Alex's Blog

Goal Talk

2010-09-12T03:54:00.001-07:00

Five months and 11 days ago, I moved to Korea. It's been one hell of an experience. I've learned so much about myself and life in general. These are things I will wait to discuss however. Instead, I want to talk about what I hope to get out of my last 6 months or so. I currently spend a lot of time with a good friend I've made from England and my Korean 'girlfriend' (a little complicated situation). They are both moving out of the country however, so things are about to change for me. In a few weeks, I'm going to have a lot of alone time. I want to use this time to be productive, so I feel like I need to really sit down and look at what I hope to get out of the rest of my time here. I ultimately would like to make a nice, crisp bullet list of short-term/long-term goals, but right now I just want to babble.

The most obvious goal is to spend some time with the Korean language; however, to look at it in 'economic' terms, there's not a lot to gain. I will need to put in a significant amount of hours of work to truly get much of a usable grasp on the language, and after all of that, I will more than likely never use the language again. The cost is much more than the likely pay off. Yet, I think I would gain some personal satisfaction in knowing I learned something of the language. I would get that confidence of knowing that I could do it. Thus I've sort of come to a decision of spending some time on it, and I hope to have an incredibly simple conversation with a stranger at some point. I want to be able to answer a question a stranger asks me in grammatically correct Korean.

Another more superficial goal I have is to get a bit more muscular. I have been a bit hit and miss in trying to work out everyday. I really want to become more consistent in forcing myself to go. I want to develop a work out plan and stick with it. My ultimate goal in this area is to be proud of my body by the time I fly home. I don't think I am in terrible condition now by any means, but I want to be impressive and proud of myself. I'd like to be one of those guys that doesn't get fat for quite a while into his adulthood.

Really these are my two main goals right now, and I feel a little guilty about that. They are not very long term, and they seem a little too pedestrian to be really proud of; however, that's what they are.

Very quickly, I'd like to mention a few other GENERAL goals. I want to read and extrapolate the information from The Art of War. I want to be able to quote the text in appropriate situations and truly grasp its meaning. I'd also like to be able to do the same with The Prince, however for now, The Art of War is my first goal.

I want to be a better cook. This should not be difficult, as I can cook virtually nothing right now. I will be happy if I can cook a solid 3 or 4 meals very well. I'm not too dead set on this goal however, because most things I learn to cook here may not translate to cooking in America very well; nevertheless, I'm sure I can find some things that translate.

Long term, my incredibly general goal is to keep becoming more mature in everyday situations. This is not going to be very measurable, and it's bound to have its' ups and downs, but I want to feel comfortable with my maturity.

As of writing this, I'm not doing a whole lot to achieve these goals. I hope that by "putting them down on paper" I will be a bit more motivated to work on them. Also, these are all great, achievable goals to have in solitary situations - the situation I should find myself in over the course of the next 6 months. I will be distraction free and bored, so I will have no excuses when my time comes up. Anyway, this list is bound to change, so I'll try to update it and give some status updates as I go..

Korea

2010-08-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

So it's been a solid 6 months since I have written anything. I have been in Korea since April 1st, and it's been a wild time. I want to talk about some of the differences from here and home, but it's not as easy as it sounds. It's amazing how quickly you forget about daily life at home. There is so much that I just can't really recall what it feels like.

For example, when I came to Korea, I found it absolutely crazy how small the streets were near my house. Also, it was crazy how the people just walked on the sides of the street, and cars would fly by only a few feet from them, yet the people walking paid no mind. It constantly freaked me out, and I felt I would die or at least get clipped by someone. However, I've noticed that it no longer affects me. It's become normal. Also, intersections are fairly dangerous, as cars can park virtually anywhere and cause a lot of blind spots. Everyday I thought I was going to see someone die in a car crash, but I have yet to see even a fender bender, and I no longer have that 'clinch the butthole' feeling I used to get as I thought 2 cars were going to collide. I don't know, this just gives me a new perspective on driving.

What else... There's so much, that its hard to pick things to write on. One thing I really like about Korea, is that there are no huge, muscular, ripped mother fuckers. I think the "Asians are short" stereotype is a little off base, as I see a lot of tall Koreans; however, very few are as bulky or built as Americans. But this is a good thing in my opinion. You don't see people picking fights anywhere or trying to act all Alpha Male. I really enjoy bars a lot more here for this reason.

One thing I am absolutely certain I miss is American breakfast. I try to make my own when I can, but unfortunately I'm either lazy a lot of the time or unable to cook some of the things I really like. There have been so many times where I just want to go out and get some Biscuits and Gravy (I just spend a solid 2 minutes trying to remember the name of that food, that's how bad it's getting).

Anyway, I know this is very brief, but I think it was a big step to sit down and write a little bit finally. Hopefully I will keep it up. Until next time.

Writing

2010-01-25T19:05:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't kept up with the blog too well lately; I guess I haven't been too inspired to write. I did read something on another site/blog that did pique my interest and encourage me to try to write more often. "Why Talking to Yourself Might be the Highest Form of Intelligence" is an article that discusses talking/writing. I don't think I ever actually talk to myself, but the writing aspect of it was pretty neat. My interpretation is that when you write, it allows your brain to interpret the writing as a thought coming from a different individual. This is beneficial, because it allows you to breakthrough the 'loops' that typically occur in your thoughts.
I wish I could come up w/ a specific occurrence of this happening to me, but unfortunately I can't recall one (yet they do happen). I can't count the number of times I have heard someone mention that writing 'cleanses the soul' or that writing acts as a 'release'. I think these views fall in the same vein as what the article is discussing. Anyway, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into this post, but I'm trying to build my habit of posting SOMEthing at least every other day. Maybe this article will help act as motivation.

Childhood Memory

2010-01-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

If you were to ask me about some of my earliest childhood memories, I could probably name two. One was watching a recorded X-Men cartoon. I remember this because my older brother Pat had helped me record it, and we had recorded over my mom's soaps. I can't recall much specific about this one other then the room in which it occurred.

My other, much more specific memory, involves the WWF. Similar to the first situation, I had recorded this pay-per-view event called Survivor Series on a VHS tape - but fortunately for my mom, this was a blank tape. Well had you asked me this morning about it, I could have told you everything that happened during this match. My two favorite wrestlers, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior, survived the odds and beat the other, much larger team, led by Omaha native The Million Dollar Man.

Anyway, for some crazy reason this memory hit me as I was sitting at my computer. I decided to search for the video on youtube, and lo-and-behold, I found a copy:

I'm pretty sure I had an ear-to-ear smile the entire time I watched the match (and yes, I sat and watched the entire thing). It also happened exactly as I remember it. The biggest memory I associate with this video is my friend Ryan and I acting it out. I would be The Ultimate Warrior, and he would be Hulk Hogan. We would then wrestle couch cushions and do exactly what they did on TV.

Now this Survivor Series was released in 1990. I was born in 1987. In my memories I'm watching a recording of it, so I more then likely was older than 3 years old, but I'm sure not by much. I just thought this was a pretty crazy thing, that after all these years I was able to locate the source of that memory in about 20 seconds, and it easily made my night.

Motivations

2010-01-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

After I finished writing my first post, and all through the next day, I kept thinking about what I wanted to do with this blog. While I still aim to shape this blog to be some of those things I mentioned, I've found another direction I want to take. I've recently discovered TED Talks , and I have found myself really enjoying much of what I find on there. Typically the talks are very interesting, and I very much enjoy the fact that on most occasions they're only ~20mins.

I've been trying to find ways to motivate myself to use my free time in a constructive way, and I may have found a way to accomplish that - as well as finding some direction with this blog. I'm going to try to watch a TED video on a topic that I find interesting, and then write a reaction to the video here in my blog. I'm not sure how often I will get to doing this, as I can see myself going crazy and doing them daily or procrastinating and putting it off. Hopefully its the former.

So now, what video to use for my first post? Well, fittingly, I found a video on Motivation by Dan Pink. In this talk, Pink essentially suggests that using monetary rewards/incentives isn't necessarily the most ideal way to motivate people. In situations where creative thought is needed to solve problems, monetary rewards can actually have a negative impact, retarding creativity.

When I think about my own actions and what has motivated me to do things in the past, I see a blending of two primary motivators:

money
internal pleasure

I think internal pleasure can be broken down into more specific descriptions, but for simplicity's sake, I'm going with internal pleasure.

Anywho, when I think of my most creative moments, they never involve money as a motivation. I feel like I'm taking a very unscientific approach to this, as it's tough to list my 'most creative moments', so you're just going to have to take my word for it. I just generally find myself being relatively uncreative at work. It should be noted though that I have yet to find a job that I truly enjoy, and this probably makes a very large difference. And yet, if I were to find a job that I truly loved, I believe more than likely my motivations are going to be self created incentives - wanting to be the one that figures out the problem, wanting to be the most creative, wanting to be the most original, etc..

Well, it's an interesting idea. Monetary incentives will continue to be used, and as Pink suggests, is very useful in certain situations; yet the development of other incentives is something I hope businesses will expand upon, and it's something I may try to keep in mind when attempting to motivate others into doing something.

First Post!

2010-01-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

Well, as the title indicates, this is my first post. I have never kept a blog/journal and thus I feel somewhat awkward deciding how to proceed. I have a number of thoughts on what I want this blog to be. Originally I felt it would be a good way to document my time in Korea. I felt it could be a good place for family to see what I'm doing on the far side of the globe, as well as providing a place for them to see pictures and post some of their thoughts.

In addition, I think that by creating this blog, I may increase my technical know-how with creating websites. I think that this is an essential skill in today's world. I am however using a template style format from blogger.com , so I am not exactly relying only on my talents. Nevertheless, I think I can learn a thing or two.

Finally, when thinking of the long term, I want something written by me during my youth. I think it will be something I personally can reflect on and look back at fondly. I also want something to give my future children/grandchildren. They may be able to look at how I dealt with failures/successes I encountered in my life and let that provide guidance to their own decisions. Or perhaps just to know my personality as a young man - before I become old, crabby, and jaded.

Anyway, I don't want my first post to be a novel, but those are some of the thoughts swirling in my head while beginning this blog!