner and drinks and the company Skate, Miss Skate, Blu, Mrs. Blu, BP, Beersnob, Bunnicula and his roommate (and Skate and Miss Skate for the much needed ride home...teehee). Thanks to those who came over to dinner party. And thanks to Plyos and Mrs. Plyos for opening their house to me all these years.
I'm truly blessed with great friends and family.
I also try not to celebrate my bday because of the amount of thinking I usually do. It reminds me of filling out applications for schools and stuff or like quarterly or yearly reviews, where I sit down, look at my life and weigh what I ended up doing for the year. The pros, the cons, the triumphs and failures. Usually this kind of thinking ends with me being depressed for the rest of the weekend (nothing a little EtOH can't solve though...teehee).
Although I didn't really make plans for the weekend, I had a great impromptu dinner at Panavinos with a great set of friends, and then I hosted a dinner/game/movie night with a small group at my parent's place. Then the following night, I went over to Plyos' house and cooked for him and his family. Apparently I had a lot of food this weekend all-around.
For a weekend that I planned to sit around the house and mull things over (which would eventually lead to the previously stated depression), I ended up keeping pretty busy and realizing something. [This is where you insert the Southpark "You know, I learned something today" quotation].
Yes, birthday's can be a day of reflection, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it alone. Sure I could judge myself on my failures and criticize my life decisions. But being with the people I care about reminds me that there are good things in my life that I should also consider. I mean, these people care enough about me to want to come out and celebrate, this would imply that there is something about me to care about. And regardless of my shortcomings [and I know I have quite a few], I'm glad to see these people stand by my side.
Again...Thanks for the Birthday wishes for those who posted on my Facebook. Thanks for dinner and drinks and the company Skate, Miss Skate, Blu, Mrs. Blu, BP, Beersnob, Bunnicula and his roommate (and Skate and Miss Skate for the much needed ride home...teehee). Thanks to those who came over to dinner party. And thanks to Plyos and Mrs. Plyos for opening their house to me all these years.
I'm truly blessed with great friends and family.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Driving
If anybody knows me at all, they know that I have strange sleeping habits and strange car habits. My car is generally a mess, and the reason for that is I basically live in my car. I've actually been pretty good at not living in my car the past few months, but all that was crushed away after last night, where I began my bad habits of sleeping in my car again. Well, I did it once since January, so I figure that's pretty good considering what I used to do.
Let me back up a bit here. First, back in high school, when gas prices were like 79 cents per gallon of reg. unleaded, I would drive my car for hours in a loop around Enid. I would take Willow east bound, then South on Van Buren, East on Garriot, and North on Oakwood. Rinse and Repeat. Really, it was a way for me to think and argue things in my head. I would yell at myself for doing and thinking stupid things, I would savor moments of triumphs with huge grins...I think I even cried once or twice during my depression years (which may be another entry altogether). The point being, if there was a favorite place for me to be in during those years, it would be alone in my car.
So I'm quite accustomed to being in my car for long periods of time. Hell, I even drove back in forth from Enid to Norman almost twice a week for a whole semester. [good times] And when I would get tired of driving, I'd sleep in my car. Yes, I realize that it's really really safe to be doing that...but hey, at least I slept when I knew I wasn't safe to drive at that point.
I would sleep in Wal-Mart parking lots, parking lots outside of a plaza mall with a starbucks in it...I even got to the point where I was sleeping in my car in the dormitory parking lot with my bed only a 2 minute walk away. I figured, "Hey, I have an 8:00am class that I should go to, so if I sleep in a bed, I'll sleep through the class. I'll sleep in my car so I can make the class...yay!"
Yes, my logic for the sleeping in a parking lot and driving all the time is probably flawed at some point, but it all seemed like really good ideas at the moment. And driving lets me have true time for myself to think, which I'll probably be needing to do more of in the months to come.
Let me back up a bit here. First, back in high school, when gas prices were like 79 cents per gallon of reg. unleaded, I would drive my car for hours in a loop around Enid. I would take Willow east bound, then South on Van Buren, East on Garriot, and North on Oakwood. Rinse and Repeat. Really, it was a way for me to think and argue things in my head. I would yell at myself for doing and thinking stupid things, I would savor moments of triumphs with huge grins...I think I even cried once or twice during my depression years (which may be another entry altogether). The point being, if there was a favorite place for me to be in during those years, it would be alone in my car.
So I'm quite accustomed to being in my car for long periods of time. Hell, I even drove back in forth from Enid to Norman almost twice a week for a whole semester. [good times] And when I would get tired of driving, I'd sleep in my car. Yes, I realize that it's really really safe to be doing that...but hey, at least I slept when I knew I wasn't safe to drive at that point.
I would sleep in Wal-Mart parking lots, parking lots outside of a plaza mall with a starbucks in it...I even got to the point where I was sleeping in my car in the dormitory parking lot with my bed only a 2 minute walk away. I figured, "Hey, I have an 8:00am class that I should go to, so if I sleep in a bed, I'll sleep through the class. I'll sleep in my car so I can make the class...yay!"
Yes, my logic for the sleeping in a parking lot and driving all the time is probably flawed at some point, but it all seemed like really good ideas at the moment. And driving lets me have true time for myself to think, which I'll probably be needing to do more of in the months to come.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Cauchy Sequence
So, I've finally decided on a title for this thing. I used this math concept as the backbone of my medical school personal statement (which I thought was kinda creative....but that's just me).
A sequence
x_1, x_2, x_3...
of real numbers is called Cauchy, if for every positive real number ε, there is a positive integer N such that for all natural numbers m,n > N
|x_m - x_n| < ε.
[on a personal note, I used this definition in the rough draft...apparently my English professor thought it was a little overly-ambitious and told me to change it...and I thought I was just being smart...]
So basically the idea is that as we continue along a sequence of numbers...say, for instance 1/x from 1 to infinity...that set of numbers is considered Cauchy that as we continue along the sequence, the numbers converge on a single number. In this case we would have 1/1, 1/2, 1/3,..., 1/1000,..., 1/10000000000,...
This set of numbers is naturally converging to 0.
It's sad that I have to use such an explanation of this concept to get the idea across, but my argumentation is that, although I live a very "divergent" lifestyle (I have no clue what I want to be, no goals, I want to do basically everything I can), I realize that everything I do in my life is converging to some pretty specific goals:
1. Be a good person
2. Help people out
3. Try to be happy and non-regretting in the way that I live my life
As for where my life is headed, being in medical school, I thought that I would eventually be a physician somewhere doing something medical (whether it makes me happy or not). The good thing about life is that although it is a sequence of events that will eventually converge to something, we have the opportunity to be able to change the value it can converge to...and that is, in my opinion, a pretty optimistic way to look at life (a very rare thing for me...teehee).
So here is where it truly begins. The beginning of this "blog," this "sequence." Let's see if this converges to anything...
A sequence
x_1, x_2, x_3...
of real numbers is called Cauchy, if for every positive real number ε, there is a positive integer N such that for all natural numbers m,n > N
|x_m - x_n| < ε.
[on a personal note, I used this definition in the rough draft...apparently my English professor thought it was a little overly-ambitious and told me to change it...and I thought I was just being smart...]
So basically the idea is that as we continue along a sequence of numbers...say, for instance 1/x from 1 to infinity...that set of numbers is considered Cauchy that as we continue along the sequence, the numbers converge on a single number. In this case we would have 1/1, 1/2, 1/3,..., 1/1000,..., 1/10000000000,...
This set of numbers is naturally converging to 0.
It's sad that I have to use such an explanation of this concept to get the idea across, but my argumentation is that, although I live a very "divergent" lifestyle (I have no clue what I want to be, no goals, I want to do basically everything I can), I realize that everything I do in my life is converging to some pretty specific goals:
1. Be a good person
2. Help people out
3. Try to be happy and non-regretting in the way that I live my life
As for where my life is headed, being in medical school, I thought that I would eventually be a physician somewhere doing something medical (whether it makes me happy or not). The good thing about life is that although it is a sequence of events that will eventually converge to something, we have the opportunity to be able to change the value it can converge to...and that is, in my opinion, a pretty optimistic way to look at life (a very rare thing for me...teehee).
So here is where it truly begins. The beginning of this "blog," this "sequence." Let's see if this converges to anything...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
First Post
Reader,
Thanks for coming and reading my thoughts. Hopefully they don't bore you to tears. If they do, I apologize ahead of time and would also like to direct your anger toward Blu, who convinced me to begin again this venture of online-journal writing. (Thanks Blu!)
I will attempt to be somewhat daily in updating this blog, but this is highly dependent on the time that I have and the amount of procrastination I do instead of studying or working on projects. Hopefully this thing doesn't die out like previous journals that I've done. We will see.
Thanks for coming and reading my thoughts. Hopefully they don't bore you to tears. If they do, I apologize ahead of time and would also like to direct your anger toward Blu, who convinced me to begin again this venture of online-journal writing. (Thanks Blu!)
I will attempt to be somewhat daily in updating this blog, but this is highly dependent on the time that I have and the amount of procrastination I do instead of studying or working on projects. Hopefully this thing doesn't die out like previous journals that I've done. We will see.
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