It's certifiably spring time. And with Spring, well, this time of spring, many friends, mutual friends, acquaintances, and obviously strangers are finishing up school. A lot of colleges have their finals/exams this week (or have them next week) which puts closure on a semester. I haven't put too much history in my blogs, I think, but I wanted to talk about my springtime experiences.

Also, I've been playing pickup outside. When the weather is nice (~70!) although the rims are brutal, playing outside is a lot of fun. Fresh air and all. My sleep schedule has been wacky (I've been on a 30hr type day the past week where I sleep until 5pm, stay up all night, go to bed early, wake up at 3am or so, stay up late, then wake up at 5pm the following day - basically this has gone on for 2 cycles) but I've been able to play outside.

Yesterday I played for 2.5 hrs straight, wore my ankle guard (ankle feels much stronger and better with it, although it looks a little goofy) and the highlight of the day took place when I was running 5s w/ 3 guys I had never played before (one guy was a good shooter, other 2 guys were ball stoppers/bad athletes/probably a 2 or 3 out of 10 in terms of overall ability) and Alex. We were matched up against a bunch of guys I play with routinely, including a kid named Justin. Justin is a very athletic kid, a bit stronger, faster, and about my height/size than me. He is a decent shooter, but he's able to explode to the rim and his handle is very good. Skipping ahead a bit, (then will come an adjacent story) we played to 15 and fell down like 11-5. Alex was guarding Justin because Justin was bringing the ball up, and I was matched with Jordan (Jordan is 6'3 w/ incredibly long Kirilenko type arms, finishes around the rim well; he was one of the bigs on my IM team, really nice guy). I don't like guarding the post, and I had to cheat off Jordan to help Alex contain Justin. (I was hedging in the paint, Jordan was able to nail a wide open 3 since I couldn't rotate) For the record, my teammates aside from Alex were pretty brutal defensively, although one (the good shooter who was a positive impact player for sure) had height, so I would've been better served to switch off.

Where am I going with all this? Oh, minor digression, I hate playing with people who are ball stoppers on offense and also don't play solid defense. It's just not fun. So, I tell Alex we should switch (and have the tall kid guard Jordan, Alex would rotate to "the Hammer", another IM teammate who was probably the best shooter on the floor - he has size but cannot create a shot) not because Alex isn't a good defender - I think he is - but he was just getting overwhelmed a bit by Justin. So, all this buildup of the story, and I'm going to rush the gist of it: I locked him down. I forced a couple of steals by attacking him when he held the ball at the top of the key (leading to a layup) and aside from 1 really tough turn around fall away he rimmed in and 1 quasi travel where he was able to get on the low block and work an up-and-under, he wasn't able to produce at all. He was the lifeblood of their team, and we ended up winning 16-14. Needless to say, I was proud of myself. Defense wins championships, imo.

One play, I stripped the ball and it caromed to the sideline; I raced after it, and another kid on their team darted towards it too. We cracked heads, but I didn't let it phase me as I was able to retrieve the ball and pushed it to one of our cherry pickers. My head hurts me now (I have a big bump on it) and they kept asking if I was ok (I really am fine) and this is the side story: I like contact. Well, I play through it well. I miss the wrestling aspects of enduring pain and turning a sport into a contest of wills. Let's face it: I am a good athlete but I was never a great one. (Hell, I wish I was) But with certain things, I am incredibly intense. (See: Poker) Anytime I could turn an instance into a contest of wills, either enduring pain, a stamina match, whatever, I really like my chances. It's just the best way for me to win at various games.

I do like team sports. My favorite sport not to play but also watch is obviously basketball. Nothing comes close. But of the sports I played, throughout highschool (and a little bit of college) were all individual sports. I don't know if it's coincidence or by design, well, I didn't play basketball because the team was too good ("so I'd give wrestling a shot"). I did play football for a year, but that was mainly because I had never played before and always wanted to try it. (Conclusion: Incredibly fun sport, but, the ratio of practice time to game time is so minuscule it really is frustrating) I ran XC (was a key contributor of our senior year team, we placed 2nd in our sectionals, funny enough losing to Alex's alma mater Hopkins - by a wide margin... How are they so good at running?..), Wrestled, and played Tennis. Obviously none of these sports involve holding teammates accountable. (Well, in doubles for tennis you do, but whatever)

Let's get back to Spring. I suppose this is almost a slightly painful time for me, because it is a reminder: 1. I have not graduated from college 2. I probably wont for some time. About #1, I've come to peace with this a while ago, mainly because I've been doing (what I deem) more important things with my life. Everyone in my family range from VERY accomplished academically to at least college finished, but frankly, I don't feel "having a diploma" or so really matters. The unfortunate thing is there is a stigma I suppose socially that perhaps is deserving "of the masses," but when broken to the individual, no longer really holds true. Tricky wording and perhaps I'll break that down further... later though.

About #2, I don't even know how many credits I have. Every (nearly every, I suppose) person has some issue or issues that the cliche "ignorance is bliss" is attached. Or, they'd rather not face the cold facts. Denial, I guess. For ME, I don't know how much of this is due to denial and how much is laziness, or, just understanding finding out is irrelevant, so it's wasted effort. (I cannot stand wasted effort) Certainly the denial % is greater than zero, though. So, why is spring somewhat of a painful time? Well, for 3 years in a row I pretty much flaked on college during the spring. Before last year, the previous 3 years I had continual epiphanies, pretty much saying "what is the purpose of doing this work?" It was a cycle that led (me) to the conclusion of: "Do well in middle school so that you can do well in high school. Do well in high school so you can do well in college. Do well in college so that you..." etc. what if one was to say, the cycle ends now?

So, playing basketball w/ Jordan and Hammer yesterday, Jordan made a joke that he has all this free time now that his last final just ended. I can relate to that! but I love free time. I used to love alone time (I still do, but living alone has provided me with almost too much).

I have anywhere from minimum 2 to maximum 3 years of college completed, but the problem really is anywhere I end up going to finish things will probably make me do a full 2. It's a joke, but it's their joke, their game, their system... I had a bunch of AP credits from HS, but not enough to quite count it as a semester. (More than half a semester though) In RPI, I did poorly the 1st semester, but I still gained credits. I left midway through the 2nd semester, which unfortunately meant I wasted a ton of work in the classes where I went. Well, we can collectively laugh at "ton of work," since I didn't do a ton of work, and I only went to a few of my classes, so it wasn't much of a waste. In Fairfield, I rebounded over the summer completing a bunch of classes to bring me back up to being a sophomore (at this point, ~.25 + .5 +>.25, or atleast 1, a smidgen more) and those went fine. 1st semester I crushed, probably best scholastic semester, but similar to RPI, crashed in the springtime. I just stopped caring about the work, and again, a ton of work was wasted. I was able to get all of those credits, at least, but it was certainly rough, that was in jeopardy. Or, .5 + not quite .5, for a solid 2 at this point. Finally, at Marin, I did very well the 1st semester, only to repeat (3 for 3) a springtime let down, where I stopped going to one class (real estate economics) and one of my econ finals got skipped (this, of all the errors in the system or with me, was fully on the system, as I had scheduled a later final, and they never had one for me. I didn't care enough to pursue this beyond trying to reach the professor several times - it was their fault, the minutiae was too much). Anyway, that is .5 + ~some. For a grand total of somewhere between 2 and 3, but again, most likely needing 2 full years somewhere.

Not sure the point of all this, but I guess my low point the past few years typically has coincided with spring. In many ways spring is great, like being able to play basketball, but in some ways it's a bit sad for me. I def. prefer the winter. Jumping ahead, my video (part 1) will be out this weekend - I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO PEOPLE DISCUSSING THE VIDEO IN THE THREAD!