why? who needs a why?

it's sunday, october 30th, 11:30pm.

dan, tim, and i finished worship practice on busch and are on our way back to the apartment.  on the sidewalk before we reach our apartment door..  for whatever random reason (aka tim), a minor scuffle ensues, blocks of snow are thrown around, and then..  one of us randomly throws a chunk of snow onto our front steps.  the other two follow along and proceed to find chunks of snow nearby, hurling them onto the front steps.  and then it begins..

took a picture, and thought we were done after this cute pile of snow.  but nope.

"why are we doing this?  WHO CARES, KEEP GOING"

"they'll never think that we did it, because why would we use snow and block our own front steps?!"

these chunks of snow were big, heavy, cold, and hard to hold.  it was half an hour of tiring work.  but we kept going.

the pile grows.  we end up having to go 1-2 apartments down in order to get chunks of snow, since we exhaust all the ones by our own door.

IT IS COMPLETE. 

a view from inside the door.

this was the next day, around noon (yes, that's when i woke up).

sad sad.  BUT SO FUN.

thought 9

girls wearing cologne would be mad legit.

racism!

while on the A bus, i witnessed the bus driver (a white man) ask a student (a black man) to get up from his seat in the front of the bus and go take a seat in the back of the bus.

lul

who does this?!

the other night, i was riding my bike as esther was walking behind me, on our way to catch a bus at the suites stop. i was traveling slightly faster than walking speed, and decided to loop around. however, the curb was coming up quickly, so i had to make a sharp turn. i turned the handlebars to maybe about 40 degrees (off of the forward), and then the front bike wheel crumpled. it basically bent in half.

like, REALLY? this happens?! adfjkasldfjilnilzewiauofandkl

now, once again, i am without my wings. forever destined to walk on two feet.

t____t

thought 8

using the outside of a sleeping bag as the sheets for my bed has been the best idea i've had this semester. i love the feel of synthetic material. so soothing and niceeeee.

sleeping

for me, sleep is an interesting thing.

i wouldn't say it's one of my loves, though i do enjoy it a lot. how much i sleep is pretty much dependent on everything else in my life, though i generally am sleeping between the hours of 12 and 3. waking up at 12 is a good time for me.

i'm someone who's always had a difficult time waking up, being easily tempted back to the dream world and the pleasure of "just a few more minutes" when i know i should be waking up. this has resulted in many missed classes, overslept lunch appointments, and frantic bike rides to wherever i have to be.

note: before we proceed, i would like to say that i am not a sleep expert, and have not studied anything about sleep. these are just my personal opinions and gatherings.

what i'm going to talk about next is how i fall asleep and what i need to sleep. i realized this is something i should have written much earlier, and would have helped to have before college started. nonetheless, here it is.

when it comes to falling asleep, people talk mainly of light and sound. and of course, the definitions of light and sound can be subjective. however, i honestly think that the main proponent to being able to fall asleep in your circumstances is simply believing that you can.

(these upcoming "requirements" are for when i feel normally tired, not extremely tired. also, these are for going to sleep at night, but also translate to napping.)

lights

i can sleep with the lights on, meaning the room light, so that automatically includes everything not as bright as the room light, such as a desk lamp, computer monitor glow, you name it. as for strobing lights.. maybe, i haven't tried that yet, but i can imagine it'd be a bit harder.

in any case, i don't get why this is hard. if there are lights on,

1) close your eyes.

2) don't open them.

3) fall asleep.

sound

sound is where it gets interesting and more complex. for me, the criteria for sound for which i can fall asleep to depends on how attentive the sound is to me. i believe the better able you are in making a sound "background noise", the less hindering it will be towards your sleep.

in my mind, sound can be categorized with two factors: consistency and harshness.

consistency is described as intermittent vs. constant. scattered vs. predictable.

the less you have to guess, and the less randomness inherent in the sound, the easier it is to sleep to it. i believe this is because it's easier for your mind to not think about the sound when the sound is predictable.

harshness is described as piercing vs. gentle, and to a lesser degree, loud vs. soft. piercing sounds are hard to put in the background, but that's not necessarily the same with loud sounds.

these two factors combine to determine whether or not a sound is attentive (instrusive) to your efforts to sleep. i believe consistency plays a bigger part in the acceptability of the sound than harshness does, in that it's easier to sleep to a constant harsh sound than to an intermittent gentle sound.

(note: intermittent means irregular intervals.)

examples:

computers humming - most people don't hear this anyway, but if you do, it's really constant and gentle, and can easily be backgrounded [easy]

portable heater - very constant, a bit louder, but still a gentle sound. [easy]

tv - constant, gentle, predictable. this seems to be the standard test for people's acceptance of noise levels as they trying to sleep. [easy]

concerts - perhaps you've seen people (parents?) fall asleep when they went with you to concerts. how? even though it's monstrously loud, they're able to effectively put the noise in the background and not have it bother their sleep. the noise, while loud, is predictable and constant. boredom also probably helps a good bunch. [haven't done it myself, but if i had to, moderately easy]

group chatter - group chatter tends to have a high level of consistency (save for the outbursts), which makes up for the high volume it can have.

few people chatter - a few people talking tends to have a lower consistency with a lower volume.

so, they're about the same. [pretty easy]

radio - a moderately gentle sound, but radio stations aren't constant enough- different songs, talking, commercials. [difficult]

typing - THE WORST! intermittent, piercing sounds (partly depends on the keyboard, but most keystrokes sound like bullets when you're trying to sleep). [difficult]

snoring - while the sound can be described as predictable since it's regular breathing, the gaps between breaths makes it not "busy" enough, and the sound quality is also not gentle enough. [difficult]

beyond the nature of these sounds, flexibility is important, and a lot of what flexibility entails is first, how hard you try to sleep despite surrounding conditions, and second, how much you believe you can fall asleep in those conditions. both of those play a big role in sleeping. for example, i've fallen asleep to all of the "difficult" conditions above, because as hard as it may have been, it wasn't impossible.

with that said, think about the conditions which you think you need to sleep

on a somewhat-related side note: when i sleep, i like to occupy my mind with active thoughts about something- usually badminton, hockey, blog entry ideas, tetris, or something like that. this is because it helps me to block out anything else around me, and thus help me fall asleep better.

i like to sleep on my tummy. :}

inefficiency

i hate inefficiency.

it's the worst when i know something can be done a significantly simpler or faster way, because it'll nag me the whole time if it's not being done that way.

that's why i despise walking around campus, even short distances, because i'll always wish i could be biking.

shuttlecock

one of my favorite things to do on the badminton court, second only to playing badminton, is straightening the feathers on used birdies. i have this tendency to like to polish up worn and scuffed things, and these shuttles perfectly feed this pleasure of mine.

and i was thinking today.. what kind of person came up with the design of the shuttlecock? i wonder who thought, "hey, let's take a cork and attach some feathers to it and whack it around!"

AWESOME.

i think the shuttlecock in badminton is one of the most unique ball/projectile objects in all of sports. wouldn't you agree?

<3 badminton

sore, but all right

it's an interesting feeling after a day of badminton, when only the right side of my body is sore, from my foot to my thigh to my side to my shoulder to my arm.

:]

thought 7

the small black things you see in the top of brita filters are bits of carbon. it's okay to ingest them. if you think about it, it wouldn't be a very smart move for the brita company to use a harmful substance in a water filter, would it?

thought 6

sometimes, i feel like i'm living my life through a window. while it is true in a sense, since i'm looking through my eyes.. what i don't think about is that other people actually see and talk to an actual person, preston chang.

weird, huh.

thought 5

at my bank's atm, i get a receipt whenever i complete my transaction. i have no need for it, though, so i toss it in the garbage can they have conveniently provided on the floor by the atm. inside the garbage, there are lots of crumpled and ripped-up receipts. i definitely understand the thought process.. but totally unnecessary, if you think about it.. first, if there was valuable financial information printed on these receipts, crumpling up the paper wouldn't do anything to prevent someone from getting that information. second, what bank would actually print valuable financial information on a receipt?

no scratching necessary

a question i get asked a lot is: "why do you smell everything?"

i've finally thought of an answer: "why not?"

consider a book, a piece of paper, a mousepad, a racquet overgrip, a playing card, and any other item whose intrinsic purpose is for something other than its fragrance. though not necessarily created with its smell in mind, who would deny that each item has its unique scent?

and i believe that each item deserves to have its unique scent experienced. :]

snow + bike = heavenly

i rode my bike to takeout tonight. middle of the street, no cars, snow pouring down, thin ride-able layer of snow on the ground, and the glorious sound of snow under my tires.

i absolutely love bicycling in the snow.

is getting injured even interesting anymore?

hey homies!

it's been a while, and what could be more fitting as a return post than another iteration of "preston gets hurt snowboarding!", eh, eh? (the third iteration, though the first two aren't documented on this here blog)

yesterday, i faceplanted on a flat rail at mountain creek.

a little bit of background history: a few seasons ago, i decided to try out a flat rail, and then i hit my hip on it. ow. from then on, i vowed never to go on rails again.

back to the present: yesterday was the first time this season that i went to south at mt creek, with all of its new terrain park shenanigans. it was pretty cool.

my first run down south, i rode down the right side of the trail, scoping out the jumps and features and landings and whatnot. the problem is, the trail is wider than just one line of features, so i didn't get to scope out the interior of the trail.

my second run down south, in the middle of the trail(!), i see a medium lip that i want to jump off of. key point: you can't see any of the landings on the other side of the jumps.

i go off the jump, get some air, nothing crazy.

i'm in the air.

WHY HELLO THAR FLAT RAIL rightinthemiddleofmylanding!

i was struck with terror by the sight of that flat rail. and more terror as i instantly realized i was going to land square on it, though i guess that's better than not landing square.

in my head flash a few thoughts.

"crapcrapcrapcrapcrap"

"oh, it'd be convenient if i landed on it and rode off of it nicely like i knew it was there all along"

NOPE.

i land on the rail. i estimate i ride half of the rail. bam! i hit my face on the rail lolol.

i knew i hit my head because, just like when i hit my head in the past, i lost that one second of memory prior to the collision, the memory of me actually falling down.

i'm on my tummy on the ground, and quickly ride out of the landing towards the fork of the trail in front of some trees. oh yeah, textbook bailout procedure.

i'm laying on the snow and i wave arnold over (at this point i'm glad i went first, before arnold and jon[tsui]), and jon stops by shortly after.

i ask arnold, "assess the damage." the left side of my face hurts in general, there's some bleeding, my left contact fell into my goggles, but MY EYE IS FINE!

my goggles are fine, too. here's the crazy part. since the day was kind of overcast, i was considering not wearing my goggles (putting them on my helmet) so i could have extra visibility on the snow. whewwww, i'm sososososo glad i wore them, because my goggles took the brunt of the impact and saved me from a broken nose or cheekbone or something worse. my goggles have saved me twice now, this incident and last time's.

at this point, i put the contact into my mouth to keep it from drying out, and i snowboard down the trail with only one contact. by the time i get to the bottom of the mountain, i've already accidentally eaten my contact. oopsies.

at EMS, i get the scrapes on my face wiped with alcohol, and ice is given to me for the swelling of my left cheek and the area surrounding my left eye. somehow, whenever i get injured, i always hit my face, and always the left side.

all in all, i'm fine. it doesn't really hurt, it just looks worse than it is. it'll be better in a few days! and going to camelback tomorrow will make me feel better :]

today's lesson: always scope out jumps to make sure there isn't a rail hiding behind waiting to be nomnom-ed by your face.

also:

A person with hands crossed over their head while on or near a feature means:

d) It's time to get X-treme!