1. Picking that Flight.
Ooohhh you know the one. If anyone kept up with my last blog site, they may have heard from this via Facebook or Word-of-Mouth. The infamous, "cheaper" route to Japan. Technically, this mistake happened in 2010, but the effects of the mistake haunted me throughout the year of 2011. I bought a round-trip plane ticket to Japan for when I studied abroad between 2010-2011. It was around 200 dollars cheaper for about--if my math is correct--4000000000000000 dollars worth the stress. My flight was so bad it became an inside joke among friends. People pointed at maps, moving their fingers the "long way" across the globe to demonstrate my flight, ultimately making outlandish designs across African nations, loops throughout the Atlantic to show how out of the way my flight went. I went from Nashville to DC to Doha, Qatar to Kansai Airport. In the great words of Tupac Shakur: "Damn Timothy, pay attention to flight schedules before you accept them no matter how cheap." He said it. Can you really argue that he didn't?
My defense: It was my first time...
2. Not taking good notes in British Literature II until my grades begin to slip.
That one is pretty straight-forward. For some reason, any time I begin to write notes in class notes in class I become distracted. It happens most commonly when the teacher begins explaining a concept for the class. For example, Existentialism in 18th-century British Literature. The teacher would explain how that form of literature challenged the Catholic church by calling Christianity into question because it emphasized the reliance on one's self, instead of a god. She would continue to explain the pious nature of writers who combat the absurdist/existential literature and then BOOM: my mind focuses on the word "pious." Then I would think of the last time I heard pious. Ah hah! It was Jay-Z and Kanye West's song "No Church in the Wild." Then I would think, "man, I sure am glad I went to that concert! Those dudes killed it! Amazing!....oops"
Oh..Oh No....YOU AGAIN?!
When I finally realized what had happened, I had missed an entire 10 minutes of class. It takes about the same amount of time to regain the grasp of the topic.
I got an A in that class so whatever.
3. Having an MP3 player dominated by 3 of my favorite musicians and the rest of it being new bands/emcees I barely like, but try to tolerate just for some fresh air.
For my MP3 player, the shuffle function is like being given three Pokeballs from Professor Oak and all of them being Voltorbs. I can't describe how many times this summer I hit shuffle and the Pillows, Jay-Z, or Red Hot Chili Peppers popped up. Granted, all three of those bands and rappers are pretty damn good. I kind of got sick of hearing them all the time. I tried taking them off my MP3 player and bombarding myself with new music. Doing so introduced me to a lot of cool new bands. It also introduced me to a lot of shittiness. Perhaps I should take more requests from friends. I am gonna try to continuously update my playlists. If its whack after three listens, it gets deleted. I am not gonna have a B.O.B situation again..."Hey, Hey, do you wanna be famous?" oh...I still have frustrated groans.
4. Being reclusive from friends/ extra accessible at work
One mistake I made--one I will damn sure not make again--is being too present in my dorm and not present enough elsewhere. I hate feeling like my number one goal of the day is to return home to my dorm. Not gonna diss the GLC because 99% of the time I love it. Occasionally, I just need a change of scenery. So my plans are to leave the dorm and campus at every opportunity that corresponds best with my schedule.
5. Taking the L
The hardest tast for me to do in the past has been taking the L. If you are not familiar with the phrase, I will save you a trip to Urban Dictionary and tell you that it means accepting defeat, or "taking the loss." I'm sure I'm not alone when I say it is so hard to walk away from a situation that is following you. Last year, I had so many of those situations happen and I refused to walk away from it, which, to most people, is taking the L. For example, when friends are clearly having the better day in a game of wise cracks, there were times when I had no clever responses and simply refused to take the L. We all know what happens when you continue without actually having a comeback:
The hardest tast for me to do in the past has been taking the L. If you are not familiar with the phrase, I will save you a trip to Urban Dictionary and tell you that it means accepting defeat, or "taking the loss." I'm sure I'm not alone when I say it is so hard to walk away from a situation that is following you. Last year, I had so many of those situations happen and I refused to walk away from it, which, to most people, is taking the L. For example, when friends are clearly having the better day in a game of wise cracks, there were times when I had no clever responses and simply refused to take the L. We all know what happens when you continue without actually having a comeback:
It has never been that bad, but I want to prevent a scenario similar to this from happening to me on a more serious level. More times than I wished, I tried to fix a conflict that I should have just walked away from. Last year I had a very strong "Man, I gon' fix everything" mentality. Sometimes, it is completely okay to just give up. Somethings are just not worth winning. There are a bunch of conflicts that are winnable, but not worthy. Picking the right battles is something I should practice more.
6. Saying "no" to watching entire series that friends insist on making you watch.
For every fantastic episode of Community, there are like 4 "okay I get it" episodes of Big Bang Theory. There are times I wanted to give series/band/song a chance and a lot of it was just okay.
Okayness is not a bad thing--its okay. But a vast amount of okayness can open your eyes to why a show, movie, or album is merely passing the class of Acceptability with a C-. So if you suggesting something to me, make sure you are not hyping it up. Say, "is this really his thing?" Also, make sure its the appropriate amount of whatever it is. Pick the right episodes/songs, the right order and the right time. I will give a lot of things an honest chance. But by the end of last year, the okay-quality to amazing-quality ratio was far from equal with okay leading the way. And that goes for Anime, Music, Movies, Comedians, Video games and books.
7. Not initiating spontaneous concerts parties instead of getting angry.
I don't like being mad. I like making funny rants, pretending to be mad but I do not actually like being really angry. Their were a few times last semester where I was actually angry. Thus, I have finally come up with a solution to this kind of problem. Whenever someone does something that makes me angry--no not annoyed or frustrated but really angry--I am gonna rap/sing the first song that comes to the top of my head in a silly accent. That means, whenever someone is bringing drama my way.....
IT WAS ALL GOOD JUST A WEEK AGO/
NIGGAZ FELL THEMSELVES/
THEN THAT WATCH THE THRONE DROPPED/
NIGGAZ KILLED THEMSELVES/
WHAT THESE NIGGAS GON DO HOV?/
ITS THAT NEW CRACK/ ON THE NEW STOVE/
OR
TODAY, IS GONNA BE THE DAY THAT WERE GONNA THROW IT BACK TO YOU/
BY NOW, YOU SHOULDA, SOMEHOW, REALIZE WHAT YOU GOTTA DO/
I DON'T BELIEVE THAT ANNNNY BODY, FEELS THAT WAY I DO...ABOUT YOU NOW/
All caps. Max Volume.
I wish I did this last year when it seemed like every month something over-the-top would happen and instead of doing this obnoxious, somewhat funny thing above, I got upset. No more.
