Moment of Zen

"He who asks a question is a fool for a minute. He who does not remains a fool forever."
- Chinese proverb

That awkward moment when you realize you have been tested all along.

Today marks my next momentous self-discovery. It became clear to me when my father approached me this evening with the task of making a new list for the week off I will be having from school. In my last internet episode, something you lung-breathing creatures may call a "post", I mentioned a new "regimented, structured, orderly, systematic machine" that would consume my everyday life. After two weeks of implementing this machine, I can imagine why my father uses it. It was used not only for a punishment by natural consequence, but also to allow me to properly prepare for a final exam in my math class. That final week of class was a stressful five days that I would prefer not to relive.

Now, at the aftermath ( <-- bad pun ) of that class, I now have a substantial amount of time to reshape my life and habits, so changes are being made. Firstly, I'm changing my major from Health Science to Music. That should be obvious, like baby pandas... Furthermore, I can now change my schedule around some more, so I will definitely talk to persons about that in the near future.

For my next trick, I will, well, remember what the derp happened after that. Moving on, in the discussion with Dad about the next action items for the long week ahead, he revealed a part of myself that I just unlocked. Yes, it was during this time when I had my first moment of zen in a full year. This signifies an absolutely enormous personal discovery brought on by the underlying lessons of my actions. The lesson learned was the commitment and ability to solve issues with academic subjects by dealing with them the day they arise. If you require no further explaination, know exactly what I'm typing about, and hate math, skip the next paragraph.

Take, for example, the chain rule of calculus. The chain rule is a formula for the derivative of the composition of two functions with different variables, coefficients, and exponents. In algebraic terms...
d/dx f(g(x)) = f '(g(x)) * g'(x). 
The point is, I did not understand this concept at all during the lecture, so I made active decisions to seek out help from professors, students, textbooks, and, of course, the web. These were precautionary measures to insure that I knew exactly what I was dealing with that day. Later, I deciphered that it is basically how to say "yo dawg, I herd u like functions" in the language of numbers. Those who didn't get that reference, google "yo dawg", then image search it. With patience, you will find all the information you need to understand.

Though it may not sound like it, this skill (Zen, not calculus) was the missing tool in my arsenal of being awesome at school. Using this tactic, I can accomplish any class, and get an A. This is so huge a discovery, I could not help but share it, considering my history of reluctancy to ask for help. Internet, if you are listening, you're welcome. I mean, it may sound almost redundant: someone can look at that and easily say "well, duh. Anyone who asks for help from everyone will get smarter. Just like Steve Carell in "Get Smart"". I have no idea why someone would go on a tangent about Steve Carell, other than the fact that they didn't say it; I said it. No matter who said it, you just got learned.

Moments of Zen are rare segments of a person's history, and they would be the perfect milestones to write in a blog like this one. They build upon themselves, like a stack of lego blocks that are very cognitive and very, very real. Moments like these prove to me time and time again why life does not want me to fail but is, in fact, trolling me. They are moments that demand reaction from the user, and must not be ignored. This is because to me, they are the most important; the feeling of when you learn a valuable truth, and every shred of cognitive dissonance goes away, if only for one minute.

What I learned:

•  The commitment and ability to solve issues with academic subjects by dealing with them the day they arise
• Often times, the answers to psychological problems are redundant
• Life can never destroy you. It can only troll you.

My Question to You:

1. Can you describe the moment when you realized something important about yourself? If yes, please do so.
2. Was everything in the post clear to you? Do you now understand the chain rule?
3. Is there anything different that you would like to see from this blog? Should I talk about politics? Video games? Music? More science?

Leave your creative, critical, or constructive responses in the comments. I welcome all feedback on all posts at any time, whether it is your first read or your hundredth.

Super-post #1

Welcome, gentleladies and men. I just wrote that sentence while utterly disregarding the fact that spell-check thinks I just made up a word. Chances are, I didn't. As I was saying, welcome to the very first super-post on this blog. This feature will be used by me to catch up on big life events during my absence to the blogosphere (Auto-correct just did it again, and it's just wrong. I know I didn't make up that word). With that said, let us begin with our customary mood music. This link is an improvisation by one of my favorite pianists on youtube. The title of the song says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB3Sq0TUdrk&feature=channel_video_title

Hold on to your hats that you may or may not be wearing right now; this might take three minutes. Not like I counted or anything. Now, I'll do my best to recall the events in order. If I fail at that, there's nothing you can do about it, so *ha* (those asterisks mean I actually laughed while typing that).

This begins with Her (more on Her in the post below). I left you last at a starstruck moment in time for me. As the relationship progressed, we took it very slow due to some emotional hesitation on her part, as well as some lack of knowing what to do on my part. This led to an awkward predicament in which I did not know completely what I meant to Her. Knowing this, I took her to a special restaurant the night before our one-month anniversary. I took her to a fancy place in Blackhawk, CA called "the Blackhawk Grille". It was a fantastic night full of dinner, a short drive to and from campus, and endless conversation.

At the dawn of the anniversary itself, I awoke with an unstoppable optimism. Shortly, I received a text message from Her, saying this ad verbatim:
"Hey, i had a great time last night, but i value our friendship too much to be anything more than friends. I hope u can understand and i am so sorry".
To that, I promptly responded:
"Thank you for being honest and telling me. To tell the truth, I'm glad we had the chance to explore our feelings, and I don't regret it. Thanks for a good month".

That brought closure to my last relationship to date. At first, it did not even strike me that I just got dumped via text message. I just kind of focused on the fact that I was dumped. Even then, I was not upset for long because I realized that life is not about sulking about missed opportunities. Life is about being awesome daily. The rest of that day, I proceeded to rock out on piano, watch videos that made me laugh and cry, and successfully console myself. Besides, I was unstoppably optimistic, remember? Of course you did. Isn't the benefit of the doubt awesome? Good, because you have it!

During the not-single time period, I celebrated my nineteenth birthday on November fourth. I feel lucky because it is the day before the famous chant in "V for Vendetta", "Remember, remember, the fifth of November". It was a day full of presents and merriment, as it was on a Friday. On that weekend, my extended family on both sides got together for one party each. It made me very happy to have survived one more year in America, because in America, every year survived is another free cake earned.

Moving on to Christmas break, I had just finished the remainder of finals and saying goodbye to my new friends around campus. Nothing made me happier the first day than coming home to hug my parents. For two weeks, I was home. For the first week, I enjoyed a beautiful Christmas holiday season. For the second week, it requires a new paragraph and a change in tone. Follow me!

Wait for it...

Dead puppies. There, did that change the tone? Well, it either made you laugh, or it made you really confused. Both would be excellent. Either way, I promise you that those fictional puppies I just made up are alive. You can kinda do that if it's all in your head. Anyway, back to my story. My grades came back over the break, and they were far less satisfactory than for which my parents were prepared. This highly upset them to the point where I was and still am not fully trustworthy.

The point is I was making dramatic changes to my habits, and I, in fact, did not make a successful transition. So just like that, I was then smack dab in the middle of another transition. I started making daily notes of strict action items that needed to be fulfilled on that day, and I also started personally calling my father with a day-by-day update to those very notes. It was a regimented, structured, orderly, systematic machine that I was and still am expected to drive.

As anyone would be, I am sad for the loss of my beloved free time. However, in the spirit of optimism and my new slogan, "be awesome daily", I think of it as a way to make me become more awesome. I mean, if you can survive under such strict conditions and regain the trust of those you trust most, then you sir are awesome. I will go forth with this as my new year's resolution. Now begins not only a transition, but a call to action and epicosity (ducking auto-connect).

And so, gentleladies and men, this catches you up on my misadventures. This super-post has been quite fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I have typing. I reserve from the "what I learned" and "my question you" sections because it would take up even more space, and by dog, that would be disgraceful. Goodbye, everybody in the place.

Leave your creative, critical or constructive responses in the comments. I hope you enjoyed your time here more than if you were actually doing something important.
Colon, close parentheses
:)