3/19 - You shouldn't be surprised

There's a lot of stuff I haven't mentioned on this blog yet. At least, I feel that way. Everything is so different because of the changed environment so my brain is trying to remember everything at the same time. Everything from the walk up the hill (man, what a hill) to the mind blowing lectures in my sound production class. But like, it's unsustainable and eventually my brain just tosses some stuff out to make room for all the crazy new information coming in. Idk. The problem comes because all the experiences are all of the same intensity (no matter how unimportant they actually are) so my brain is just indiscriminately tossing whatever. Like I vividly remember my gym visit last Wednesday, but I couldn't tell you what I learned in my Outdoor Ed lecture on Thursday (fortunately, that's what notes are for). Maybe I'm just real tired right now, but you know, memory is weird so I'm blaming that for now.

Here's a checklist of things that recently have been happening with me:

1. Tennis!
2. D&D group!
3. Surf camp! and the most eastern point of Australia
4. Future trips
5. Theme of my year

1) tennis. THaaaaaaT'S right, I'm playing tennis this session. Well. "Playing tennis" is a bit of a stretch given that a more accurate description of my current skill level is "hitting a ball in a direction that may or (more likely) may not be in the court" But hey, it's not like anybody expected me to be good on the first go. I've learned it's actually quite a delicate art and getting the swing right is really freaking hard. But I'm learning! It's a social sport tennis so essentially it's a intramural and we don't actually play any games. We just play some mock games against each other and hone in our skills while being chill and whatever. It's weekly so we meet for 2 and half hours every week. Tennis is not extremely popular - soccer has about 60 some members, tennis has 5 - but honestly the smaller environment is a lot more comforting. I probably wouldn't enjoy soccer as much for the same reason that I don't frequently enjoy clubs. Too many. Goddamn. People. Sheesh. The guys at tennis are super nice too and they really don't care that I'm a total no0b at it. They understand and are really just excited to have people to play with. So yeah, those are my Monday nights for the rest of the session!

2) My Tuesday nights might soon be taken up by the D&D group I'm starting! I play in one group downtown on Wednesday nights now (I started that last week. I'm playing a bard with a commander complex) but will be (hopefully) starting a group tomorrow. Last Thursday night, I posted on the college dorm page that I was looking to run a D&D game and all were welcome to play. To my surprise, I got a total of 9(10?) responses. All of them have never played before so I've decided this is going to be my ultimate test in my ability to teach the game. Today I printed an extra copy of the Players Handbook materials so I'd have two copies to pass around instead of one. It cost me around $8 to print it...but hey...worth it. We're meeting tomorrow night for our first session and if enough people show, we'll do a flexible scheduling, but if it's only like 4 or 5 we'll probably play Tuesday nights.

3) This past weekend (16th-18th March) I went to Byron Bay for surf camp! We stayed at the Backpackers Inn hostile there and all our meals were included in our trip charge. Now, due to my phone's obvious lack of waterproofing, I didn't get any pictures of me surfing or paddle-boarding, or seas kayaking (WE SAW DOLPHINS) but I think there might be some floating around that I might post on facebook (TBD). I did, however, get these awesome pictures when I went for a walk during our free time on Sunday. We had about 2 hours to kill between our last lesson and our home trip bus, so I decided I was going to walk to the light house in Byron Bay. According to google maps, it was a 54 minute walk. 

And it probably would have been.

If I didn't get lost twice.

But you know. Those extra 12 minutes came in handy and I did make it back in time for the bus luckily. But not before capturing some bomb pics while traveling the beach trail. Below is a picture I took from a bench on top of one of the big hills along the coastline.

 In case, you don't know this. Since High School (Idea cred: Sarah Miller) I have rated benches in various locations based on a set of criteria that I have designed. The highest weighing criteria in my mind is the view that a bench gives you while you sit in it. The bench in this photo is 4/5 stars. It was breathtaking. but on a technicality, I can't give it 5/5. While standing, you get this view. While sitting, the guard rail makes it a little less stunning. Darn safety. Always getting in the way of my perfect bench.

Here's me, awestruck by the beautiful beach. I have my headphones in because over the course of this 2 hour excursion, I also finished my Audiobook. I'm now read 10 books so far in 2018!

Here's the same beautiful beach without my silly face in it. I highly recommend this as a windows background.

And finally, Vinny and I made it to the most easterly point of the Australian mainland! We saw the lighthouse and gazed into the vastness of the ocean. It was a pretty awesome trip.

4) While I was in Byron, I started looking into some trips into the Australian outback for during our study break. Currently the plan is to go on a 6 day trip from Alice Springs to Uluru and eventually down to Adelaide but TBD on the deets. More coming on that soon.

5) Finally, I'm going to close out with my theme of the year. To give a bit of a background, I was listening to my favorite podcast, Hello Internet, and one of the guys mentioned his "Theme of the year" and another podcast he does, called Cortex where he and his friend talk about productivity, goals, and planning...which is super interesting to me. Anyway, these guys are not a big fan of goals like new years resolutions, so they set a theme for the year (eg. Year of Order) and I thought this was pretty cool so I think I'm going to give it a shot. I've already started some things and I think it's still early enough in the year to declare, right here on this blog, that this is going to be my Year of Documentation. 

Maybe not super catchy of a name, but between continuing my One seconds, getting more into journaling, and my data collection on my own mood, habits, and sleep I'm already on my way to taking steps towards this theme. I've just now given it a name now. Year of Documentation. I'm trying out more Bullet journal stuff now too and I really want to get into the habit of writing down all the things I do and the things I think about since, as I mentioned earlier, my memory is a bit shoddy (esp. right now)

tl;dr: Marc plays tennis now. Marc organized a D&D group. Marc learned to surf and went to the most easterly point of australia. Marc is planning more trips. Marc listens to podcasts and wants you to listen to Hello Internet. Marc is calling 2018 his Year of Documentation.