Progress Report #1

It’s been almost a month since I took the reins on my life and decided to become a better person.  Better was defined loosely, of course.  I don’t know that learning French or knitting a scarf makes me a qualitatively better person, but it certainly increases the list of skills on my imaginary register of skills.  I like having skills.  There’s just something about actually possessing that abstract, never-need-it-until-you-do skill that makes me happy.  So, am I better?  Results may vary.

Je ne pás parle Français

Well, I don’t speak French.  That’s what the heading says, I think.  I actually don’t know.  I think all the words are there, but they may not be in the right order.  Neither of the French learning tools I attempted to use actually taught grammar.  They were just both in the line of repeat what they say and trust that it means what they say it means.  Blerg.

As I’ve blogged, I first decided to speak French because of all the French influence in my life at the time – most importantly the availability of free French lessons through school.  Then I found out that I couldn’t access the lessons unless I was on campus.  I didn’t wan to stumble through learning French audibly in the library, so I stopped.  Then I found out that I could get a 7-day trial to FrenchPod.  FrenchPod is much more interactive than the lessons through school, so I was pretty pumped.  Luckily I decided to use the trial and not pay the $350 for the year-long subscription.  It wasn’t that it was bad, but it wasn’t good enough to justify the price.  I don’t learn well with “repeat this sentence if you ever need to use the bathroom.”  When I learned Chinese it was in large part successful based on learning the grammar.  It doesn’t matter if you know the words “I,” “want,” “go,” and “bathroom” if you don’t know the order to put them in or the conjugations or the extra filler words.  Learn that other stuff and you can say anything.  Vocabulary building is easy.

The Mango site is now accessible from off-campus, which at least means that I have free access to lessons again.  Without the grammar I’m not sure it’s a good use of my time anymore, though.  On the other hand, this guy speaks French:

 

Le Garcon Chaud

 

CO 84 p12 pm p10 pm p40 pm p10 pm p12

Do you know what that means?  I do!  I actually did learn how to knit.  I can’t prove it, though.  I made a beautiful scarf with my overpriced yarn.  After binding off the end I realized that it was too short.  When I folded it in half to put around my neck it barely made it around and through its loop.  It looked like an ascot.  No, thank you!  So, without taking a picture I took the scarf back to Arcadia Knitting to buy a third skein and to have the woman there take out my binding (I was afraid I’d mess it up).  When I finished the first skein and started the second I was mid-row.  This is not the correct way to do it.  However, I managed to connect the new yarn and hide the ends beautifully.  When it came time to connect the third skein I figured I’d actually do it right and connect it on the end.  I also figured I’d do it slightly drunk.  I can’t imagine how it possibly could have happened, but I messed it up and couldn’t fix it and ended up unraveling the entire scarf in severe frustration.  So, I can’t show you my beautiful finished scarf.  I don’t have one.

I decided to take a break from scarves and start something new.  It is a gift, so I can’t say what it is or put up a picture, but it is mighty awesome.  I will post a picture after Christmas (if anyone still cares).  It’s a lot cooler than a scarf.  I started a new scarf on Sunday as a break from my other project.  The secret project is much larger and hurts my hands after a while.  I decided to take a pattern idea from the secret project to make the scarf, so this scarf has a cooler pattern.  There is a border of bumpy stitches (Official term, I promise. I just lied.) and then a center that is smooth.  The smooth center really brings out the colors of the yarn, so that’s exciting.  Here’s a picture of it so far.

 

Fancy Potholder

 

A funny thing happened after I started to knit.  Ryan decided he wanted to learn how to knit, too.  It was this decision that fueled my drunken need to finish my scarf despite my inebriation.  Ryan not only decided to knit, but he went away for the weekend and had a lot of time to do it, so he had gotten ahead of me.  When he excitedly showed me his work, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little upset.  Childish? Bite me.  Knitting was my thing and he up and did it better.  I was determined to finish my scarf first.  It was my hobby so I was going to be the first one people fawned over for doing something cool.  He didn’t know we were competing, but he was going to lose.  After I unraveled my scarf Ryan pulled ahead and finished his.  I’m now very proud of my secret project and sufficiently over my attention-seeking issues, so I’m glad Ryan and I can share a useful hobby.  Plus, we keep working on different things so it’s cutting my costs to have him buy different needle sizes that I might later want to use.  Here’s his scarf.  I have to say, it’s pretty awesome:

 

The Winning Scarf

After I finish my new scarf that has a more interesting pattern than Ryan’s I have some really fun projects I want to work on.  I want to make a pair of socks, a sweater, and a rug – not necessarily in that order.  I have a really cool idea for the rug.  If I can get it to work it will be its very own complete post.

Pheidippides Had Nothing on Me

It was actually 10 months in the making, but on October 11 I did something I have never done before.  In fact, it was something that I never thought I would ever do in my entire life.  I ran the Chicago Marathon.  Sure – about 45,000 other people did, too, but I’m still wicked impressed with myself.  45k may seem like a lot of people, but the number of people in the world who have run a marathon is still only something like one half of one percent of the population (I refuse to fact-check that).

Really, my journey to the finish line started in 2007.  Within a few weeks after I first met Ryan, I learned that he was a runner.  He had run two marathons – one just a week before we met.  The first time he got up at 7 A.M. to head out with his running group I rolled over and growled at him: “I will NEVER be a runner.”  Of course, he never suggested that I should.  He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go running with him.  However, I wanted him to know up front that it was off the table.  No matter where the relationship went we would never be the cute running couple with matching shoes cavorting down the lake front path with smiles and intensely attractive legs.  I was only partially right.

Almost a year later Ryan and I were serious enough to be looking for an apartment together.  We were also serious enough that I had met all of his friends – all of them runners.  After going to party after party and listening to people talk about running.  After attending runner-specific parties where I met super amazing people (there’s just something about runners, it seems).  After staying in bed while Ryan got up to run for ten whole months – I signed up for the Lazyman Triathlon.  The Lazyman isn’t a real triathlon.  It take the component parts (26.2 miles running, 2.5 miles swimming, 112 miles biking) and spreads them out over six weeks.  I opted to do double the running (52.4 miles) instead of the swimming due to not having access to a swimming pool.  I biked all 112 miles over the six weeks, but still had about 49 miles of running left when the time expired.  I was not a runner.

At Christmas I went to New York to meet Ryan’s family, and then he went with me to meet mine.  I had gained almost thirty pounds since we had met.  Upon realizing this, I jumped at the chance to sign up for the next round of the Lazyman and got a gym membership at the local armory.  It was only two-thirds of a full round, so it was in just four weeks and you can do the math on the distances.  Again, I signed up for the double run and the single bike.  I finished with a day or two to spare.  I had gone to the gym almost every day while on winter break and “ran” 2-3 miles per trip.

Once school started back up, and fresh off the accomplishment of doing something athletic for the first time in my life, the marathon whispers started.  I naturally assumed that everyone who had run it the year before would run it again.  In addition to those pros, I several friends who were new to running who said they wanted to sign up.  I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle, the Soldier Field 10 Mile, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon and the Chicago Marathon.  My experienced friends had told me that running shorter races throughout the year helps keep you from laying around all year and being surprised when you suddenly have to run 26 miles in October.  What I didn’t know when I signed up was that everyone I planned to run with Marathon with would either drop out altogether or opt to run a different marathon instead.

Skipping the boring training details, the Shamrock Shuffle in March was a little miserable.  It was sleeting.  My knees hurt.  I was soaked.  But I finished!  It was the furthest I had ever run (5 miles), and I did it in 54:30 – which turned out to be faster than I would run for the next six months.

Then the Soldier Field 10 Mile came in May.  I had watched Ryan run it the year before (he opted out this year), so I was excited for it.  However, 10 miles was twice as far as I had ever run before.  I was running 11-minute miles for a while and then my body just started to hate me.  Around mile 7 I just started walking and couldn’t get the energy or will-power together to start running again.  I managed to pull it together to run across the finish line, but it was overall not a positive experience at the time.  In retrospect – I did cross the finish line and I did double the farthest distance I’d ever run!  I finished in 2:04:08.  We forget to bring a real camera, so here is a crappy phone picture:

In No Way Indicative of the Location

The Rock ‘n’ Roll was supposed to be my race.  I had been officially training for the marathon for almost two months by time it came around in August.  I still hadn’t run farther than 10 miles.  This race was overall good except that I decided I didn’t need my water belt and did not drink enough water on the course.  I was afraid of drinking too much and getting cramps.  Instead, I drank too little and got cramps.  I ended up walking for a good bit of the race, but again pulled it together for the finish.  There’s actually a video of me crossing the finish line here.  You can see me hop and then hobble due to the charlie horse.  I finished in 2:33:54.  The pictures were better for this race:

Beer!

I then ran two surprise races between the Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Marathon.  I took a friend of a friend’s number and ran the Chicago Half Marathon as George.  A ton of people called out my name, which was inspiring even though it wasn’t right.  It was wicked hot, though, so although it was the first race I didn’t walk a significant portion of, it kind of sucked.  A lot.  I finished in 2:35:27.  Why not, here’s a picture:

Happy That Slow Time Wasn't In My Name

Then the Bucktown 5k was the last race I did before the Marathon.  Though only 3 miles it was my best race to day. I ran the entire time (I usually take short walk breaks at regular intervals), and I averaged about 9:30 miles.  F*** YEAH!  I finished in 28:43.  I don’t have a picture for this one.  I didn’t get a medal either.  I should have commemorated my best race to date a little better.

THEN CAME THE MARATHON!  At long last, right?  What have I written, like ten pages by now?  Finally, here’s the good stuff.  My parents came to Chicago to watch me run it, which was wonderful.  However, by the time it came around I just didn’t want to do it anymore.  It seemed like such a long distance – six miles further than I’d ever run before – and I hadn’t run more than 10 miles in the previous three weeks.  I hadn’t run at all the week leading up to the race.  I didn’t think I’d be able to finish.  Due to this fear, I took on a “whatever my time is doesn’t matter I just want to finish” attitude.  I decided to slow way down from the 10-minute mile pace I’d been training at recently and go for 12-minute miles.  Not really doing the math, I figured I’d finish in about 8 hours (doing the math puts the finish at just under 5.5 hours).  Most of all, I didn’t want to be this guy:

 

Ewww!

 

I was going to run the first thirteen miles by myself and then have relief runners jumping in and out for motivation.  I knew I could do thirteen so I wasn’t worried about that first stretch.  I ran up to the top of the course and saw my parents around mile 8.  Here is the map of the course.  It was a huge inspiration to see them – especially because they looked so proud.  Sure, I’d done 8 miles before, but I’d never done it with my family there to cheer me on.  I saw Ryan between 11 and 12.  He thought it’d be a good idea to kiss me while running.  My face burned from his scruff from mile 12 to mile 13.  That was were Devin was supposed to jump in, but there was actually a fence put up along the route.  I felt a little disappointed and started to question if I could make it to the end without her.  I felt absolutely fine – better than I’ve ever felt for having run 13 miles – but just knowing that she wouldn’t be jumping in made me instantly less motivated.  Smarter than the average bear, she had seen the fence and adjusted her position.  She jumped in around 13.2 so she could run with me for the western loop of the race – the most boring, least cheered-for section.

Devin was a huge help – and I was actually helping her prepare for her marathon the following week by making her run.  She kept screaming at people in the crowd when they weren’t cheering.  She would also tell people my name and that it was my first marathon.  It was really great to suddenly have a group of stranger cheering me on by name and hoping that I finish.  Devin also brought me beer and ibuprofen.  Well, she didn’t personally bring me the beer, but I feel like she made it happen. If nothing else she was the devil on my shoulder telling me to take it.  For the next half mile it was like my feet didn’t even hurt.  Then I took the drugs.  I hadn’t thought to bring any so I was so glad she was there!

Ryan jumped in just before mile 17 and ran with me and Devin to the end.  He had a similar effect on the crowd.  We were supposed to see my parents in Chinatown but I missed them.  They saw me, though.  The end is pretty uneventful in terms of what happened while running.  At the 26 mile mark I picked up the speed and Jamie (surprisingly) jumped in.  She helped me up the hill at Roosevelt.  I passed at least a hundred people.  Then I sprinted to the finish line.  I don’t know where that energy came from, but I guess I was so scared of not having enough that I could have pushed harder the whole time.  I finished in 5:08:45.  I was only going to do one marathon just to say I could, but after finishing I can’t wait to run another so I can beat my time!

We're All Friends!

Becoming A Self-Made Man

I don’t know which is worse: that the title of this post is a weak pun, or that it is a weak pun about knitting.

Whichever it is, anyone who is actually reading my posts may have noticed that I’m actually updating quite frequently.  One reason is that the books and baking don’t really count as full posts.  Another is that I’m starting a bunch of long-term projects, so the posts will slow down as I actually do them instead of just talk about how I plan to do them.  This post has a special reason to be alive, though.  This was supposed to be a project I would start in a week or two, after I had enough French down to say I actually gave it a decent try.  Unfortunately, the amazing new language learning program through my library is so new that it doesn’t work.  I can’t access it off campus.  Considering I can’t participate in an interactive French conversation in the library, that means it’s on hold until further notice.

In its stead: knitting.  I knew when I started this “use my free time” project that one of the things I wanted to do was learn how to knit.  The ultimate goal: warm woolen mittens socks.  Of course, socks are a long way away from “I think I want to learn how to knit someday.”  First, I needed some supplies.

After looking for a knitting store online, I came across Arcadia Knitting on Google Maps as being the closest shop to our apartment.  I called to find out what their hours were, telling the woman I found her store on “the Google.”  Then I went to the wrong address – by over a mile.  I have no idea how I confused 1200 W. Balmoral with 1613 W. Lawrence, but it happened.

Once I found the store, I walked in, threw my hands in the air, and proclaimed: “I’ve decided I want to make socks!”  Seemingly unamused (though still nice), the woman who runs the shop helped me get the materials I needed.  (Sidenote: She was eating some kind of Asian pastry filled with red bean paste and talked just like Megan Mooney.  I wanted to be her best friend.  Her name was either Kathy or Sharon, but I don’t know which.  Therefore, I will call her Megan.)  She handed me a beginner’s book on how to knit, a pair of bamboo needles, and told me to make a scarf.  When I had a scarf she’d tell me what I needed to make socks.  I don’t particularly want to make a scarf, but I guess it’s a good idea to make the simplest garment before moving on to projects that require special needles.  Then I got to pick out my yarn.  I chose a dark blue multi-colored yarn.  You can see it here.

Everything was going fine.  We laughed. We spun yarn into a ball.  Then we went to the checkout and my new buddy Megan punched me right in the face!  The total was almost $50!  I was thinking that the book was probably about a dollar, the bamboo needles couldn’t have been more than five, and the yarn was probably about $3.99.  Apparently, I was not dealing with the quality of yarn you find for $1.99/lb at Wal*Mart.  I didn’t realize until I got home that I had chosen hand-dyed, 50% llama/50% wool, hand wash only yarn.  Good thing it’s pretty. :-/

I’ve spent the past four hours practicing the basic stitches so I can start my scarf.  Here is what I accomplished:

Mouse Scarf

Yep.  That’s about an inch and a half long.  And it sucks up close.  I dropped a bunch of stitches so there are big holes in it.  No big deal, it was just a practice.  Holy mother, though, can you imagine how long it takes to knit a sweater?!  I’ll start on the actual scarf tomorrow (I’ve already unraveled that mess).  I’ll post pictures of the completed scarf assuming there are enough years left in my life to finish it at a rate of four hours per inch.  I’ll also update when I start the socks.  I can’t wait to wear some hand-made wool socks – our floors are already freezing and it’s still October!

Making Friends With My Oven

This one is another cheat or sorts.  Technically, the hard part of this project was completed over a month ago.  Get off my back.  You can’t shame me.  Anyway – the point is doing things I wouldn’t normally do, not just doing things that are brand new.  So, baking is something I don’t normally do.

Just over a month ago I decided that I wanted to have some Amish Friendship Bread, so I went online to find out if you even could make this delicious bread without having an Amish person be your friend.  It turns out you don’t have to know any Amish people to get your hands on an authentic starter – never mind that the Amish generally don’t share their recipes online, nor do they have a time-honored tradition of baking with Jello instant pudding (Warning: May Contain Antiquated Racism).

The starter takes ten days and then you find yourself with six cups of starter.  Each cup of starter produces two loaves of bread.  It seems that just like the Amish should be written “Amish,” the “Friendship” is a merely a ruse.  You don’t give starters to your friends, you give starters to frienemies you want to surprise with a ton of unforeseen work (except for you, Miss Caitlin – I gave you that starter because I love you).  Come to think of it, it’s not even really bread.  It’s more like cake.  I froze the extra starter in individual servings.

I took one out today to bake two loaves of bread, this time using banana pudding.  The recipe calls for vanilla, but you can really substitute it for anything.  Here’s a picture of my bread (we don’t have two bread pans the same size):

"Amish" Frienemy Cake

Incidentally, taking pictures of your food is one of the 63 Signs You May Be a Pretentious Tool (per Details Magazine).  I guess that makes this project a twofer.  I don’t think I’ve ever been a pretentious tool before – at least not consistently.

Japanese Nō Dramas

I ride the train for at least an hour and a half at least four days a week.  I generally spend that time looking out the window in a daze or sleeping.  I also wear a shirt that says “Winner!” on it.  A couple weeks ago I decided maybe I would actually do something with that time and started bringing a book.  It’s not exactly a novel idea (oy, what a pun), but I am not a reader so for me it is kind of a big deal.  I’m hoping if I become one then I can be bathed by a handsome German – or does the reader do the bathing?  I didn’t actually see the film.  Either way, Kate Winslet had a good thing going in that one scene (link NSFW) and that’s enough motivation for me.

I started with Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin, and then read Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea.  Clearly, my mind has been expanded.  Consequently, I would recommend them both highly (seriously).  Moving on to heavier fare, I thought I may as well document my books along with the other “new me” things I’m doing with this blog.  Here is the first:

Japanese No Dramas

Japanese Nō Dramas is somewhat of a cheat because it was a required book for a class on Japanese theatre that I took at Allegheny.  However, we only read two or three of the twenty-four plays.  It is an absolutely fascinating art form – incredibly formal and stylized.  Being only 30 pages in I can’t really give a great description, but Amazon.com has this to say about the book:

Japanese no theatre or the drama of ‘perfected art’ flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries largely through the genius of the dramatist Zeami. An intricate fusion of music, dance, mask, costume and language, the dramas address many subjects, but the idea of ‘form’ is more central than ‘meaning’ and their structure is always ritualized. Selected for their literary merit, the twenty-four plays in this volume dramatize such ideas as the relationship between men and the gods, brother and sister, parent and child, lover and beloved, and the power of greed and desire. Revered in Japan as a cultural treasure, the spiritual and sensuous beauty of these works has been a profound influence for English-speaking artists including W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Benjamin Britten.

Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?

The first new big thing I am going to do is learn French.  I didn’t take French in school for two reasons: 1) Nobody wanted to take French at my school in seventh grade so it wasn’t even an option; and 2) Even when I had the chance to take some French I didn’t want to look gay.  Well, I’m not in middle school anymore and that gay cat’s been out of the bag for a few years now, so it looks like the path is clear.

But – why French?  I’ve actually always wanted to speak it.  I find French movies fascinating, I like Cole Porter songs about Paris, I enjoy Édith Piaf, and I really want to know what the French blogs are saying about Sarkozy’s hot wife.  Plus, I seem to be highly influenced by anything that happens on I Love Lucy.  Lucy was learning French in season three, and then the whole gang went to France in season five.  Done and done – I’m learning French!

The more practical reason?  My school’s library just subscribed to Mango, a language-learning site.  As a student I get free access.  May as well take advantage.  I think FrenchPod has a better set-up, but then again I don’t have $200.  I’m not going to bother posting every lesson – or any lesson past the first one – but starting over at square one with a new language has reminded me how absolutely ridiculous the dialogues are.  Have any two french people ever had this conversation? (Accents may not be in the right places.)

Man: Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?  (Good day! How are you?)
Woman: Je vais bien.  Merci.  Et vous?  (I’m good. Thank you. And you?)
Man: Bien. Je m’appelle Pierre.  (Good. My name is Pierre.)
Woman: Enchantée. (Pleased to meet you.)
Pierre: Enchanté, aussi.  (Please to meet you, too.)
Woman: Au revoir!  (Goodbye!)

Wow. She seemed really into him.  That’s one lucky Pierre.

Re-do

I started this blog up in July thinking I was going to use it as a vehicle for sharing all of the crazy stuff I find online.  I figured no one would really read it, but it at least would satisfy my need to share.  Obviously, I did not do that.  With the “Share on Facebook” button right in my Bookmark Bar I decided to annoy all my Facebook friends instead of starting a new, out of the way space.

Well, today I figured out another way to use this space.  After I slept until 11 and then immediately got up and started Round 1 of my all-day blog checking pattern, I realized that I was wasting a lot of my time on grammatically incorrect kitten-speak.  I literally spend hours every single day going through all my bookmarks and then through 100 Reddit posts if the other sites didn’t have much to offer.  Now that we’re back into the regular season for television shows, you can add another two or three hours of watching TV to those internet hours.  It certainly keeps me on top of the latest meme, but it isn’t doing much for me in terms of being useful – or even all that fun.  It’s a holding pattern.

So, in a contrived effort to keep the name of the blog the same, I have to wonder: If my name were Ruth, who would I be?  Maybe I would speak Arabic.  Maybe I would do needlepoint.  Maybe I would become an expert in thermodynamics.  Maybe I would just read more, or finally put in the time required to take my Chinese to the next level.

I’m not going to change my name, but I will change the fact that I am wasting my life (my extra-curricular life, that is).  I am going to use this blog to document all the new and interesting things I am going to learn or experience in the time I would otherwise be wasting looking at countless pictures proclaiming human (or animal) failure.  Maybe everything won’t be brand new, but it will be newly reborn as an activity that I do.  I’m not going to put a time limit on it like doing something new every day or even necessarily every week (why set myself up to fail?), but newness will happen!

“I have a problem. Now, it’s not a big problem, but it is a problem. It’s my name.”

UPDATE: All of the videos I had in this post have been removed from YouTube.  So sad.

Well it only took me a week to get rid of the old blog name and theme.  I’m still not sure I like this theme, but I like that it is bigger and has more space to put in extras.  For those of you who may not have a terminal case of the gay, I’ll elaborate on the new title.  We have the original LP recording of Liza Minelli’s live 1972 concert, “Liza With a Z.”  I was listening to it today (for at least the 50th time) while doing laundry, singing along.  When she got to the part of “Say Liza” where she lists off a few names that people never mispronounce, she sang the now title of this blog.  I thought to myself, “What a wonderfully obscure and eccentric name for a blog!”

It also turns out that it is appropriate.  Now, obviously my name isn’t Liza.  Also obvious, Michael is not a name that often gets mispronounced.  I’ve always had a problem with it, however.  It seems people prefer to pronounce it “Matthew” or “Mitchell.”  I’ve also gotten “Marty” and even “Bill.”  Really?!  Since almost everyone I know in Chicago is named Michael this doesn’t happen much anymore, but it would seem that in my previous small town life I was quite forgettable.  Perhaps Ruth would have left a bigger impression.

Being the attentive and rule-following student that I am, enjoy some copyright infringement.  The portion of Liza’s concert in which she sings “Say Liza” is below (the actual song starts at 6:38).  For the rest of the concert, check out the videos after the jump. [Edit: There is no jump.]

Drag Queens Love Cheez Whiz

We went to see La Cage au Folles last night at the Theatre Building.  There was so much drag queen goodness that I couldn’t help but be reminded of “Girls Will Be Girls,” the best worst movie I have ever seen.  Here’s one of my favorite scenes.  I give you Varla Jean Merman yodeling while eating Cheez Whiz.

And so it begins…

I have been lamenting my lack of blog recently.  I started one in in 2006 to track my semester abroad in Beijing, China.  Unfortunately, when I returned to the States I found my life lacking in adventure.  Even when I had nothing to say in China I could spend an entire post talking about the otherwise mundane challenges of going to the bathroom.  It was funny.  It was enlightening.  Back home it just would have been gross and inappropriate.

I already had a username on WordPress, so I figured this was a great place to get back into it.  The name of the blog will probably change.  The main obstacle in my way of starting it up the past few weeks has been the lack of something interesting to call it.  “Reverie” may be a little over the top.  After all, I don’t plan to use this blog to expound upon the mysteries of the universe.  It will probably fall more in line with a posting of news stories and YouTube clips I feel like other people should enjoy.  It seems like people don’t often check out things you send them via email, so I am going to use this space to delude myself into thinking people appreciate my opinions and recommendations.

A final word about the strange address.  As I mentioned, this blog was initially started while in China.  Leidian (pronounced like “Lady N” – no jokes!), was the Chinese internet nickname I made up for one of my classes there.  It means “thunderbolt” and is a variation of my full Chinese name: Lei Zijun.  I figured I didn’t want to make the address my actual name since I will likely post things I don’t want coming up on a Google search by a potential employer.

Check back soon for some real updates.  I can’t wait to be able to say, “More after the jump!”