Fight

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but getting up every time we do." - Confucius

Pretty sure the Dwayne Wade commercial a few years ago took this quote when it did the "fall seven times, get up eight" thing.

The Big Brother 12 application asked what my life's motto was, and this one was definitely at the top of my list. Early in life, I didn't know what failure was: I was good at most things, excelled at academics, didn't worry about sports, was living the good life. Then maturity happened, and I realized I was just a little fish in a big pond, that there were a lot of people smarter, bigger, stronger, more athletic, and better-looking than me, and that's when "failure" happened: Not getting valedictorian, not doing the best on the ACT's, not going to an Ivy League school, not being the best tennis player at our school. But in not being able to do these things, I learned something important: suck it up and get back up swinging. Be like a wolverine, or badger, or hornet, or whatever animal analogy you can think of, you gotta be pugnacious and go after it time and time again, like someone has deprived you of something that's rightfully yours. The current state of affairs, what with the global economy still in shambles and my career prospects not very bright, dictates a get-up-on-the-horse attitude, and I plan on it. O, and plus the fact that 2010 is MY YEAR!

Start of intramural basketball season today where I'll definitely be doing a lot of falling. Very excited about it, as these days I don't do that many competitve things, where there's a clear winner or loser. Falling and getting back up is so key in that game, where you gotta draw falls by running into somebody, fall down to draw a charge, dive after loose balls, and just generally being aggressive. The key is getting back up and repeating the process over and over again. After all, not everyone can be like my friend Anthony and toss up 30-foot prayers that go in off the backboard.

Boston v. LA today? Whoo!

So I was wrong about the result of the final (Serena took it again), but right about Henin having an excellent match, taking it to 3 sets and pretty much being the better player in at least 2 sets. The only strategical thing was, why did she try to charge Serena's 2nd serve all the time? At least half the time she hit out on the endline and took herself out of the point, PLUS Serena got a quick, easy point, which Serena loves because it avoids her weakness of long, drawn-out points that wear her down. Hmmph. Hopefully another situation will arise where Justine can re-think that.

Gran Turino is an interesting, somewhat slow, but definitely moving story. I now see the genius that is Clint Eastwood.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan