Contrary to the title of this blog, I am not getting a haircut. This is due to the many bad haircuts that I've had in the past. 99% of these bad haircuts happened when I went to a new barber. Since my last bad haircut, I've learned my lesson. As of right now, I have decided to not go to any barber but my own in my hometown. However, because I'm so far from home, it's been over 3 months since I've had a haircut. This leads me to ask the questions: How much longer can I wait? At what point does the bad shaggy look of my hair outweigh the risk of a bad haircut? Other factors need to be considered. First of all, this is college. I'm focused on school and wrestling. I'm not really trying to impress anyone. Does that fact contribute to the haircut or no haircut argument? I'm not sure. Secondly, it will be beanie and hoodie weather soon. A beanie will completely cover my head, whether my hair is long or not. Finally, how w...
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I've already blogged about the food at Kman, but the food we keep in our dorms is also worth discussing. It's necessary to keep food in the room in order to survive. This is due to the fact that Kman closes at 8:30 every day, the cage and ABP close every weekend or holiday, and food in downtown Naperville is always expensive. For example, the nearest fast food place is Five Guys, which only has 10 dollar burgers. Left with no options, we need to have food in the room. Because my roommate and I are both from across the country, we don't have cars. We've walked to the nearest grocery store, the jewel, only once. Since then, we've ordered our groceries on Instacart. Instacart is like DoorDash for groceries. We pick out our stuff, then someone shops and delivers it to our door. This is really convenient and the delivery fee isn't very expensive. We usually order from Costco so we can get everything in bulk. This ensures that the CPD (calories per dollar) are up on ...
Now that October has started, the winter sports are right around the corner. This means wrestling season for me. We've been doing preseason work since the school year started, but our official practices start on Monday. Soon after that, we will start to compete. After my high school career ended, I had a few knee injuries to deal with. I had two surgeries on the meniscus in my left knee and one surgery on my right knee. Because of the long recovery process, I haven't competed since my last season ended in March and I just started practicing again recently. Because this has been my longest break from competition and is also my freshman year, there is a lot of anticipation going into this season. There is also a lot of excitement going into this season for the team as well. Last year, North Central finished 3rd as a team at nationals. This year, almost everyone is back along with a good freshman class, so we are ranked 2nd in country. This isn't bad, but we expect to win...
I haven’t always been a napper, but since this semester started, I’ve taken my fair share of naps. Some days, I don’t nap at all. Other days, I’ve napped twice. I especially feel the need to nap after waking up early or working out. I’ve tried to stop taking naps entirely because of how time consuming they are, but then feel like I’m wasting time due to my lack of energy and effort, no matter how much coffee I drink. In my experience, I’ve found that naps can be beneficial, however, it depends how long they are. Like many things, I think the dose determines the damage. Sometimes, I wake up from a nap feeling even more tired than I was before and now with an entire hour of my day wasted. In order to better optimize my naps, I did some research. I started by reading an article by the myoclinic. According to the article, naps can offer relaxation, reduced fatigue, increased alertness, improved mood, and improved performance, including quicker reaction time and better memory. However, it a...
A specific scene that stood out to me was the part when the corals unusually started glowing neon. No one knew why this was happening at first, but they found that the corals did this in order to protect themselves from climate change. The bright colors reflect the light, reducing the heat that the corals absorb. This is fascinating but also very sad because they are only doing this because they are so close to dying. Turning neon is their last stand against the rising temperature of their habitat. It surprised me that coral are considered animals, not plants. And they are also very very big. I thought corals were tiny things living together, but they are very big in reality. Corals are made up of thousands of things called polyps and they all have mouths and stomachs just like animals. They also coexist with plants that live on top of them. These plant cells make food that the corals can eat. Another thing that surprised me was the fact that parrotfish e...
Since I started class at NCC, I've been eating at Kaufman dining hall (also known as Kman) for every 3 out 4 meals. Although its only been 4 weeks, I've learned about the many advantages and disadvantages of eating at there. To start with the benefits, Kman is close to Seager residence hall, where I currently live. This allows me to quickly get food when I'm in a rush. All my meals are already paid for at Kman as well. I have 17 swipes per week but the majority of the time, I only eat there twice a day. I can however eat as much as I want each time I swipe. Due to this fact, the CPD at Kman is basically infinite. CPD stands for "calories per dollar". The service at Kman is also a postive. The staff always asks how I'm doing and tells me to enjoy my day. When it comes to the food, Kman might be considered mid. Some positives, however, would be the cereal station which is open 24/7, the cantaloupe and honeydew which is always available, and the dess...
Before class a couple weeks ago, I had never heard of a microtheme. According to wikipedia, "A microtheme is a short essay. Often an exercise unto itself, it can also be used in writing courses to incrementally build up toward a larger paper". I hope this isn't building up to something much bigger because I struggled with one page as it is. In our microtheme, we are supposed to problematize without solving the problem or even offering some possible solutions. We are not supposed to ask more than one question or use any definitive statements or words. This was hard for me because I immediately try to think about the solution as soon I have a problem. It's hard to address a problem and sit with it. However, once I finally started to understand the meaning of a microtheme, my perspective changed and I learned how to write differently. Writing my microtheme also taught me how to stay diligent while making revisions. In the pa...