the 13th letter

Book 5 – Act 1 (See also the previous act.) "There he is! Don't let him escape again!" Dammit! I zoomed down cell block R, frantically looking for a new hiding spot. None. Not a single one. All while the guards were chasing me. If only I had been more careful. If only I had been more patient. If only I hadn't tried that risky dash across the hallway. I found an open empty cell in one of the side corridors, so I jumped in and closed the door. Well, not without jamming the lock first, using that tiny stone I had found a few days before. I sat down on the bunk, wrapped the bed sheet around myself and tried to catch my breath. Emma had lied to me. This was nothing like Assassin's Creed. The guards were way harder to circumvent and had much better memory and coordination than the AC guards. There was no jingle or color indicator for when one of them spotted me. And where exactly where all those abundant hiding spots? And the minimap? And don't get me started on "infinite sprint"… Thankfully, at least my training was paying off. That deafening siren that announced the guard shift changes? I'd gotten quite used to it as an alarm clock. The strength training while I was hiding in a cell? It made me a fiercer fighter, for that one time I had to engage that guard in a fistfight. Those maps of the surroundings I had drawn? Tactical warfare—and geometry—at its finest. Cold showers? Painful, but not unbearable. My fist fight was more hazardous. As I thought about my situation, I heard a guard come, so I put on my best "insane" face. At first, the guard just walked by my cell. But then he stopped, turned back, and looked back at me, frowning. Oh crap! He's probably expecting this cell to be empty! Then he looked at the cell's lock, and began fumbling in his pocket. Not good. Within seconds he'd realize the lock had been tampered with. "…Santa? Santa, is that you?" I tried to put on my best dazed voice as I looked at the guard, who had stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh my, Santa, it really is you!", I continued, trying my best to sound convincing. "I was worried you wouldn't come this year!" "I'm not—" the guard stammered, but I didn't let him get any further. "Santa, I've been a really good boy this year! You came here to bring me presents, didn't you? Right? Right?" "I… uh…" "I knew it! Lots and lots of presents. But say, Santa, where is your bag of presents? And where are your elves? And your reindeer?" "You know, that's—" "Did you lose them, Santa? Did you? Do you need help finding them? Do you want me to find them for you?" "No, that's… okay." the guard finally said, regaining his composure. "I'll just… uh… go and get my bag of presents. You wait here, okay?" "Oh, okay, Santa. But please hurry! I can't wait to get my presents!" "Sure, sure. Be right back." the guard answered, moving away from my cell. "I'll be waiting." I called out to him. It had worked. He had left the cell block. I let out a sigh of relief and waited for my heart rate to return to normal. Whew. I had never been that great at acting, but apparently I was convincing enough to fool that guy. Exhausted from both the chase and the acting, I collapsed onto the bunker and fell asleep. I awoke to the siren later that night, and the guard from earlier was in my cell, staring at me with an angry expression on his face. "Santa?" The only response I got was a kick to the ribs. I cowered in pain and fell off my bunk. "Ow! Dammit, what was that for?!" But instead of a straight answer, I was pressed onto the ground. "I'd shut up if I were you," the guard said, as he handcuffed me. Then he took out his walkie-talkie. "This is Dan, from cell block Q." he said, as he walked me out of the cell. "Fugitive apprehended. Transferring to maximum security block." Author's comments: So this is supposed to detail the beginning of week five of the challenge. It started alright, for two weeks or so, but it became less and less pretty each day, up to the point where I was only half-heartedly tagging along. So, at the end of this period is the reward for both of "us": 1200 burpees for IRL me, and maximum security prison for Thirteen. Fun, right?

You know you're a villain if you refer to yourself in the third person. Best of luck! So that, uh, the heroes may rise to the challenge you pose them, or something.

Smart Passive Income Podcast! Smart Passive Income Podcast! Smart Passive Income Podcast! … No, really: Smart Passive Income Podcast! Even if it isn't fitness industry-specific. As for writing stuff podcasts, I can't give any recommendation there, though. Lack of iTunes may or may not be a factor…

So, before any of you accuse me of silently decomposing… It's been about 2 weeks since I last took clean notes of what I have done, challenge-wise. I have a post-it with stuff like "pushups: 13/11/NA" scribbled on it, but no date or other hints that could help me remember whether this was a martial arts day, how my mood and physical condition were, whether I did the session early or late, etc.[1] I know that it's been irregular, because AC2. Journaling and presentability have also suffered, because AC2. And I've definitely lost count of how many burpees I have to do, because maths majors are notoriously terrible at counting, and, might I add, bookkeeping. (On the plus side, my cold showers have been surprisingly consistent. And cold.) Some people asked about the trip to Portland/Oregon that I announced. So: it's a martial arts excursion to visit the Grandmaster who lives there, and it's from April 11th through April 19th. Am I excited? Hell yes! Would I want to meet up with fellow rebels? Hell yes! Do I have the opportunity to do so? Hell… maybe? Back to the present. I've been particularly bad with keeping to the 12am sleeping time, and the above-mentioned Portland trip will mess that up again. So, for the remaining 5 days, I won't bother getting to bed at 12am, if it's in the way of my other plans. These other plans include waking Dad up at 3am on Thursday so he can reach the airport on time, or conducting my strength training or journaling before I wuss out of it late at night, or embracing the 1200 burpees I have treated myself to as collective punishment for the past 2 weeks[3]. Oh, and I really want to get another story act out before I post challenge updates or such. It's bothering me to no end that my creativity has been lacking for the last 3 months or so… all I managed was a single challenge intro story thingy. So, to all my stat-loving followers, all 0 of you: you may want to follow someone else's thread for a while. 1I specifically excluded this info from my journal because I assumed it wouldn't make sense to me anymore in 2, 3, 4… months. Lesson learned: add it anyway. 2Hello, 9-hour timezone difference! Hello, jetlag! 3Since I only have another 10 days to do them before I run off to the U.S., I have a daily dose of 120 burpees. That doesn't sound too horrible. (Famous last words…)

I gotta ask. Do Mortal Kombat-style fatalities count too?

First off, congratulations on bronze/silver/bronze! That's awesome! And very impressive on 4½ hours sleep.Furthermore, even at the risk of stating the obvious: Next up, thanks a bunch for all the detail in your report. It helps not only the self-proclaimed TKD noobs but also those of us who train in subtly different flavors of TKD, like me, to pinpoint the differences in training/fighting style between the flavors, in case we ever wander around at night and get humped by a 4th degree ITF black belt and… yeah…And finally, an unfiltered and biased list of observations that come to mind when reading about your competition rules:Patterns: I don't recognize Moon-Moo. Most of the ITF patterns are similar to ours, but we only have 20, so…Based on the pics, I'm sure even my instructor would like your form. We're not so different there.Sparring: We'd never let different ranks competitively spar together, not even in the same weight class, and not even conflating black belt ranks… unless there are too few competitors in each category.Ewwww, protective gear. Do not want! Oh wait, right, ITF'ists are full-contact martial artists. My bad. But still, ewwww…Our center ref also is a 5th judge who calls points together with the other 4 judges, in addition to calling warnings and stuff. We're non-contact, so while the only warning I know of is actually hitting someone, it's penalized more harshly: warning, then minus point, then forfeit. I think there are similar penalties for sparring in a distinctively not-my-TKD-flavor-ish fashion, but I'm not sure.The 4 outer judges call the winner if it's a draw, point-wise. If it's still a draw, then the center ref calls. There is no overtime; the center ref has to vote for one of the combatants.Though it's only a suspicion, I'd expect that, depending on how exactly she runs at you, your Alaskan opponent in the finals would be receiving warnings and minus points for running at you like that. And I'm pretty damn sure that your hip throw would earn you penalties. Nonetheless, awesome that you pulled that one off, albeit in a disadvantageous situation!I know that OMGWTF-I'm-actually-doing-this feeling quite well. I'd probably have lost the finals in the first 20 seconds because of it, should I have ever made it that far (which I can't imagine).Power-breaking: Ouch, 6 boards. I assume with a board holding apparatus, no? Still, ouch. How large and how thick are the boards? What type of wood? Shoes?Specialty breaking: You parkour'ed around your competition area? That's brilliant! I demand that you set up a cameraman for your next competition to capture the other spontaneous ideas you are bound to have.

Pffft, alienated. Who doesn't dream of being a human barbell? And for the record: carrying the Courier back and forth and up and down stairs is no problem, but doing a full barbell squat is. 'Tis normal, I hope, especially for someone who doesn't normally deal with barbells. Oh well. …though in hindsight, I should have noticed that if I can't get back up after loading "the barbell" on my back, chances are I can't squat it either.

Me thankies. The one-word summary of the marathon is "exhausting", but not for the obvious reason that it's a stamina test. Rather, I went there with little sleep—yay for trips at 5am—and didn't get much rest in the night after (we stayed on-site to avoid travelling twice in one day). The actual marathon itself wasn't too different from a regular (albeit long) teaching session. Though I did experience tight muscles on the Monday after: my splits were even less worthy of being called splits than they usually are.So, uh, I guess it wasn't as bad as it was made to sound?…I so know that someone will use this against me. Burpees are up to 425, everything considered. I realize I have to ration them during the next few days, lest they'll pile up until the end of the challenge.And my rhythm is… well… hard to make out amidst the mess I call my timetable. But the mess is getting tamer by the day. Consider it a mood swing. Or me being on my period or something. It'll pass.

Hi Cheech! I hope you get this in time, but I wanted to wish you all the best for the tournament tomorrow (± timezone shifts)! You got this! Heck, all of NF is rootin' for ya! Also, apologies to RP for adding to the chatter.

Another lightning update: From today (Friday) through Sunday I'm off for a big-ish martial arts event, a marathon of sorts: how many almost-back-to-back 1h training sessions out of 8 can you work through? I won't have 'net access during that time, so… yeah. In other me-related news, my burpee count has increased, I think to 300. Or maybe 325. (I haven't done the math accounting yet.) It wasn't even that hard, what with 25 burpee increments on every slip-up. Eh. I'll try for as many as I can manage before I leave for my marathon-ish thing. And from Monday onwards, we can talk about the rest. Btw, Kishi: If by "you must really, really want to do them" you mean "I can't believe I was so foolish to <reason I'm being punished>, and I hate burpees and I hate myself for getting them, and every moment is agony", then yes, "I really really want to do them". And in final me-related news, just so I announce it before it actually happens: I'm taking days off from strength training on Saturday and Sunday, 'cause of the marathon and 'cause of "OMG I'm gonna be so dead afterwards". And on Friday, I will only do the leftover exercises from the day before.

Eh, it's been a few days. So I had a bad weekend these last few days. And by "bad" I mean "lazy". Saturday morning was the last leg of the inofficial "M goes to martial arts class every day by choice or by force" marathon, and after that, I… decomposed in front of several rectangular monitors of different shapes and sizes, sometimes with a keyboard and mouse in front, and sometimes with a PS3 controller. I think I was fed. Maybe. Anyway, let's just say that presentability and self-inflicted workouts were rather secondary. As a result, I have amassed some burpees. Need to double-check, but I believe it's 200. Yay… *sigh* So, uh, I'm still writing up the missing reports (and journal entries). Because correct order is important to me.

Day 12 (Friday, 2014-03-07) Lightning Commentary Similar to yesterday, today consisted of play (AC1 and Unleashed), of work (martial arts classes), and nothing else. Sonic Unleashed: Finished Cool Edge Night and the Dark Moria boss battle. Just went in to Shamar to grab the Light Speed Dash Shoes. Thank goodness I finally have those damn shoes! Assassin's Creed I: I'm slowly getting the hang of this. Haven't died in quite a while. I'm still horrible at the actual assassinations, though. Martial arts class: Taught the kids' lesson, and attended the adults' and advanced lessons. Whew. I had a very tame batch of children, for which I am grateful. The adults' lesson was tiring, because our trainer added on the techs from the kids' lesson at the end of his own techs for the adults. I may or may not have died of exhaustion during the lesson. Then came the advanced lesson, which was the same, but faster, and with the extra scrutiny of having an audience. I may or may not have died of exhaustion again. This may or may not be my secretary typing this instead of me. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. wake up and get ready: YES. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. Strength training Level 4 flat frog (leg) raises: 25/16/16 (+5/0/+2, intermediate+) (last session: 5 days ago, last grading: 12 days ago) Ugh, I always run out of steam for set #2. And boy am I happy I did these first thing in the morning. (legend)

You may be proud of me: that hasn't happened. I also don't know why… <.< Everything's juuuuuust dandy. Really. I am not secretly plotting to take the PS3 and run to… Luxembourg. Reeeeeeeally… So far, what's been helping is writing that journal entry throughout the day, as things happen. We'll see how this goes. But it's tempting to write the entry in one go, that I can tell ya. Interesting. Maybe I'll try a "write an outline of an entry and fill it out on cheat day" approach. I'm visiting Portland, OR in about a month, together with my martial arts group. Our grandmaster lives there, and we're visiting to get our butts handed to us. That is, unless I find an employer by then who forbids me from taking leave in April.

Day 11 (Thursday, 2014-03-06) Lightning Commentary (…by which I mean a short list of assorted comments about aspects of today.) Today consisted of one medium-ish session of Sonic Unleashed, one long session of Assassin's Creed I, and two hours of martial arts class, with me teaching. Sonic Unleashed: I'm reaching the limit of my (untrained) gaming abilities, it seems. Levels are starting to cost me lives, and S-Ranks are really hard to get, and… Dammit, I want to Light Speed Dash already, and not have to wait another I-dunno-how-many levels. Assassin's Creed I: Praise the heavens, I finally have the counter ability. I am apparently the worst stealth player, like, ever, and getting drawn into so damn many fights where I'm outnumbered and can't counter enemy attacks, that's just… not cool. Why is there no protection against getting gangbanged earlier in the game?! Martial arts class: I'm trying to get back into the groove of teaching martial arts drills. The kids need to be taught differently than the adults. Kids need simpler techs, but need to be kicked into moving. Adults don't need to be kicked, but they adapt to more complex drills faster. Judging by reactions I've seen, my techs are rather complex, and my kicking has improved a lot. Now to make the other parts better as well. A colleague who watched part of my session said that I'm (still) too kind to them. *shrug* On the other hand, I find some of us teachers are too nasty with the children. What's definitely true is that I haven't found my sweet spot quite yet. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. I prepared my journal entry long beforehand. wake up and get ready: YES. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. Strength training Level 3 angled bridges: 9/9/NA (+1/+0/NA, beginner+) (last session: 6 days ago) Yay! I actually made the kids and the adults today hold a bridge for a while. It went surprisingly well. 45 burpees In sets of 5 with 2 minutes rest in between, lest my form breaks down to something unrecognizable. At least I'm finally getting around to these. (legend) Outstanding Burpees none

Day 10 (Wednesday, 2014-03-05) CC and "life" rest day. Spent some time on the PS3 (S-Rank in Rooftop Run!), some on my computer science-y things (semi-automatic registration of newly-downloaded podcast episodes in my local archive) and went to martial arts. No, I wasn't teaching today. Also spent some time taking care of minor errands that I've been neglecting for a while: buying a sleeping bag (which I'll need next week) and getting a visa for the U.S. (which I'll need next month). And… that's kinda all, actually. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: NO. Writing that journal entry. wake up and get ready: YES…? I swear I ed my alarm clock three times. Or maybe I was dreaming, and I can't actually werehog-punch. Hm… do CC bodyweight strength training: SKIP. Rest day. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. Outstanding Burpees 45

Day 9 (Tuesday, 2014-03-04) I was out like a stone today. I only barely woke up in time to get ready and fetch my mom from work. Turned on Assassin's Creed. It turns out that only AC3 can be played directly; all other games must be installed to the PS3's HDD… and each game takes like 1½ hours to install. *sigh* But I did want to start with part 1. So I waited. After 1½ lifetimes hours, I played through the tutorial and the main part of AC1 for all of… 60 minutes (25 of which were tutorials and cutscenes and… ugh… just lemme stab someone already!). It was time to go to martial arts. Apparently, Boss is not recovering so soon. I was asked to take over more MA classes, one for the kids and one for the adults. I'm much better at the adults lessons (because they are more likely to understand what I want than the kids are), and, since I haven't done this for a while, it took the better half of the lesson to re-learn how to get the kids to do (roughly) what I'm drilling them to do. Eh, it'll pass. It has to. I'm due again on Thursday. On a related note: I've been having a bit of trouble with my "sleep at 12am" goal these last few days. My journal entries are getting so long that I actually don't finish them in time, along with writing these status updates. (Part of the reason is my recounting in detail how my MA teaching lessons went.) I'm already over today's limit, too, so tomorrow I'll miss goal #1. I would treat myself to more burpees, but… since this is systematic failure, not failure due to neglect, I'm not sure how sensible this is. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: NO. Writing that journal entry. wake up and get ready: YES?. Am I ever so happy there's no fixed time I have to be up by. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. But it's made me sleep late again. Strength training Level 3 knee push-ups: 15/12/NA (+1/+1/NA, beginner+) (last session: 7 days ago) More like 14¾/11¾/NA, some good will and a bit of squinting. But eh, I reached the top. (And my shoulders hate me now.) no burpees If you haven't noticed, my day has been sorta hectic. (legend) Outstanding Burpees 45 (maybe +25, or worse)

Day 8 (Monday, 2014-03-03) Today's cold shower was the coldest shower I have taken since months. My previous showers all were at, I dunno, 23–25°C, I'd guess; I can't tell for sure because while our shower has a temperature knob, the markings have been rubbed off through years of use. Today's shower felt like a true "your warm water supply is empty" type of cold shower. Just like in Heidelberg.[1] On the plus side, I'm going back there soon, and if the hot water is out again, then I'm ready! [first-world-problems] Anyhow, my mom was out for most of the day, which was good, because then she couldn't occupy the TV or tell me that I was too loud and disturbing her work and whatnot. So, I played a lot of Sonic Unleashed, and unlocked a few achievements. (S-Rank on Dragon Road Day! Woo!) I also died… maybe 25 times(?) when attempting to finish Rooftop Run Day. Then… my PS3 controller died. Batteries were empty. Noooooooooooo… D: [/first-world-problems] Then Boss called and asked for a favor: I should kindly take over martial arts classes today. Uh… okay? So I did. Got my poor victims pupils to hop up and down and left and right and… well, just jump a lot. 'Cause we haven't been doing too much of that lately. And, much to their dismay, I introduced them to bridging, and asked them to do 2 or 3, pushing from the ground up. Some could manage, some couldn't. It was interesting to see who. Anyhow, since our MA hall is right next to a shopping mall, I went to the mall early and purchased… drumroll please… Assassin's Creed Heritage Edition, which is a collection edition of AC1, AC2, AC:Brotherhood, AC:Revelations and AC3! Woohoo! It's on! It's so flippin' on! And now if you'll excuse me, I have to drool all over the cartridge… (And no worries, I like it here way too much to be jumping ship to the NFR assassins. But hey, this is all part of ninja training, and why not learn from the best?) Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: MOSTLY. Maybe there was some exercising past lights out… in the dark… maybe… wake up and get ready: YES. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Damn, this one was miserable. Journaling work: YES. Strength training Level 5 full (bodyweight) squats: 22/22/NA (−8/−8/NA, intermediate+) (last session: 6 days ago) Ow. And I'm pretty sure I have myself to blame, after inflicting so many jumps on my pupils today. (Mind you, I joined in too.) no burpees They'd look like crap anyway, given how sad my squats already looked. (legend) Outstanding Burpees 45 1Looking back at post back then, I have forgotten to mention that at our accomodation place on that weekend the hot water was out. That one was real nasty, just like today.

Day 7 (Sunday, 2014-03-02) Another experiment with the timing of my cold shower. This time I noticed something different before I actually went in: I already had poor circulation, and my hands and feet were cold. And after stepping into the shower, I noticed how my hands and feet weren't feeling the cold as much, but the rest of me was. So, here's my revised verdict: it is more bearable, but mostly so for hands and feet, and that's because my body has already cooled down beforehand, not because I'm developing resistance to the cold. Oh, and remember how I thought that my last shower was unusually warm? Well, it was. The temperature knob just happened to jam at a higher temperature. Today I could turn it lower, like always. Poof, there goes my hope. Today's work was very computer science-y. I have a whole collection of podcasts I listen to (Smart Passive Income and This Is Your Life, among others), and thus I have a buttload of audio files I want to re-tag, convert to other formats, maybe even trim (ever since This Is Your Life added so bloody many ads in every single flippin' episode). So I'm constantly looking for software that automates this job better… because for now I still have to do parts of this automatic editing by hand. Today I was exploring different options for automatically extracting and setting tags when converting between different audio formats. Such conversion is difficult because MP3 tags are structured so vastly different from all other formats. The difficulty lies in finding the correct mapping for each tag and finding a program that can actually extract/write that tag (if it's one of the uncommon ones). Out of ~10 tools I found for working with tags, only 1 of them didn't suck. *sigh* Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. wake up and get ready: SKIP. See above. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. Strength training Level 5 flat leg raises: 14/11/NA (NA/NA/NA, intermediate+) (last session: 6 days ago) So I tried level 5 flat leg raises instead of level 4 flat frog raises. Because I can. 'Twas fun, I must admit. And I'm quite pleased at how decent they came out. I'll be doing the frog variant next time, just for purity's sake (i.e. because I haven't formally reached the progression standard yet). (legend) Outstanding Burpees 45

Day 6 (Saturday, 2014-03-01) Martial arts class in the morning! Only barely did not oversleep. Cold shower had to suffer. No matter, I shall treat myself to 25 burpees. And there was much rejoicing… Also, martial arts classes are not more fun in the morning. Some more Sonic Unleashed. Gotta play lots more before lil' bro takes this console away to Mordor his dorm. Went shopping with my Dad. We don't do this often, and he sure was happy to have another pair of hands to help carry things. It's amazing how much these little things count. Skipped strength training. Today was leg raise day, but I was having a rather nasty stomach ache (at least, nasty enough to obstruct me during the leg raises). Will try again tomorrow. Gah, I'm behind on answering comments again. May have to sacrifice some Sonic Unleashed time for this. … (T_T) Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. wake up and get ready: YES. do CC bodyweight strength training: SKIP. See above. Cold shower: NO. See above. +25 burpees. Because yay burpees! Hehe… hehe… hehe… *sigh* Journaling work: YES. Outstanding Burpees 45

Day 5 (Friday, 2014-02-28) So, apart from the usual round of playing Sonic Unleashed ( levels are next; and I am so excited to play what I so far could only envy others for), the guitar piano classes in the afternoon and the martial arts classes in the evening, I decided to try something different. Normally, I take a shower first thing in the morning, when I'm still warm from having spent the last few hours under a blanket. (By contrast, if I first sit and eat/work/watch TV/play Sonic Unleashed, then I tend to "lose" circulation and cool out, so that I'm already cold even before I step into the cold shower.) I suspect this is a result of me having bad circulation in either case—because I'm barely awake, or because I've been exercising my brain again but not my body. So I tried shifting my shower to later in the day, and in the last 20 mins or so before, make sure my circulation is in good shape before I hop into the cold. The results? Yes, it was decidedly more bearable. But I'm not convinced that's the only reason… I don't think I turned the water down cold enough. It seemed unusually warm for a cold shower. I want to try this again, just to rule out user stupidity. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. wake up and get ready: SKIP. See above. do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. See below. Cold shower: YES. Journaling work: YES. Strength training (Legend here.) Level 3 angled bridges: 8/9/NA (−2/0/NA, beginner+) (last session: 6 days ago) Ugh, I shouldn't have done #9 on set #2. At the top, I was afraid my arms would give way. Lucky me they didn't. And I'm willing to bet I have the burpees to blame for my bridging performance taking a hit. Figures. 30 burpees of punishment, 20 more to go. Whew. I did these after the bridges, in 3 sets of 10. In a true burpee contest, only 15 of those would be counted, optimistically. The rest is just a big fat Magikarp flailing splashing around. Outstanding Burpees 20

How Kishi of you to say that.Wait… I'll be the first to admit I didn't realize what I had signed up to. Until I had signed up.And thanks for feeling with me, RP. *manly tears* Thanks, Kishi! And I will, of course. I wonder if it's the burpees…Wait, did I say that out loud? So that people can quote me on it? Uh-oh… Nah, it's good, you don't have to do cold showers or burpees just 'cause I'm doing them. You don't have to watch me do them either.…In fact, I'd prefer if you watch neither. They're both embarassing, even if for different reasons. My dad thought the same thing. He seems to have forgotten that we live in a damn quiet place, and that no one's outside at midnight. And that pretty much all of my neighbors recognize me by sight, so I'm not really in the danger of being mistaken for a prowler or anything.Anyhow, thanks! Will do! Well, not solemnly, but maybe a tad bit more hopeful? The last few chapters felt unnecessarily… Murphy's Law-ish.But yeah, maybe I'm approaching this too kid's book-y.

(Not necessarily in order.) Hi Ash! Thanks for stopping by. I see from later responses that catching up wasn't the problem. And you just reminded me that I forgot to happy dance. Gotta remember tomorrow. me thankies Don't mention it out loud, but it does get easier if you shout "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAA!!!" when you run under the faucet. I gotta stop everyone from shouting out my secrets to the world…

Day 4 (Thursday, 2014-02-27) A much-needed rest day, more or less. I did nothing work-related today, instead playing the driver for the rest of my family. Tomorrow I'm back to my strength training and work timetable. In between playing the driver for everyone, I finished reading the last book of The Hunger Games trilogy. It was a great, compelling read, but… it was also highly depressing. Truly distopian. I was hoping for a good end, but instead I can only describe the end as "sober". I still recommend reading the books… so long as you can handle a sober ending. In very other news, I also visited the doctor today. I'm cleared for all kinds of activities again. But I'm not going to be trying pull-ups just yet: I have what the doc called a "ganglion" (this maybe?) on the underside of my formerly-broken finger, and it's more pressure sensitive than my other fingers. (Not good for pull-ups.) Since it's so small that it's invisible from the outside, and since the doc didn't talk about it beyond naming it, I'm assuming it'll vanish by itself sooner or later. Once that happens, I'm back to pull-ups. Sorta kinda by accident, I didn't get to doing burpees today. On the bright side, this means I did have a full rest day today, and will be in much better shape tomorrow. I'll still add another 10 burpees because, heck, you don't escape punishment unpunished. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES. wake up and get ready: YES. 10am. do CC bodyweight strength training: SKIP. Rest day. Cold shower: YES. It doesn't seem to be getting easier. If anything, I feel like it's killing my circulation (which wasn't great to begin with). Gotta re-check if I'm doing this right. Journaling work: YES. Outstanding Burpees 50

Day 3 (Wednesday, 2014-02-26) Woke up early! Like, very early! … …okay, so it was 9.45am, which I know is late for many of you. But it's better than the 11.55am I seem to otherwise do. I celebrated my extra time with… more Sonic Unleashed. Hey, don't give me that look. I can't work in my room if lil' bro is still asleep in there. (Yay for kids-rooms-turned-mini-offices with two beds!) And I got ready as promised. After losing repeatedly in the most embarassing way to the first boss totally showing the boss who's boss, I debugged a problem with my e-mail setup that was preventing me from sending mail. It turned out to be a software misconfiguration that, by sheer luck, hadn't bitten me until now. By the time everything was set up properly again, it was late afternoon, and time for martial arts class. After martial arts class I went out to continue serving my punishment. I got to 20 burpees before my dad ordered me in. He's scared (shitless, if I may add) of the neighbors seeing something weird and deciding to call the cops. Hmph. No burpees, then, I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning instead. Speaking of burpees: I'm going to take an additional rest day from strength training tomorrow. Today should have been my rest day, but I'm partway doing burpees, and I went to martial arts class, and I'm continuing with burpees tomorrow too. That's nowhere near a rest day. If by tomorrow night I figure I need another one, I'll take Friday off too. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: YES, SORTA. I was in bed as soon as my brother stopped working in my room. That was after my 40 burpees. If the guards actively screw up lockdown and keep us awake, I see no reason I should be the one suffering the consequences. wake up and get ready: YES. 9.45am! 9am is now within reach! do CC bodyweight strength training: SKIP. Rest day. Cold shower: YES. Damn, this one was cold. Journaling work: YES. Made sure I did this before writing this status update. Strength training 20 burpees of punishment, 40 more to go. …until my dad stopped me.

Day 2 (Tuesday, 2014-02-25) Today consisted of my challenge work, a lot of Sonic Unleashed, and a report to the professor. Felt almost like busywork, I must sadly admit. Not enough positive outlook, maybe? Additionally, I started working off my punishment today. That was interesting in and of itself. More interesting than the rest actually, IMO. Goals Legacy work: sleep by 12am: NO. Willful transgression: I started a deep late-night discussion, and I wouldn't have wanted to stop short just because "lockdown starts at 12am" and "the guards will beat the crap out of me if I'm not in my cell". I can already imagine the responses: "What guards? What cell? Dafuq are you talking about?" +25 burpees. wake up and get ready: YES. I will get to 9am before the end of the challenge! do CC bodyweight strength training: YES. Double-time, even. Cold shower: YES. Not as cold as yesterday, but still not really warm. I had to go out straight afterward, and emerging as a frozen old fogey instead of a semi-presentable old fogey is… unhelpful. Journaling work: DARN IT. I checked the next day, and it turns out I forgot… +25 burpees. Strength training (Legend here.) Level 5 full (bodyweight) squats: 30/30/NA (0/0/NA, progression) (last session: ~15 days ago (I think…?), or 20 days ago (I know)) Squats are always the first ones to go if I feel like I don't have the time/energy/patience to do them. Should have done them yesterday, actually. They still hurt. Stupid 2-1-2-0 cadence. Level 3 knee push-ups: 14/11/NA (−1/+1/NA, beginner+) (last session: 6 days ago) Meh. 40 burpees of punishment, 60 more to go. Ugh, why did today have to be a push-up and a squat day…? So, I found out that I can't do sets of 25 burpees. Or sets of 10, really. #6 still looks okay, but afterwards, you have to squint really hard to see the burpee in my "burpee". Now, I did these just past midnight, outside in my garden, because that's the first chance I had once I realized I had 100 burpees to do (ugh…). Yes, this is past lights-out time. No, I'm not going to punish myself for serving my punishment at an inappropriate time, because, yes, I did them in the dark, literally with the lights out. Ha!