No Swayze

1. Be at least 40 lbs. lighter by the end of 2012

I started to gain a lot of weight when I entered high school in 2003. I picked up some really bad eating habits around that time and I haven’t done much to break those habits. I’ve also lead a very sedentary lifestyle for quite a while. The only exercise I get these days is walking to and from a school I’m substituting in if it’s not too far. It’s probably going to be tough changing to a healthier lifestyle because after nine years you get kind of comfortable with being overweight.

My impetus for trying to lose weight is the news my mother told me that my cousins in Southern California are now diabetic; one of them is around the same age as I am. My family has a history with diabetes. My great grandmother, grandmother, and several of my aunts have dealt with it. Of course it’s common knowledge that being overweight or obese (I think I’m 10 to 15 lbs. away from being considered obese according to BMI) increases the risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Maybe with my family history as it is I can’t avoid diabetes, but I’d like to try to fight it off for a couple of years.

2. Read at least two books every month

I already wrote about the lack of enthusiasm I had for reading this year in my blog post about my new Amazon Kindle. Instead of making a vague promise to read more books (if I only finish four books in 2012 that would surpass my 2011 count), I’ve decided to set a tangible goal to read at least 24 books this year. Indirectly this goal is a way for me to reduce my video game, television, and internet consumption. As good as those mediums have been to me, I think reading words and creating images in my mind from them is just inherently more engaging.

Also, most professional authors tell aspiring writers that they should read a lot. George R.R. Martin of A Song of Ice and Fire fame wrote on his official website that “the most important thing of any aspiring writer is to read…Every writer has something to teach you for good or for ill.” Of course he also advises people to actually sit down and write, which brings me to my next goal…

3. Write four or more short stories

In college I chose the creative writing option for my bachelor’s degree in English. In the 12 months since I’ve graduated, I haven’t acted much like a creative writer. I have yet to write any stories or poems in my life that wasn’t assigned by a professor. For someone who wants to actually be a professional writer some day, I’m really not doing a good job at being an amateur one. So this year I will set myself down in front of the computer an hour or two a day and type away until I have four completed short stories to show for it. I probably should try to write more, and I intend to, but I’m setting the bar pretty low for this one just in case I enroll back into school full-time.

4. Set aside Sunday for in-house chores

No need for a long explanation or background story for this goal (really, did any of the past three need it?). I just neglected cleaning my room and the house in general a lot this past year. Instead of doing chores around the house whenever I feel like it, I’m going to force myself into doing them once I wake up on Sunday morning/afternoon.

I feel kind of bad about the snide remark I made in my last blog post about Brock Lesnar’s career as a UFC fighter. He entered the sport of mixed martial arts at 30 years old with a chip on his shoulder and the stigma of being a former professional wrestler, and he got farther than a lot of people expected him to. Despite rudimentary abilities in striking and, as we saw in the latter half of his career, an inability to absorb strikes, he was able to beat (an aging) multi-time and multi-weight champion Randy Couture and former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir. Not bad for a guy whose professional résumé prior to entering MMA only included “fake pro wrassler” and “NFL reject”.

He also suffered one case mononucleosis and had two bouts of diverticulitis during his fight career. I’m no medical doctor or sports therapist, so I don’t know exactly how much those diseases affected his strength and his reflexes, but I wouldn’t doubt that they had negative effects on him that he never recovered from.

Rather than point out that Lesnar was an overhyped and overrated fighter used by the UFC to lure pro wrestling fans and casual fans into buying pay-per-views (he was), I think us MMA fans should celebrate his bravery to even step into the octagon despite the mental and physical difficulties he had to face. Let’s also celebrate the success he achieved, little as it may have been, when he overcame those difficulties.

Condolences to all the Lesnar fans that thought he was a legit UFC heavyweight contender.

Going to be reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins next. I’ll try to see what all the fuss is about before the film adaptation is released next March.

Stephen King is someone I would place at the of my list of people who make me very aware of my laziness. Since 1974 his bibliography has grown to 70+ books, which consists mostly of novels and a smattering of short story collections and nonfiction projects. Within that labyrinthine bibliography of his live some of the most iconic moments in fiction. I’ve never even read Carrie, but I steered clear of bullying anybody weird in high school lest I was willing to feel their telekinetic rage.

In King’s most recently released novel, 11/22/63, he uses one the most iconic events in U.S. history as the nucleus for a very competent sci-fi thriller. A portal to the past —specifically September 9th, 1958 — is found by Al Templeton in the pantry of his small diner in Lisbon Falls, Maine. Templeton initially used this fissure in time as a means to buy cheap meat from 1958. He decides to take on a much more important and nobler task: preventing Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on September 22nd, 1963. Templeton, however, aborts the five year mission after being diagnosed of lung cancer and recruits a recently divorced English teacher and protagonist of the novel, Jake Epping, to carry it out.

At 849 pages, 11/22/63 is King’s fourth longest novel. There were a few times while I was reading this book where I thought to myself “Wow, I’m still reading this?” There were character names and details referred to in the later parts of the novel that I had faint memories of and I had to search for in the earlier parts to check if they actually happened in the story. I’m not quite sure though where exactly King could have trimmed the fat, as I never thought that any of the scenes were useless in telling the plot or creating the atmosphere of the time and place in which the protagonist was in.

One of the things that took me out of this book a couple of times is that King does not shy away from using tropes he’s used in his past stories. Two small towns in Maine are used as settings. The evil effects of alcohol and alcoholism are touched upon briefly. Overbearing mothers show up as characters. While his protagonist isn’t a full-time writer this time around, Jake Epping does write a manuscript during his time in the past to support his identity as George Amberson, English teacher and aspiring novelist.

King does provide some pretty good build up to the eventual climax of the story. Epping creates a new life as George Amberson in the small Texas town of Jodie. He builds strong friendships with his co-workers at the high school and even falls in love with a clumsy school librarian named Sadie. The phrase “the past is obdurate” is echoed throughout the novel, and many plot points and twists make it seem like Epping/Amberson is up against a sentient past that does not take kindly to being changed. When our hero finally comes to the point where he tries to save the 35th President of the United States, I was very much rooting for him to succeed.

There’s no new ground broken here as far as time-travel stories go. If you’ve already read several of them in the past you might be able to guess what happens at the conclusion of this book long before you reach it. Still, I think it holds up very well in the ‘thriller’ department. Despite my complaints about the length, the premise and the plot intrigued me and captured my imagination enough that I finished it within five days. It’s a good page-turner, and what more can you ask for from Stephen King?

My sister gave me a fourth generation Amazon Kindle eReader for Christmas this year. Having spent three days with this device, I’ve concluded this is the best Christmas present I’ve ever received.

Since I graduated from university a year ago I’ve been having trouble with reading books from front to back. I would often borrow one or two from the library and return them unfinished; I think the only library book I read all the way through this year was Terry Pratchett’s The Color of Magic. I also bought plenty of used books this year thanks to my mom’s friend giving me a $50 gift card for Half Price Books, but I have yet to finish reading any of them. Every time I started reading a book, no matter the quality of it, I would stop reading it after two or three chapters.

I don’t really know what was causing my disinterest in reading, but the Kindle may have helped me get over it. I decided the first e-book I was going to read was Stephen King’s latest novel 11/22/63, which is about 849 pages long in hardcover form. As of writing this blog post I’ve already read approximately 36% of the book and planning on reading more later tonight.

Maybe it’s the usual excitement I have over a new tech. gadget that has me spending hours at a time reading on this device. Maybe pressing a button just feels better to me than physically turning a page on a book. Maybe King’s new novel is just really captivating. Whatever the reason may be, I’m excited about reading again. For that I’m very grateful to my sister and to this little grey rectangle she gave me.

I just want to stay home forever and watch the trailer for The Dark Night Rises over and over again.

feel creepy when they find out they’re following a high schooler on tumblr?

AS GOD AS MY WITNESS HE IS BROKEN IN HALF

I think I just saw a stranger that I follow on tumblr at Smart & Final…