Career high & the backstory

This past Sunday I achieved a career high in bowling:
214 217 225

That's a 656 series, a personal best!

Of course, since I'm so bad about updating my blog I've neglected to mention that I'm part of a Sunday night bowling league, so perhaps I should fill in a little backstory.

Back in November, I was invited to join a team in a Sunday night mixer league. In fact, I was a replacement player. The team I'm on originally consisted of two couples. However, one couple broke up and (in a scenario eerily similar to that of an upcoming movie "The Break Up" starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn) no longer could stand each other enough to stay on the same team. So I joined.

I think it was a rough time for me. It's hard to describe, but after a drinking session that ending up as a puking session sometime in September (I don't remember when exacty. Heh, maybe I should of blogged it), a food poisoning bout which reminded me how much I hate throwing up, and a rather vexing series of events late October, I think I just withdrew from society and kept to myself. I focused on school and bowling from then on. (I also pretty much quit thinking about my blog.)

So anyway, I did my usual routine when I start bowling in a new league, experiment! I tried to incorporate a new delivery, hoping to increase my strike potential. (I should mention my normal 'style' is that of an accurate spare shooter averaging around 150 - 180. But I want more strikes, dammit!)

The results were disasterous. With my new 'release' I couldn't hit water if I fell off a boat! I way spraying the ball all over the place. How was I supposed to get more strikes if I couldn't hit the pocket? So, after about a month, I gave up my experimentation in order to try to recover my old release. It took a month or so to 'fix' my stroke. Then after that I've bowled with my old stroke for just under a month (finally getting my average above 150), which leads to this past Sunday.

I was on fire. I could not be stopped. I . . . was doing my math homework between frames!? See, I had a math test the next day, so I HAD to finish up my homework. It probably wouldn't have turned out like this, but I was swamped with homework all semester and work was overworking me (working me on Sunday mornings, too!)

I think my math homework was the key. I went up to throw my ball, then sat down to focus on my (incredibly difficult) math homework. This kept me from thinking and obsessing about the bowling match. I was completely relaxed every frame because I wasn't thinking. Maybe this affirms the saying in Bull Durham: "Don't think. It could only hurt the team." Plus, I was mad. That helped. Despite my 214 and my 217, we lost both games! (The first game by 3 pins, the second by 37. The other team was really good.) So despite my sore wrist which I tweaked, and my weariness from having worked all day, I threw my best game the third game. There's no way in hell I'm going to bowl this well and have my team go 0 - 7! It turned out that my three strikes in the 10th frame was key, because our anchor split in the 10th and our opponent's anchor struck out. We ended up winning by only 44 pins, and we won total pins by 4. We went 3 - 4. Not bad considering the first two games.

The question is, how do I simulate what happened last Sunday? More math homework? And I think it's ironic that the team I'm on now that once consisted of two couples now consists of four singles. The other couple broke up, but they're both still bowling for the team. How fragile relationships are.

Anyway, that's all for now. Maybe I'll start keeping up with my blog. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

entertainment problems

I lost my remote control which sucks because how am I supposed to properly watch tv? In any case, I probably shouldn't be watching so much because I have plenty of homework to do.

I'm actually going through a sort of post-super bowl withdrawal. Without football, I'm really not that interested in sports. I've replaced my normal habit of listening to sports talk radio with more music content. However, the transition has been somewhat unsatisfactory. Between mediocre song selections and the commericials, my patience with 'radio' has worn quite thin. (It's a bad sign that I turn to listening to classical music in my frustration.) I actually did receive an ipod for christmas, but to my horror I find my old piece of junk computer is not compatible with it! I hope to fix this problem soon.

Procrastination Theory

All of a sudden my free time went to oblivion! :(

Anyway, since I've started this semester I've had nothing but work work work to do. It's driving me crazy. For example . . . I have to revise a paper, do at least one assembly program, and do my ridiculously hard to understand math homework that I can't put off any longer because the test is coming up by Monday. And I have no days off from work. This semester is the first time I decided to take three classes, and fate would have it that none of them would be easy. Meanwhile my has continued to beg me to work an extra day for the past month.

So obviously I should get started on my homework right now to get it out of the way, right? Yet for some reason I have this strong urge not to do any of this right now. It makes perfect sense to do what I need to do now, but my brain insists I can leave it for awhile. Hmm, procrastination is powerful indeed . . .

I found an interesting essay about procrastination here.

In the meantime I will either a) waste more time doing nothing, b) actually do some homework, c) just go to sleep, or d) do something even less productive.