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Rediscovering Guitar: The Passion

I started learning piano in 2nd grade with an unweighted 61-key digital piano, and an assortment of self-guided piano books. Putting time into piano allowed me to join the percussion section once I started 6th grade.1They didn’t want to teach you how to read music alongside the several instruments you had to learn. Armed with a reasonable knowledge of music, the free time that childhood offers, and experience learning new skills on my own, I began playing guitar in 7th grade.

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    They didn’t want to teach you how to read music alongside the several instruments you had to learn.
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Antenna TV

The NFL playoffs are long over, but I still wanted to quickly document my experience using an antenna to watch a fair chunk of it in my San Francisco apartment. I bought an $11 “HD” antenna from Amazon after consulting with my dad. It’s good to see that it’s affordable, and made it an easy purchase. I scanned for channels a few times to find the ideal location for the antenna in my apartment1Hanging in the slatted blinds. and started experiencing my childhood again.

Naturally, the two most notable drawbacks were the reintroduction of commercials, and a slightly inconsistent signal. It’s amazing seeing how many commercials are repeated, how often a show is interrupted by them, and also how they’ve changed since I was a kid. However, one dramatic improvement from when I was younger is that commercials are no longer noticably louder than the main content. In fact, I felt they were quieter at times. I’m not sure if that’s due to legislation, new marketing research, or something else entirely, but I’m thankful for the change.

The antenna also proved useful for watching the Winter Olympics. I’m not into them enough to bother paying for Peacock+ so, despite how bad the broadcast coverage on NBC was, it proved sufficient for watching live events in the evenings.

Beyond the Super Bowl and Olympics, I haven’t used the antenna. I don’t watch local news, and there are no sports on right now that I care to pay attention to. However, I’ll be happy to have it available for nationally broadcast events. Maybe there will be something else it’s useful for. It won’t hurt to hold onto.

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    Hanging in the slatted blinds.
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Practicing Missing

I’ve watched and listened to hours of disc golf content across YouTube and podcasts over the past few years. Since I started playing about 9 months ago, an increased portion of that has been focused on instructional content: specific videos about form, techniques, tips and tricks, anything to help me feel more comfortable and consistent on the course.

Just like with regular golf, putting is the most frustrating aspect of the game. Particularly in disc golf, where you are approaching this relatively large basket and all you need to do is throw the disc in from 20 or 30 feet (ideally), it looks childishly easy. Yet I have a lot of trouble with consistency. Sure, I can make a few, but overall I’m missing in pretty much every possible direction during my round. In fact, both on the course and during my warmup I am practicing how to miss.

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A Taste of Competition

This weekend, I played my first competitive round of disc golf. On a whim, I signed up for a league round where everyone pays 5 dollars. What I hadn’t realized when I signed up is that it was a course I’d never played before, so I didn’t have the benefit of being comfortable with either of the factors involved. However, I had been craving a way to force some assessment of my current skills, and also generally some athletic competition that I haven’t had for quite a while. This round gave me plenty of both, and really hooked me.

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Juggling Obligations

I’ve kept myself busy over the last several months. College was the last time I had such a large number of projects and concerns, but most of them were essentially the same. While I would have four or five classes each semester, these all fell under the banner of school, similar to how several work projects are basically the same to me. However, I’ve since begun tutoring and writing curriculum on the side, while trying to maintain some of my other routinized projects. Add wedding and honeymoon planning, and admittedly, some days it feels like I hardly have any time for myself. Working out how to balance all of this is a difficult task.

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Rediscovering the Journal

My older sister gave me a lovely leather-bound journal one month into sixth grade, when all students in my grade went on a week-long trip to a nature center called Eagle Bluff. She encouraged me to use it to keep track of the experience, and I wrote in that journal for most of the next year or two. Looking back, many entries were a bit dramatic, but I think they were accurate to how I felt at the time. It was my first time using a journal, and in particular my first time doing serious introspection. I enjoyed the process, but eventually lost the habit and didn’t try to pick it back up regularly until college.

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