the 13th letter

What holidays? 'The heck are you talking about…? Also, and this looks really weird to my eyes: the 13th letter: #21 Z: I am thankful for zippers. Because without them, using urinals would be a lot more problematic.

so challenge much late very continue wow I shall leave the spamming with Doge pics to those who are better at it than I am.

It's not going well. Grandpa is in hospital, diagnosed with a terminal disease. Grandma isn't coping with it very well. I'm not upset about it, it's not really surprising, given his age. But it's making me question the sense of many things… including my challenge goals. They feel pointless, and ultimately futile. Rationally, I know this isn't true; I know that, if this were to happen to anyone else, that I'd tell them precisely to focus on themselves and on the things they can change, like their health, their strength, and their career. Nevertheless, I still feel this way (pointlessness and futility). It adds an enormous amount of inertia to anything I want to do. Anyway, my Mom has taken charge of making sure I don't grind to a halt. So I probably won't. Still, don't expect any miracles anytime soon.

Hello there, Brigade. Good to see you're still kicking. I've made it here as well, finally, and I'm hoping to spend to cross the finish line together with everyone else. Hope you're doing well. Here's to a great week 2 and beyond. This time around, I'm building a proper foundation. Or so I hope. Oh also, I believe I owe Will the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield. Uh… trade for the Ball and Chain?

See the full challenge description for details. This is the abridged version. I feel like I've been going in circles for these past challenges. Nothing sticks for longer than a challenge or two. That's not a good reason to give up. And there are good reasons to continue. But it's a good reason to re-examine my strategy. But that is not a good reason to take a break. So I'm doing a "normal" challenge of sorts, but the actual task is to spend this time thinking about how to not go wrong again. Goals (as a homage to The Legend of Zelda, because Triforce, and I approve of trying force): Power: do Convict Conditioning exercises daily. Includes low-intensity, "off-day" exercises. Details to be posted later. Wisdom: rest enough, at the right time. Because sleep is an important part of health. Courage: apply for a job (as a Ph.D. student). Because selling oneself is scary. But necessary. Yes, if you read any of my previous challenges, then you've seen this before, in one way or another. That's the point. This isn't supposed to be novel, this is supposed to build a foundation. One that outlasts more than just a couple of challenges. Comments requested. Thanks for visiting.

Bonjour, Brigade! Just stopping by to both clean up my living quarters before I move back in here again (i.e. post a challenge thread) and to call dibs on the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield in the weapons storage, before Will does (trollolol). Hello old friends, and hello new ones. Glad to see you're still kicking. I'll join you soon, but I have a thing or two I'd like to finish before I concentrate on NF again. Won't take too long, I hope. See you then. Oh, and the Courier isn't joining us this round. Right now is the middle of her end-of-term exams period, and she's swamped with work. Don't worry though, aside from that, she's fine. I made sure of that. With fudge.

+20 mountain climbers +20 pushups I don't know how you're even getting these, seeing as to how you are up in space and I'm on Earth, but… does it really matter? (Also, bleh, Google Docs. Requires JavaScript. Can't let you do that, Star Fox.)

⅔-challenge report Stuff that happened The bootcamp in week one. As mentioned in my intro and the few updates so far, I've been on and have survived my most recent martial arts bootcamp at a beach in Croatia. It was warm, it was loud, it was sticky, I have sunburn and I have mosquito bites. That's about all there is to this one. In terms of bootcamps, for me this was one of the more "eh" ones. I am not much of a beach person, and besides the beach and the other group activities our bosses had planned for us, there was just plain not much for me to do. Eh. Application to Singapore, #2. Singapore has multiple universities, and I had only sent in application papers for one of them. Well, not anymore. The 50-year martial arts celebration. So our branch of martial arts[1] had its "50 years in Germany" anniversary, and we were hosting the event. Unlike what I announced, the event took place during week three, not week four. And like I announced, everyone was slowly loosing their mind as the day approached. Anyways, the event was a big success, and we received lots of praise for our efforts. It was worth all the lost sanity. My mom went to the hospital. And then my grandma followed. These two incidents aren't directly related, but… they were timed so well, it's almost as if they planned for this to happen. Anyway, on week three day six, my mom was admitted to hospital for severe recurring pains in the stomach area. Diagnosis: organ leakage. She was patched up and monitored until the Friday after, then released… though she was barred from any strenuous activity whatsoever for three weeks.[2] Saturday morning, Grandma was admitted to hospital as well. She had fallen down a few days prior, and the bruises were becoming more conspicuous. Diagnosis: broken bones, because osteoporosis. She was patched up and bandaged and cast and whatnot, and then released, to be re-admitted soon for an operation to… tie the bone splinters together more tightly or something like that, because we waited too long and the x-ray picture is supposedly rather un-pretty. She's still pending as I speak. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand since my dad and my bro are working and my mom is barred from physical work, I've been playing the "ambulance" service. Stuff that should have happened, but didn't Burpees, burpees, burpees. Weren't done. At least, not very many. We're talking like 20/150 here. Ugh. Convict Conditioning. Was done even less. 1/32 or so. Ugh². Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues. Sorta half done. And by "half done", I mean "I halfway demonstrated each of the virtues… but only by accident, not by intention." Blerch. More stories from Thirteen and Emma. Just, no. So, what now? I now realize that I probably should have sat out on this round. Clearly I've bitten off more than I can chew. So what do you do when you have too much cake in your mouth? Simple. Just keep on chewing, and try not to vomit all over the table. So that's what I'll be doing: I'll continue with this mess, taking as much time as it needs to get back on track, and not force myself to do more than I can sustain. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have burpees and bridges to do. Virtuously. And then I will draft my next story chapter. 1Tae Kwon Do, as taught by Grandmaster Kwon and his disciples. The Grandmaster's main work consists of establishing and supporting TKD schools in Germany, Greece and a few other countries in Europe, so I'm not too sure of his level of fame outside of Europe… and even less so of ours. But Grandmaster Kwon is a student of Korean General Choi Hong-Hi, whose name should be known to any TKD'ist in one way or another. (Yes, TKD has a very splintered and schizophrenic history for such a young art.) That said, probably the most obvious difference between "our" TKD and the two giants, the World Taekwondo Federation and the International Taekwon-Do Federation, is that we're a "traditional" branch instead of a "sports" branch. Which roughly translates to our emphasis being on self-defense and health instead of competitive sparring. Think home gym vs. wrestling with a bear: we're the former, WTF and ITF are the latter. Sorta. Oh, and our branch's defining trait (as opposed to other traditional branches) is our non-contact nature. Ideally—i.e. neglecting accidents—we strike thin air, but not each other. Which is also why we don't wear protective gear. So a better comparison would probably be something like bodyweight exercises in a home gym vs. wrestling with a bear in knight armor. There. Now try getting that image out of your head. You're welcome. 2My mom is mostly fine. One of the first things she said while still in hospital was "Have you sent that application already? Why not?" And one of the first things she said when she arrived back home was "Why is your room still a mess?" I'm tellin' you, she's fine.

Same deal as last time: connection is metered, so I'll keep this brief. I'm spending much of my little free time on catching up on sleep (martial arts sessions are at 6am and 6pm, with a lot of "optionals" in between). Accordingly, CC is a disaster, as are burpees. After this, I'll return to my hut and get working on my one-rep CC round and my five burpees, because this is getting on my balls, srsly. Temperance on the other hand - which Franklin restricts to food and drink - is comparatively easy. Oh, and the one thing I've taken with me from our two full-day outings? Sunburn, across all four extremities. Yay 4 sunburn!

Connection is metered, so I'll keep this brief: our bosses are even more sadistic than I would have imagined, and the heat is making working out really unattractive. Hello, willpower issues! But on the plus side, as part of yesterday's evening session, we did 7 burpees, and this morning we had 5 fully submerged underwater pushups, which I'm both gonna count as exercise. Whew! I'll work on the rest. See you next check-in!

Bonjour. Out of town this week, and having to deal with bad connectivity and a tablet with an awkward typing interface. So bear with me please. I'll catch up with everyone by next week. Anyway, here's my next round: the 13th letter is in detention (doing burpees)

Next round: the 13th letter is in detention (doing burpees)

Since I love getting a great start at the beginning of a challenge run, I'm going to do the best possible thing I can do to make the first week a week of a resounding success: go to a martial arts bootcamp at a beach site and relinquish control over my timetable to two crazy trainers who enjoy making us do push-ups in the water (in full gear of course) just a tad bit too much.[1] Oh, and what better place to write a PhD application to, well, anywhere-not-here than by putting us in straw huts with no electricity or paper whatsoever? Doesn't that sound great? … Okay, so now you know where my first week is going, let's talk about week four: the 50-year celebration of our martial arts branch in Germany and Europe, and we're hosting the event. Some 600+ people are expected to come. It's gonna get crazy. Not just that week, but also the weeks before, as everyone from our school slowly loses sanity and gives in to paranoia. Oh, and did I mention that the other Singapore application is due by end of June, right around the 50-year celebration above? … So yeah, by the looks of it, this challenge too is dominated by the "important and urgent"… and not the "important but not urgent", which is where I'm trying to get to. So, taking into account that I don't (realistically) have a lot of say in what I'll be doing, I'll be working on the small things which I can choose to do, in between everything else. In detail: Challenge Goals Burpees, burpees, burpees. To misquote a case study from Made To Stick: “Why are challenges successful? It's because of three things: Burpees, burpees, and burpees.â€[2] Therefore, I pledge to do (number of week) × 5 burpees per day, minimum. Convict Conditioning. I've been on and off CC for the whole of my NF career. If there is one major downside to this program,[3] I'd say that it is intimidating to restart if you've slacked on it for some time. (At least for me that's the case.) Therefore, I pledge to do round_up((number of week) ÷ 2) sets of at least one repetition of a CC exercise, one CC exercise per day. Both of these goals aren't exercise goals in the common sense, they're willpower goals. They're supposed to get me used to exercising regularly again. Therefore, while there is a steady increase in load (# of burpees/sets), right now I don't care about e.g. having at least 8 reps per set or so. Just that I show up and do the work, no matter how shitty it is. Side Quest Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin outlines 13 virtues he practiced to achieve moral perfection. I pledge to practice the 13 virtues according to Franklin's system (with modifications to virtue #12, chastity, because it's based on religion and IMO thus outdated) over the next 13 weeks. Each week, I will focus on exhibiting that week's virtue, as well as all preceding weeks' virtues, taking note of where I have failed to do so. This means that for this challenge, I will be practicing the first six virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality and industry. And yes, there is a steady increase in load here as well. Book 7/Conclusion Of Book 6 …will come sometime next week if I find internet access, and at the beginning of week two otherwise. 1I swear I'm not making this up and I'm not exaggerating. They really love making us do this sort of stuff. 2The actual case study is about a local newspaper with above-average readership. Original: “… asked why the [local newspaper] Daily Record has been successful, [founder] Adams replies, ‘It's because of three things: Names, names, and names.’†(Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Made To Stick. p. 42) 3I hear that not everyone is happy with CC's progression system, its steps and conditions for advancing. But I don't feel knowledgable enough in calisthenics to pass (useful) judgement here.

Subbed because burpees. I seriously hope you know what you got yourself into.

So now, one week after I said I'll continue business as usual, it's quite clear to me that this isn't working at all. Since I vowed to get back on my feet three weeks ago, I've effectively managed… nothing. Nothing challenge-related at least. My life continues to be dominated by commitments to others (mostly tuition) and (unnecessary) downtime otherwise.I realize that I have two enemies to confront, inertia and un-preparation: inertia builds an impenetrable and ever-growing fort of shit I still have to do, and un-preparation keeps the fort safe by guerilla-ing me from all sides.So yes, agreed, a change of tactics is called for here. Let's see what I cook up next. I be fine now, thanks for asking. Singapore application apparently arrived in time (whew!), so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Replies are expected to take a long time though (like "several months"-type of long), so… yeah…And eh, ninja training. We'll see about that in the next round.

In my experience with friendships, the ones that last are the ones where I feel like I "know" the person, completely. So then my advice for making better friends is to listen closely to what your existing friends are saying (about themselves, that is). Ask them about their hopes and fears, their good and bad experiences, and their views and thoughts on matters. Ask them for help, or for advice. Get them invested in wanting to talk about themselves, showing them that you will listen to what they say, and that what they say will help or inform you in some way. And on the flip side: listen. Listen closely, listen completely. Shut out distractions, don't reply unless asked a direct question, and try to physically show them that you're listening. Tip I heard: restate what they just told you, adding any of their implicit feelings. When you hear "That kid! The box was empty yet again! This is, like, the 100th time!", your reply could then be "You were upset that your brother had eaten up all the cheese." Another tip: asking for help or for advice is a good way to break the ice when talking to someone for the first time. But you must also be willing to return the favor later, otherwise this is a very fast way to make someone hate you. And on the flip "flip side", be ready to talk about yourself, because sometimes you're on the talker side of the scenario above. Talk about your hopes and fears, your good and your bad experiences, and your views and thoughts on matters. Ideally, you want the "deep" stuff: deep insights, experiences with big impacts, and nuanced thoughts on complicated matters. Because that's where you get others (and sometimes even yourself) to realize how complex (i.e. interesting) a person you are. Complaint #1 that doesn't count: "But what if people are jerks when listening to me? What if they don't really listen? What if they make fun of me instead?" Response: Yes, that will happen. No, it doesn't excuse you from still trying. My thoughts are: (1) Listening closely is hard, and it's unlikely to be something people have been taught, so most of us suck at it, as do you probably. So practice it, and demonstrate some tolerance towards those who don't quite get it right, because they probably mean no harm. (2) Jerks exist, and you probably have a few of them in your surroundings. They probably also already were jerks before you opened up to them, not because. Your talking to them just uncovered this quicker. Which means you can get on with your life quicker as well. Complaint #2 that doesn't count: "But I don't have any deep insights/big impact experiences/etc." Response: Yes, you do. You just probably don't think of them as big because they are so familiar to you. I've managed to impress people (teens even) by telling of how I had to shop for and cook food for myself during my studies. Like, without my parents. (Gasp!) Another story I told my tuition pupil today was how I figured out the relationship of why a triangle's circumscribed circle's center must lie along any edge's perpendicular bisector. While the exact geometry is not so important, it did start with me trying to draw a figure of how this stuff relates to one another and slowly deducing the necessary measurements and then the relationship. It is apparently completely unheard of that a 13-year old kid would spend as much time on maths as I did, voluntarily, out of curiosity. Now, on the matter of being the one talking, instead of listening: I personally have had great success with trying to tell people relevant examples from my own past, where I had feelings/thoughts/insights/experiences similar to or otherwise relevant to what the other person just told me. But it still needs to come from a standpoint of demonstrating understanding (or concern) for the other person. And for me it tends to work better with younger people (juniors, tuition pupils, …) than with peers. Case in point: my very experience with sharing relevant examples from my past is such an example relevant to what you just said.

So, next challenge is apparently scheduled for start on June 9th, in roughly two weeks. …which means I have a bit of time to clean up the mess that I've left behind here… …which means I'll just merrily extend this challenge to an 8-week challenge… …which means my track record this time around won't look quite as sad… … No complaints? No? Good.

Ugh, right. Challenge. And ugh, what the hell, I'm on page two of the Monks forum? When did… How could… How does that even… Gah! … So, I believe the last you've heard of me challenge-wise is that I returned from my trip to Portland during week 1, and that I was having a bit of trouble getting back into my daily rhythm. And that I was going to get back on track with my challenge-induced training. Yeah, right… We're wrapping up week 5, and I've logged an astounding 0 sessions of… anything, really. Fudge. And on top of that, I've had like 5 cold showers in 4 weeks. Y'all realize what this means? I'm becoming a weenie! So, as atonement for my neglect in the past 4 weeks, here's a whirlwind tour of what I did do in the mean time: Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. This was a very enjoyable and intriguing read, arguing that an effective (or, as I would phrase it, a virtuous) life must build on a solid foundation of character, and that any technical advice only (to achieve X, do Y, then do Z) will not cover up for an underdeveloped character in the long run. It's definitely given me a lot to think about, and a new mindset with which to approach tasks in the future, such as NF challenges. The book has also made me realize how much during the past few weeks I have zoomed back and forth between the "important and urgent" and "not important" camps, and how little time I've spent in the "important and not urgent" camp. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge. Took the "General" Graduate Record Examination, a bachelor-level cross-discipline exam that's needed for admission to graduate studies at U.S. universities (or those that follow the U.S. system). Preparation for this one was a pain in the butt, because I had to do half of my preparation in Portland (week 1), where I hardly got any done. Week 2 (immediately back in Germany, suffering from jetlag) was accordingly tight. Still, I received decent to great grades for the different disciplines, and I'm mostly pleased with the result, save for some reservations about what they think of my writing ability. Oh well. Applied for the universities in Zurich, again. New intake, new opportunity. Used the GRE results and applied for one of the two major universities in Singapore. Another hassle, because they insisted on having all their paperwork together by mid-May, and I only had my paperwork together days before then. It's mostly my fault for not preparing this properly beforehand, though. Still, this was important and urgent, so it had to be done at (almost) any cost. That's what I was referring to above with me zooming between "important and urgent" and "not important". Anyway, the other university's deadline is end of June, and they don't require paperwork by then, just a complete electronic application in their application tracking system. Which pretty much boils down to filling out a not-horribly-long form. So I think I'm good on that one, particularly since I have already collected all the application data in one place. Registered a set of domain names for an upcoming project related to my blog. Right now it's only an "not urgent and not yet important" activity, but I'm hoping that'll change soon. Might as well put a bit of pressure on myself early. So that's that. Now back to this challenge. Onward and upward!

Hi Will! I see you're doing well. And your workouts still put me to shame. Keep it up! And just to add to your collection of music that should freak you out when played in the background in the dark… I'm just gonna leave this here. 'k? 'k. (from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess) (from Final Fantasy X): in the game passage you are actually being chased down (from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword): IMO, and because I know the actual level, this isn't really creepy, but friends have said otherwise (from Sonic Unleashed): likewise, I don't think it's creepy, but you may disagreeHappy creeping!

Book 6 – Act 1 I had always wondered about the idealized display of one-vs-many battles in Assassin's Creed games: If I'm surrounded by five people, and one of them attacks and I counter, then would the other four people just watch me kick that attacker's butt? Wouldn't it be much more likely that I'm gangbanged while dealing with attacker #1, because I'm occupied, or maybe even because they were just waiting for someone to make the first move? I suspect that this would be closer to reality, at the very least for unarmed combat, but then the game developers wanted to make the battles more fun to control, and otherwise players would just spam smoke bombs to get out of gangbangs. Of course, we didn't have any smoke bombs. In lieu of smoke bombs, I made use of two pieces of wisdom I had picked up on during my training in the Dojo: 1) one of the main purposes of weapons is to keep your enemy at a distance, and 2) aim for the soft spots your enemy does not protect. It turns out that dangerously swinging your weapon around you is enough to keep others from blindly attacking you, and that these enemies at least did not expect me to attack their calves, one of the armor's weak spots. It didn't take too long for me to manage to snag each of the four guards around me with my pole, causing them to fall to the ground one by one. Emma was administering punches, kicks and pole strikes to the groin area, another rather weakly protected part of the armor. As they all fell, we got out of the cell, closed it behind us and ran towards the exit. Once we were out of Block G, we switched to a new disguise: Emma dumped her guard equipment by the side and folded her arms behind her back while I tied her hands lightly and escorted her towards the exit. Hiding in plain sight, so to speak. Every few minutes, a guard or two would run past us towards block G, but none stopped to take a closer look at us. In no time we had reached the perimeter of the asylum. Things were trickier here, but not by much more. Emma, with her keen eye, spotted a blind spot in the outer wall, with soft ground and unbarbed wire. Talk about easy. In about ten minutes we had dug a hole deep enough for both of us to squeeze through. We did, and barely three minutes later, we were deep in the forest. There was still no sign of anyone looking for us outside of cell block G. "Whew, that went pretty smooth," I exclaimed, somewhat exhausted. "Sure did," Emma answered. "Did you expect anything else?" "Well yeah. A lot more resistance, more trouble to work around, and a lot more bruises." "Why? Did you think you weren't ready for this?" "Actually, no, I didn't." "Is this the first time you've applied your monk training outside of the Dojo?" "Yes. I would've thought that real combat was messier." "You mean, you thought that what you've learned wasn't applicable?" "More like 'idealized.'" "Ha ha, yeah, maybe a bit." "But this wasn't so bad at all. Sure, when you told me I'd be boxing my way out on my own, I was all sorts of terrified. But now… I don't quite see what exactly I was so scared of. It was dangerous, yes, but not unnecessarily difficult." "It's a sign that you're growing, sweetcheeks." "Thanks, Emma." "Horizontally, I mean." "…" "Just kidding, sweetcheeks! Just kidding!" *sigh* "Let's make our way back to the Dojo.", Emma continued. "I'm sure everyone's already worried." "Roger that." Author's commentary: Based on my experiences in Portland. To my fellow martial artists, the idea of quadrupling their training volume under the supervision of a grandmaster sounds horrifying. But getting in a groove takes all of 2 training sessions, and suddenly it's not nearly as big of a deal anymore. The same is true for that 7x1h specialty training "marathon" we had in Heidelberg a couple of months ago. Just remember to pay lots of attention to rest (and, in Portland, food), and you're set.

Curse you, Kishi. You basically just challenged me to work on my burpee debt, didn't you?

So I got some rest, as requested, but I'm still suffering from that long plane flight with the "on-board entertainment system" (= a screaming kid that wouldn't stop all the way from the U.S. to Europe). I'm still not quite on a German clock… slept at 7pm, woke up at 3am, slept again at 10am and woke up at 5pm. Go figure. Tonight should be relatively timely, so hopefully tomorrow is normal again. Challenge-wise I'm treating today like an off day due to sickness, because that's not too far from the truth. A cold shower was had, and strength training will still be done, but nothing more. Full force tomorrow. I promise. Post-week1 story segment is in the works. Tomorrow or the day after, as time and brain power permits.

Back in Germany. With a severe sleep deficit. Because I caught what should have been labeled a red-eye flight. Updates tomorrow. Well, there actually isn't really anything to report, what with me being on the road… err, air… all the time. So scratch that. Business as usual from tomorrow on. Yes, that means cold showers. G'night.

It seems to keep slipping my mind. Well, have you been running around the past few weeks staring into space and saying nothing more than "Yes, master Marik"? Then we might have a cause... On that account, I'd like to rephrase my comment: Geez, your thread moves so fast yet lags so much...

~~~ That's all in your miiiiiiiiind. ~~~