It's time for me to obsess on college basketball for my favorite time of the sports year: March Madness.
I'm only a mediocre basketball fan. I like basketball because of the fast pace of the scoring, but I only watch college basketball and I only really pay attention during March. There's always something dramatic about a 64 team, single elimination tournament. Unlike the NBA, I can keep track of which player is playing on which team. And each team has a particular identity and history. Because of the single elimination format, every game counts and the players treat it as such. I've even teared up during the 'One Shining Moment' segment CBS always puts together at the end of the Madness. It's cheesy, but I love it.
For full disclosure, I'm a Maryland Terrapins fan, I'll cheer for Cal and anyone playing against Duke. Last year I was entertained by the matchup between Cal and Maryland in the first round. Happily, Maryland won.
This year, Maryland is ranked 4th in the Midwest bracket. Sadly, I have them losing to my eventual winner, Kansas. Cal is up against Louisville in the first round but I don't have them getting past Duke. Just to spite Duke, I don't have them in my Final Four. They're overrated more often than not and this year is no exception. Muahahaha!
I much prefer being able to compare my picks against other people's, but I'll fill out a bracket regardless just so I can root for someone. Watching the games is more exciting that way.
Tomorrow is only a day away!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
On the Eve of Madness
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
My Very First Toast Contest
Technically, I participated in a speech contest in 3rd grade for the 4H Club. It consisted of my reading aloud a report I had written about visiting Fort McHenry in Maryland where the Star Spangled Banner was written. Yes, I still remember that. I got a blue ribbon for it and everything.
Despite that illustrious beginning, I have not tried my hand at a speech contest again until recently when my Toastmasters club held one in preparation for the area contest and on up. I won our club level contest and came in dead last in the area contest. Whee!
The competitor in me is quite bummed at my standing in the area contest. In my estimation, I totally should have won 2nd place (there were only 3 speakers in the area contest). On the other hand, I'm relieved since I don't advance to the next level contest. Some other feel-good rationalizations include:
- It's good for me that I didn't win anything because it only gives me an incentive to improve for the next time.
- It was a great learning experience to get out and deliver a speech to an audience largely unfamiliar to me rather than the more comfortable and familiar audience at my home club.
- Because it was an unfamiliar setting, I was more nervous and didn't give the best speech performance I could.
Done with whining now. Here's the text of the speech I used for the contests. It was a Project 4 speech in the manual which is meant to train the speaker to communicate ideas clearly, accurately and vividly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My earliest memory of water was in the Philippines. I was about 5. I had gone with my grandparents to a northern island where my grandfather grew up to get some beach time. The waves weren't particularly vigorous where we were and the tide was out, leaving a vast stretch of shallow water I could skip through to my hearts content. I skipped to make the biggest splashes possible. I chased some fish through the water until I found myself standing on a small bump in the sand. I stared at the horizon, trying to guess how far away it was when a larger undulation of water took away my sand stool. I remember flailing my hands and feet to keep my head above water. I remember watching my feet and thinking that they looked both very close to me and far away from the yellow sand beneath me. I remember the wind that brought the scent of watery salt to my nose. Most of all I remember not being at all worried that I didn’t know how to swim. I don't know how many moments later when I found solid purchase beneath my feet again in the form of my uncle who had come to bring me in for lunch.
Looking back, I have to marvel at a situation where I had no idea what I was doing and I was completely calm and serene. These days, the very prospect of putting myself into an environment of cluelessness sets my pulse soaring. How do I go back there? How do I regain that state of being? I think I may have found a clue to that.
A few years ago, my husband and I were vacationing in Curacao and decided to get scuba certified. I had only been snorkeling before and even then I stuck pretty closely to the surface where I had easy access to breathing. But the water was warm, the hotel we were staying had beach access to a coral reef. I didn’t have anything more specific planned than lying around the beach anyway, so it seemed like a good idea. After filling out paperwork and watching a few videos, we met our instructor, Shani who outfitted us with the gear necessary to go underwater. Between the four-armed hoses, the weight belt, the buoyancy control device jacket and the air tank, the short trek to the water was a trudge in sand. Once we were submerged, the water took most of the weight. And then we dove.
In water, I fall more slowly. I remember looking up as the surface retreated from my reach and having a moment of anxiety. It was too far away - I would never be able to reach it without air. But I concentrated on breathing steadily, clenching my teeth around the mouthpiece. The steady stream of bubbles going past my head was very loud in the muffled quiet of underwater. As we sank, color washed into shades of blue. It grew colder too. I looked down at the sand below me, at the flounder that matches the sand except for its little beady dome eyes that look slightly cross-eyed. We practiced skills at depth before we could go exploring. Each skill was a variation of what to do if something went wrong - I lose my mouthpiece, I lose my mask, I run out of air. Let’s just say it's not the most relaxing exercise of the vacation.
As Shani was testing my husband on some skill, I watched a large school of deep blue angelfish flow past me heading towards the deeps. Then I caught sight of them. Their sleek, curved forms were clustered near the surface and about forty feet from me. Their clicks and squeaks echoed through the blue as they bantered with each other. “Dolphins!” I wanted to squeal my excitement at my scuba crew but I would only swallow salt water if I tried. Instead I flailed at them and pointed towards the school. All three of us were motionless. I forgot to worry about breathing. I forgot to worry about how far away the surface was. I forgot to worry about whether or not I was learning the skills properly. I merely hovered above the ocean floor, marveling at the real live nature show happening before my very senses unfiltered by the television screen.
And that, I think is the secret. In that moment of wonder, that joy I stopped caring about the things that could go wrong. I was still as clueless about the environment I found myself in. The difference was the wonder. If I can find that with any unfamiliar situation, whether it's scuba diving or public speaking, I can return to that serenity. And that's how I learned how to embrace my inner fish.
Thank you.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Mastering Toast
I decided long ago that the best toast was on the light side, with a minimal browning and warm enough to melt the peanut butter on top of it smooth. I've even branched out to english muffins. I think I've mastered that kind of toast.
The other kind of toast - the public speaking kind - is beyond me. When a Toastmasters group started up at work, I was intrigued. It was scheduled to meet during lunch once a week and very conveniently accessible. I posted a Facebook status indicating that I was interested but intimidated and every single post in response was in favor. I rarely see that kind of unanimity especially on the internet. In honor of such an anomaly, I signed up as a charter member.
Thus begins a tale of heart-pounding anxiety, near death experiences and a lot of words. Spoken out loud. In front of people. People with laser-death-gazes. Why does anyone do this sort of thing?
Actually, I joined back in October and in light of the fact that I haven't actually perished from publicly speaking, I can report that it's okay.
For those unfamiliar with the format of a Toastmasters meeting, here's a brief runthrough. Most meeting roles are filled by the members of the club from the toastmaster, the table topics master, speech evaluators, timer, 'ah' counter, jokemaster, etc. The toastmaster plays emcee for the meeting, introducing the agenda and the various speakers throughout. The timer, armed with a stopwatch and red, yellow and green cards, times each speech and table topic speaker and lets the speaker know when they've spoken long enough. The 'ah' counter keeps track of how many verbal fillers such as 'um', 'ah', 'er' the speakers utter. There are two prepared speeches and two evaluators to give them public feedback. The aforementioned table topics are open-ended questions or topics that members or guests can speak about for 1-2 minutes. Table topic questions are meant to train extemporaneous speaking. The entire meeting is meant to give as many people as possible the opportunity to practice getting in front of a supportive group and speaking.
To motivate people to volunteer for the roles and speeches, members are provided a speech curriculum and a leadership curriculum. The speech curriculum provides assignment speeches that each focus on a particular speech-making skill. The leadership curriculum provides assignments to take on various Toastmaster meeting and club roles. I assume completing each set of assignments earns you accolades, parades, a feast and maybe a certificate. I'll let you know when I get one.
As of this writing, I have given three speeches in the Competent Communicator curriculum. I've completed a number of the meeting roles and I try to volunteer for a table topic talk whenever I show up to the meeting and don't have a role. I've signed up for a speech contest next week and I've committed to completing my 10 speeches by the end of June.
There are a couple of interesting things I've learned:
-I learned that I speak pretty quietly. Actually I lied. I know that already. People tell me that all the time. I still don't believe them because I can hear myself just fine.
-I learned that I can memorize the gist of a 5-7 minute speech just fine. It's the individual words that I sometimes draw a blank on.
-It's very difficult to get rid of all the verbal fillers. Replacing the fillers with silence makes for a randomly dramatic sentence.
-In order to perform a speech, I have to write it. Which is nice for making me write about a random selection of topics.
-The more nervous I am, the faster the speech goes. For instance, telling the speech to my car as I drive might take 10 minutes. Practicing it in front of Lee may take 7 minutes. The actual speech? 5 minutes.
-Talking for longer than a minute on an impromptu topic seems like an eternity. Talking for less than 7 minutes on a prepared topic seems really short.
I'm sure there'll be more things to learn as I go on. Stay tuned for the next episode of death defying speechifying.
Friday, February 5, 2010
My Top Five Video Games of All Time
That's a daunting title. I went through an entire discussion in my head why I don't need to do this (and honestly I don't except for I wouldn't have this blog post otherwise). That stating my Top Five OF ALL TIME would commit me to supporting this post for the rest of my life even if I change my mind and I would end up with a miserable existence supporting something I knew to be a lie and I would never respect myself again.
Then I took a deep breath and talked myself into a better perspective; this list is for fun. My criteria for the games making this list is whether I remember playing the heck out of the game. There are many other good games I liked, but I didn't repeatedly play it. This can be a misleading metric for me because of my obsessive tendencies. I may play the heck out of a game merely because it's the phase I was in at the time, but it doesn't necessarily mean it was good or I really liked it. Don't ask.
On to the list.
Dragon Age: Origins
This is probably on here because I'm still currently playing the heck out of this game. It's the source of ridicule from my gaming friends (and husband) but I don't care. In typical fashion with BioWare games, I replay the game because I want to see the story as a good guy and a bad guy. I'm currently replaying Dragon Age as four different characters concurrently, one of which is an exact (but better looking version) of a character I've already played through. If the 'obsessions' part of this blog wasn't evident before, here's some proof.
Final Fantasy 12
While I'd played previous Final Fantasy games (8, 10, and 10-2 specifically), this one snuck up on me. It was already out by the time I noticed it and I didn't even rush out and get it. I really enjoyed the characters, particularly one whom I consider Square's best character to date: Balthier. I had my share of annoyances with the game, but he made it interesting enough for me to finish the game. The story itself left some room for improvement. Without that, I wouldn't have been motivated to write my own behind the scenes interpretations to explain what they didn't. Perhaps I should thank Square for rekindling my interest in writing.
Dance Dance Revolution Series
Thus begins my music/rhythm game fascination. I saw these mini dance club floors in the arcades and at first thought it was silly to call playing Simon Sez with your feet 'dancing'. Then I found the home version (I didn't really want to spend time and quarters learning it in the public arcades) and played it on our PS2. Since that first game, I collected the subsequent releases with new music. I could play it to the point of injury after which Lee counseled me to put it away for my own good. It just so happened that one of those later game discs provided a preview of another game that had you singing into a microphone and dancing. Which leads me to the next entry.
SingStar/Karaoke Revolution Series
I grew up being told I couldn't sing and making people cringe when I attempted. This is why I was a band geek all through middle and high school instead. But I think I had some of my grandfather in me and I couldn't just leave well enough alone. (My grandfather would take any party as an opportunity to serenade my grandmother to her feigned embarrassment.) These games measured my pitch and timing, giving me feedback as to how far off the mark I was so I could correct myself. As a result, I could learn the right notes to hit and maybe inspire less cringing. I'm still not going to perform like my sisters can, but my car singing may be more palatable. I also played these games to the point of hoarseness.
Guitar Hero/Rock Band
I wasn't initially interested in these when they were plastic guitars only. Once they added drums and allowed a group of four to play as a fake band, I was all over it. Knowing myself, I would have played the plastic guitar to the detriment of my hands. But playing the drums seemed more ergonomically friendly and I looked forward to banging on plastic drums. And if I got tired of drums, I could switch to the guitar or bass and when I got tired of that, I could drop back to singing. Turns out I had to fight Lee for the drums, so I play guitar/bass more often than not, but it's still fun.
That's the five games. Three of which are music series. This was originally meant to be a Top Ten, but I only came up with maybe seven. 'Top Seven' doesn't ring as nicely so I'm down to Top Five with a few honorable mentions.
Monkey Island Series
This is a set of adventure puzzle games featuring an atypical pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. Adventure puzzle games have been in decline for some time because it takes a lot of resources to produce and not very many people play it. Nevertheless, I was delighted when they developed some recent episodes to visit with Guybrush again. (I still have 4 of the 5 episodes to finish).
Knights of the Old Republic
Another BioWare game and possibly the first one of theirs that I played. Again, I played it more than once. But it makes it on this list because I will occasionally quote myself to hearken back to myself playing the game.*
*Language deliberately obtuse to prevent spoilers. I guess this is only funny to Lee because he's the only one who's heard me quote myself.
And I'm done. No one hold me to this list because I don't want to have to live a lie. But I'll take cake.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Stiff: A Book Review
-The maximum speed at which a human being has a respectable shot at surviving feet-first (the safest position) is 70mph. Terminal velocity of a falling body is 120mph and can be reached in 500 feet.
-Without temperature extremes, bodies lose about 1.5 degrees Fahenheit per hour until ambient temperature.
-Necrophilia was not a crime in any state in the US until 1965. To date, only 16 states have enacted necrophilia laws.
These are just a handful of tidbits I learned from "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach.
It was recommended to me by a staffer in a random bookstore in this weekend. One of those little tags on the shelf with handwriting on it got me to pick it up and I talked myself into walking to the register with it for the sake of research for any future mystery novel I might write.
The book starts off with 'fun' fact chapters telling stories of what happens to the human cadavers donated to science, how anatomists of the 1700s and 1800s got their cadavers to dissect (from using executed criminals to using deceased loved ones and finally paid body snatchers pilfering the freshly dead from the graveyards). Later chapters deal with heavier topics such as the debate whether the soul resides in the brain or the heart, medicinal cannibalism, and future body disposal techniques (composting).
This is not a book for the squeamish. I'm a fan of the CSI TV show (the Las Vegas version), but I'm wary of the things I learn there because I've seen plenty of TV 'science'. The author put in a CSI moment addressing how body temperature, rigor mortis and yes, bugs and larvae, could be used to help determine time of death.
I was fascinated by the story of a Dr. Duncan Macdougall, who sought to determine if the soul had substance or more measureably, weight. In 1907, he placed six of his dying patients in beds on scales sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. He found that upon each patients' expiration, the scales lost three-fourths of an ounce.
Throughout the book, the author uses healthy doses of both humor and respect to explore her subject matter. She also heavily advocated for organ donation, lauding as heroes the cadavers who bequeathed their life-saving organs after death. Although I started reading the book from a sense of curiosity and shock factor, her respectful treatment got me accustomed enough to the topic of human bodies after death that I could ponder the questions she posed without my brain trying to shy away so quickly. I don't think anyone really wants to ponder death, let alone post-mortem logistics, but the book made it a fascinating topic to spend an afternoon with. Yeah, morbid, I know.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Fantastic Procrastinating
Found a new game to procrastinate on the web with. Or should that be 'Found a new game with which to procrastinate on the web'? Whatever.
I link you to Fantastic Contraption, a physics game where you can build contraptions to move a box/ball into a target zone with obstacles in the way ranging from empty space to objects. I haven't gotten through the 20 or so free levels, but I reserve the right to shell out the $10 for the full game at a later date. It's also available on iPhone/iPod.
Here's an example.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Paper Stash Reduction
The idea of reducing the amount of paper in my house has been intriguing me for some time. Happily, I have my paper files in a file cabinet grouped in file folders that make sense to me. Unfortunately, I also have paper files going back more than ten years. Cleaning them out at this stage is a daunting process. I didn't have an impetus to start that process until I found the Neat Receipts system on sale on Woot for a significant discount. It was my first (and thus far, only) purchase on Woot and I've been pretty happy with it. Read on for my review.
The Neat Receipts system includes a small scanner and a database system to put the scanned data into. To my mind, the money I spent is primarily for the database (I already own a scanner).
The nice thing about the scanner is that it's a feeder scanner. I have the portable travel scanner although I keep it on my desk at home. It keeps the desk footprint small while still able to scan in long receipts and full 8.5"x11" documents. The larger scanner is able to scan in double sided documents at once. The scanner I have requires flipping over the paper to scan in the second side. It's decent and relatively fast.
But that's enough about the scanner. The real reason I like this is for the software. There are two pieces to the software system. The software that scans in the documents and the software that organizes the data. The scanning software provides options to automatically sense whether the object you're scanning in is a receipt, a business card or a document. I've found that this can be tripped up distinguishing between a receipt and document. I will typically manually set it to the document type to get over that hiccup. Even if I don't, it's easy enough to switch the type in the database afterwards. It also provides an option to import pdfs or images - handy for my online shopping receipts.
I spent the most time trying to figure out how to set up the database fields so that I can find the information easily later. I haven't been able to test how well the system I set up works, because I haven't found a need to go look up information I've already scanned in. The online documentation and tutorials keep talking about pulling out receipts and other documents for tax purposes, so perhaps I'll be testing that functionality out soon.
My Receipts Category has 2 main sections, one for my debit receipts and the other for my main credit card. Each section is broken down into monthly folders.
The Documents Category has sections for the companies I have documents from. For example, I have a section for the telephone, gas & electric, water, and mortgage bills. Each section is further broken down into yearly folders. I've also started a section I've labeled 'Mementos' where I've been scanning in concert and show tickets so I don't have to hang on to the physical tickets.
Thus far, I've scanned in roughly 80% of the relevant daily paperwork I have. I still have the past accounts to scan in, but since I haven't been receiving more statements and bills from them, I gave myself a break once I got the current accounts up and running. The initial scanning and organizing step is definitely a hefty chunk of work. Unfortunately, I have also added steps to my daily paper management regimen. In the past, I would get the mail, pay the bill online and then file the statement in the file cabinet. Now, I get the mail, pay the bill, scan in the statement, then file it into its appropriate section, then shred the paper. To be fair, under my previous regimen, I'd only been deferring the paper shredding event to a later date.
At some point, I'll have to figure out how to set up the data backup so I can still retrieve the information when I inevitably change computers. Right now, the paper database is backed up to my external hard drive along with the rest of the data on my computer.
Overall, I am very happy that I'm no longer adding to my paper stash in the file cabinet. There's still some more scanning and hashing out the details of backing up the database, but I feel pretty good about my new system.