Focus

I skipped another 2 days of class and I realized something about being abroad that has been both beneficial and disastrous to me.

I have to focus on what is important to me. In the confusion, I have lost sight of it. I've stopped exercising. I stopped poker-ing. I stopped studying. I feel like I spend my days shopping and haggling on the right price. I'm having so much fun meeting new people, seeing new things, dancing, socializing, and so forth that I'm not getting the neccessary things done. While I think everyone enjoys studying abroad, I think it is something that cannot be done long unless you have really strong focus. Learning about a new culture, meeting people from all over the world, and seeing yourself in a completely different environment helps in many ways. But for me in particular, I feel like all of these things have come at the lost of some of my other values.

I value health, life long fitness, exercise and its direct benefits.
I value working on my analytic ability and deriving benefits to my personal well being.
I value using work I love to derive financial well being.
I value building relationships that make me happy and touch my person.
I value improving myself.

I decided starting tomorrow I should either swim, run, or workout. In all likelihood, I decide to run a few laps and do some situps and pushups.

I decided starting tomorrow I will play at least one hour of poker since I've been too sporadic on it.

I decided that I will still continue focused on loving my mom and dad, and share with those who truly care.

I decided that when i get back i'd like to take some dance or cooking classes or something. But more importantly, I'd like to spend at least one hour tomorrow working on my Chinese.

Have I lost sight of myself? Have I lost myself in the minute meaningless details of haggling? In trying to protect myself from being deceived and jipped, I allowed myself to slip into a pool of meaningless-ness? What have I done?

Illegal

I feel frustrated with the recent new poker legislation. I feel like i should write about it but as soon as i got this thing loaded up i lost my motivation. hopefully i can write about it later.