Journaling: The Number One Stress in College.

If there’s anything I wish I could improve in college, it would be having more time to do things. With classes every two hours on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and then Marching Band, things get a little stacked up. I still go on bike rides in the evening, I keep up on my Facebook, Twitter, and Google+; and then I’ve still got some sort of reading/homework to do. I’m also someone who journals everyday, (a diary for those of you who call it that) and that usually takes place right before I go to bed. So consequently, if everything else I’m doing pushes my bedtime really late, like 1:00 or 2:00, then I sometimes put off journaling the days’ events since I’m already pretty tired.

Honestly, and interestingly enough, out of everything that can stress me out in college, putting off journaling has to be the Number One stress creator for me. Journaling everyday has been something I’ve done since August 2007, with the exception of a few long summer trips, a day or two every 6 months, etc. So basically I’m holding myself to the tradition of recording everything that happens in my life. Of course, I didn’t have even close to this amount of stuff going on in my life when I started journaling at 14. No social networking besides YouTube, it was my rookie year in High School marching band, I only had 2 or 3 core friends, and no one else. (Oh, and of course, Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night) As I’ve gotten busier and busier, I’ve still somehow held onto this journaling thing for 4 great years.

The problem is obvious; my brain can only hold so much detailed information. If I hold off journaling for another day, I’ve not only got that day to write about still, but I just went through a whole other day, that I also need to process in my mind & write about. If this cycle continues – and recently it’s been happening a lot – I end up reaching the point where I’m at overload and have to cough up everything from the past week, as best as I can remember. It’s the biggest pain, trying to describe a day that was 5 or 6 days past, and needing to take about 5 times as long to write it down, compared to if you had just done it on that night. Not only that, but getting behind makes me feel like I’m missing out on the “present” of my life, since my mind’s desperately trying to hold on to the memories of the past couple of days.

Then I have a day where I’m in catch-up mode, spending much of my free time in the afternoon/evening getting back up to pace, journaling the last couple of days as best as I can remember. It’s also a setback from the writer’s perspective; when you journal on time, you might be able to write about a page or two for that specific day. If you get behind, and try to catch-up a few days later, you’re getting about half the length in your journal entries than you would’ve originally gotten. An epic 5 page day would now be about 2 pages.

So, funny story for everyone out there, getting behind on journaling is the absolute reason why I get stressed in college. Then finishing homework, grades, and stuff like that follows, ONLY when I’m behind on my journal entries. It’s an interesting cycle to say the least.

Back in 9^th grade, our school had a presentation about Rachel Scott, who was killed in Columbine HS in 1999. It was Rachel’s Challenge, which had a few key points to it, but one of them to accept the challenge was to keep a journal. I had tried to journal before and never got into it very much, but the statistic they then threw at me got me very intrigued. They showed something on the projector, it said that 97% of the people that kept a journal in college would graduate. And sitting there, 13 years old in my junior high school, I found this stat to be ground-breaking. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through with all of Rachel’s Challenge, but the journaling part? YES. For the next 8 months or so after the presentation, my drive to journal consistently went off course, until my best friend showed me his journals one time. He had been writing in one on-and-off since he was SEVEN!  We read through it and watched his writing, his humor, his friends, and life in general progress. I was completely re-inspired by that night, and motivated enough to start over. August 8^th, 2007 was the start of my journaling life, and since then it has stayed put as a staple of my evening routine. What abuse I’ve given such a tradition lately! How can I let myself lose it?

In writing this blog entry, I realized that I can’t do without it. I mean come on, I’ve got to be part of that 97 percent!!! I’ve gotta get my mind on the present & near future, I mean hey, this Saturday the marching band’s heading down to East Lansing, for the CMU-Michigan State game! FIRE UP CHIPS!!!!!

Leafs fans should be treated better than this

Playing pond hockey in 2008

Living in Michigan and being a die-hard Leafs fan is a hard thing to do. First of all, you have to actually care, and try to follow them as best as you can. The only Canadian TV channel I ever get to watch is CBC from Windsor, meaning those games are almost always the only ones I will ever get to watch. To keep up, I do watch every Game-In-Six on the Leaf’s website, basically a highlight reel of the game, goals, fights, etc. Though I may only get to watch about 15 live games during a season, I watch ALL the Game-in-sixes. If you don’t call that die-hard, I at least call it passionate.

Second of all, you’ve gotta have the balls to openly be a Maple Leafs fan, and take all the shit that goes along with it. Going to high school with a Leafs jersey on would sometimes even be an unpleasant experience, especially during playoff season. In my time at grade school, I only saw ONE OTHER PERSON ever wear a Maple Leafs jersey/sweater, back in 9^th grade. The one time we both wore ours the same day, and stood next to each other in the hall, was likely one of the coolest things I had ever done. Sadly that guy moved away about a year later, so I was now the lone Leafs fan.

A few days ago, I got a facebook message from a friend still in high school, she walked into her Law & Society class and there was a kid with a Leafs jersey on. When I read this I literally yelled at my computer, “WHAT??? Nawwwwwwww, THIS IS NOT HAPPENING…….THIS IS AWESOME!!!” I’m telling you, this kind of occurrence doesn’t happen much. Hats off to that kid, he probably got a lot of hate, just like I did. Even the Pittsburgh fans gave me hate! And they’re already in metro-Detroit of all things. Why are you telling me Canada sucks when over half your team is made up of Canadian players? (Or European, which doesn’t constitute American either)

Third, and the most obvious, you have to continue to be patient, as I have. The first season I caught onto hockey was right after the lockout, 2005-06. The Leafs had been making the playoffs consistently until the lockout, since then everything went downhill. After two 9^th place seasons, Toronto started to fall apart. Players started to leave, most importantly Sundin, leaving me quite disappointed in ’08 when he sat out half the season considering retirement, then simply joined the Canucks for millions. 2008-09 and 2009-10 were sad years for the Leafs, not even a team captain, the only club worse than ours was the Oilers. (And I felt bad for them too) We didn’t make the playoffs in 2011 either, so that’s six straight years. Many years of saying “we’ll make it next year” have never amounted to anything.

My teenage years of being a sports fan mainly consisted of my team letting me down, year after year after year. Though I have also been a fan of the Red Wings, the passion isn’t there like it is for Toronto. I get sick of bandwagon hockey fans, ones that simply yell at the TV and tell the players to “GO THE OTHER WAY” and get all pissed off at the goalie when he lets in one goal. That pretty much describes half the Red Wings fans I know, sadly. Who knew that when you have a classy hockey team like Detroit, who’s been in the playoffs every season since the early 90’s, you’d spoil all your fans in the process. Well, if anything, I can proudly say that I’m still proud of my team, even when they suck. I still watch every Game-in six, every game I can catch on CBC, even when they get curb-stomped by Boston or Buffalo or the Capitals, I’m still tuned in, because that’s all I get to watch.

Which brings me to my point. Yeah, lookin’ at you Leafs TV. If you check out a good amount of NHL team websites, you’ll find that many of them carry their preseason games online, live stream, for free. For Toronto, one of the biggest hockey cities in the world, Leafs TV thinks it can monopolize even PRESEASON GAMES for Christ sake, and make you subscribe to Leafs TV Interactive to watch them. Their “freeview” feature is only available to LeafsTV customers, so it’s actually not even free.

What a bunch of scumbags. I remember curling up in a blanket next to my desktop 2 years ago, eating a bowl of ice cream, watching the Leafs & Wings in a preseason game. They won it 5-4 in a shootout, had to be one of my favorite memories of the Leafs. What a shame that the Maple Leafs organization doesn’t give back to the fans. They’re the most valuable franchise in the NHL, at $505 Million, with an operating income of 82 million. Is there no room in the ACC for some love for the fans? Fans like me, who after following the team like mad, even when they’ve been mediocre the whole time, get shit on like this? A 2008 poll on all the teams of the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL finds Toronto ranked 121^st out of 122 in rewarding fans. And LeafsTV is now part of the problem. So fuck it, I guess I'll just go to Joe Louis Arena and see a Red Wings game for $30 a ticket, while Morbidly Obese Cats in Toronto continue to price the same type of ticket at over $200. Us fans can only do so much!

Beal City

So I never got to it since I've been a little busy with college stuff, but last week I did a ride to Beal City, MI. The whole ride was only 25 miles or so, but on my college bike - an 80's mountain bike with no suspension - you can't ride as efficiently as on the 7300. So in workout terms, it might've been just as good as a 40 miler on the 7300, I usually feel pretty drained after a long ride on the college bike.

As far as I know it's a 1988 Cycletech Novapro, and I can't find almost anything about this thing online. It's an 18-speed, with a bio-pace chain ring, and as far as I know, original chain & sprockets. The only thing I've altered while owning it is the actual seat, and replacing the tires & tubes. I doubt my dad ever rode it as much as I do, so it's in fairly good condition. The overall mileage for 2011, on both my 7300 and the Cycletech, is almost 3,000. WOO-HOO!

So far at CMU

So far Central has been quite a good experience, new classes, new people I know, and new adventures everyday. It turns out the FA is under a temporary restraining order, so classes have gone on without trouble. My favorite so far is a journalism course, required for my Journalism minor. One of the ongoing assignments is to write about a news article everyday, summerizing and giving a response. It's gotten me reading our campus newspaper, the Toronto Star, and the Morning Sun on a regular basis.
Our first home football game was awesome, the Chippewas beat SC State 21-6. As for the marching band, we rocked our first pregame & halftime of the season.
Being home for Labor Day weekend is almost a 'reward' so to say, for a well done first 2 weeks of the school year. I drove down to Ann Arbor to visit some good friends at U of M, and I'm even planning on checking out Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Arts Beats & Eats tomorrow!