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Suburban Rhythm - Reel Big Fish |
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Hartford
So everything with Hartford is slowly starting to fall into place. I finally got my confirmation from them about housing. I'll be living with Ron Chance, one of the other first year students in the program. The two of us will be sharing a 4-bedroom townhouse, so we each get a private bedroom and a private office. It seems as though we have to share a bathroom, which seems strange for a 4-bedroom place, but whatever. It's cheaper, larger and comes with more amenities than any other place I could find in Hartford, so at least until I know the town better, this really seems like the best place to live. Plus, it's on Asylum Avenue. How can I possibly pass up living on Asylum Avenue when I'm going to a Psych school?
I met with my adviser last week when he came to Long Beach to take his daughter to college. We sorted out my schedule for the first semester.
Monday:
2:00 - 4:30 - Physiological Psychology
Tuesday:
No class
Wednesday:
8:30 - 11:00 - Psychological Assessment 1
2:00 - 4:30 - Experimental Design
Thursday:
No class
Friday:
8:30 - 11:00 - Theories of Personality
11:20 - 1:00 - Psychological Assessment 1 lab
I also have my pre-practicum at the New England Cognitive Center, which will last for at least the entire semester. I will be there for 8-10 hours a week (hence the no classes on Tuesday and Thursday), and will also include a meeting once a week with a licensed clinician to discuss my work in the program, and a once a week class (but there's no set dates or times for that yet, i assume it just means I'll be meeting with a professor about it). And of course, a number of readings to go along with it.
So essentially, I'm taking 6 classes with the pre-practicum. Unfortunately, being a first year student, I had very little choices in my classes and schedule, which is why I have two separate 8:30am classes. But it's only a semester, and ideally later on I'll be able to avoid having to be in class quite that early. At least I live close to campus.
Orientation starts on the 29th, so I'm shooting for arriving in Hartford around the 22nd, which would give me a good week to learn a little about the town, buy some stuff for my new place, and hopefully meet some new people.
Stephanie
We've had a lot of ups and downs this summer. Last week was really tough in particular. I'll avoid the details, since they're messy and I'm not even sure that either of us understands them all. Long story short though, she spent all of Saturday on standby trying to fly out here to apologize for everything that went wrong from her side. It was something that meant a lot to me, and really showed me how much she cares about me and this relationship. In the end what matters is that the good times are more important to me than the bad ones. I love this girl. She's smart, goofy, pretty, really into sports, fun to be around, and has really helped me a lot through the last year and a half. She's really amazing.
It sucks that we have problems, because when things are good (which is still like 95% of the time), I feel like my life is great. I feel like I'm happier with her than I ever have been before. But when things aren't good, I just feel like my life is miserable. We're both scared about what might happen when I leave for Hartford, and she's still got a year left in college. But the only thing we can honestly say is 'there's no point in being scared about what might happen, especially when you're happy with what's happening now'. We both want to be realistic about how much of a challenge Hartford will be, and we know that it's going to be a strain on our relationship. But as long as we're both happy, we're going to keep trying.
Even though we don't really fight much, when we do fight it becomes bad. I think in the 9 months we've 'officially' been dating, we've gotten into 4 serious arguments. And obviously I want to say 'well, it's normal for couples to fight about stuff', but each time it's happened I've been so miserable while it's been going on that it doesn't feel normal. We spent a long time Saturday night talking about the problems we have, and trying to figure out the mistakes we've been made. We brought a lot of stuff out into the open, and really talked about our need to communicate better, since the last two big fights we've had have stemmed completely from bad communication.
Poker
So I didn't do well at all this summer in the world series. I couldn't last more than a few hours in any tourney, but I'd honestly rather bust 6 hours into the main event than 3 days into it and bust a few hours before hitting the money. I mean, at least in the later way you have a solid chance, but it'd be far more frustrating to get that close to having some sort of return on your investment and then bust. For a few weeks following the main event I just ran like shit everywhere I played. I couldn't cash in a tourney, I couldn't win in ring games, I'd get outdrawn, then make mistakes, miss my draws, lose with aces, lose with sets, lose vs. draws, and just generally started really hating poker.
Two Sundays ago I final tabled a $50 tourney, then last week I ran and played well and had my single best ever week in cash games, along with my single best ever day in cash games. I then final tabled the $50r this sunday to double my weeks winnings, making it my second best week ever (only beaten by the week I final tabled the $215). So I'd say for now it looks like I'm back on track in poker. It feels good to have a few decent scores recently, since I don't know how much I'm going to be playing once I get to Hartford.
Given how well last week went I decided to buy myself a new laptop. After a lot of debate I settled on the MacBook. The Air looked spiffy, but it's nothing more than expensive eye candy. The MacBook Pro just had a bunch of stuff I neither need nor want, since I'm really just looking for something with a good battery life that I can take to class for notes, and ideally play some a table or two while sitting on a couch. I thought a lot about getting another windows-based laptop, and I guess the only reason I really settled on the mac was I wanted to try something new. Plus everyone I know who has a mac loves it. We'll see how it goes I guess.
Friends
I feel like most of my friends in Redondo are either gone. I've done an awful job of keeping in touch with people since graduation. It sucks that I've lost touch with so many people, because now I feel so awkward about calling someone up who I haven't seen in years and saying "hey, lets hang out!". On top of that, the people I have kept in touch with are - for the most part - either not here any more, or working so often that we can barely ever hang out. I guess that's just what college does though. I wish I had kept in touch with everyone, but that's just not really feasibly possible. All the BBYO friends, all the RUHS friends, it's just so hard to stay in contact with everyone.
So to make up for it, I spent a lot of time this summer going places to visit people. Obviously Tucson was at the top of the list of places I wanted to go. But then there was Vegas. I spent some of my time out there with people from Redlands, but then there were friends from Redondo who had moved there who I wanted to spend time with, and friends from Chicago who were all going out there for a weekend that I went to visit. Then there was San Diego, and of course Chicago. I guess having to get on a plane or drive for 2 or 3 hours is a long way to go to hang out with people, but c'est la vie.
Olympics
I'm looking forward to these Olympics so much less than I have in previous years. Part of the reason is that, while I certainly don't support a lot of Chinas policies, I'm really not going to want to see and hear all of the controversy surrounding the events. All the people who are going to be making these anti-China demonstrations, all the athletes who are going to make some sort of statement during the games, all the commentary on Chinas policies, pollution, history, etc. The Olympics are just supposed to be an opportunity for sports, and I think the Olympic comity could have picked far better places Beijing for these games.
And of course there's my usual summer Olympics complaint - NBC doesn't like fencing. The one sport I'd really really want to watch is only going to be shown during '24-hour multiple sports coverage' according to nbcolympics.com. I mean, sure, people love watching swimming and gymnastics. but come on, don't tell me that the mens sabre finals are going to be shown from 2am-9am along with women's wrestling finals, womens table tennis, US vs. Netherlands softball, and US vs. New Zealand women's basketball. Don't force me to sift through all of that in the wee hours of the morning to see the one thing I really want to watch during the Olympics. And of course, if if i want to watch the mens sabre gold medal match, I have to watch online.
At least most of the events will be online, but come on... show the world some sword fighting, don't put it on at the worst time with all the other sports that no one wants to see. Sure, other than rooting for an American gold, I don't really care who wins. But that's just because I enjoy watching the sport, and wish I could actually see it on TV. I mean, sword fighting has to be more exciting to watch on TV than cycling or canoeing, right? NBC doesn't agree.
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