"Differential Diagnosis"

Looking back at the last twelve months of my life, I realize that this was probably one of the more exciting years I’ve had in quite some time. Sure, I’ve experienced several ups and downs, but that’s what makes life so great sometimes.

Early this year I lost something very important to me, the Taekwondo dojang/dojo where I spent a good majority of my free time training in Taekwondo. Not only did we lose the facility, but I lost contact with many of the outstanding students who attended; many of who looked up to me for inspiration and guidance. The Korean Taekwondo master and his assistant, along with the American Taekwondo master, have long since vacated that empty building, but they will forever be a part of me.
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In martial arts, your skills are constantly challenged during friendly sparring matches against fellow classmates. During PT, the only way to assess my improvement was to compare myself to the other runners. Unfortunately, the same group of people don’t always attend PT due to various work obligations, schedule shifts, and leave. I wanted solid evidence of my improvement, but just wasn’t sure how to go about it.

The answer came to me in the form of an e-mail sent to my university address.  The university was requesting student volunteers for the 2nd annual 5k "Walk for Autism" in the next town over. This was just the challenge I needed to help push myself towards further improvement!

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As some of you already know, today is in fact my birthday.  I’ve been working on this particular post for a while now, not truly knowing when or if I should post it. This is one of my longer posts, but it explores who I was years ago, how I became who I am today, and what I’m doing to improve my social standing in life. It was heavily inspired by Floreta???s post ???On Friendship.???

I have included several links to previous blog entries that delve deeper into the subject matter written about in that particular section. For the full experience, I recommended you check out the blog posts linked if you haven???t already. Enjoy!

-Omega

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As a result of my run in with the cops in the last installment, ? I had now made it my goal to find out how a student could become an office aide and attain the magical pink slips that can summon my fellow students out of class at any time.

I imagined the endless possibilities of having VIP clients whom I could pull out of class and sell candy to, for a premium price of course. ? Being able to roam the halls with my own custom hall pass, completely immune from teacher, hall monitor, or school security interferrance would practically have me owning the school’s hallways and offer limitless potential for my candy business. I needed this power, I craved it! More »

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My 7th grade algebra teacher, I swear she had spawned from a cloud of chalk dust of erased algebraic equations. ? The woman was obsessed with numbers and formulas, I had never seen anything like it, and my father was a math teacher for a few years!

Every day, it was pages and pages of notes and algebra problems jotted down and solved on our graph paper notebooks. ? I had never been a fan of math, and the only thing that made this class tolerable was the fact that practically everyone in the class bought boatloads of candy from me on a daily basis. ? Who could blame them? A subject as dull as algebra required a sugar rush or two just to keep everyone awake. More »

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Upon walking into the classroom, it took a few moments for my eyes to get used to the dim lighting within. ? The Texas heat, the brutal desert sun, and the full speed run across campus had left me drained, but as my vision slowly came back, my energy was returning in the form of pure adrenaline. ? Had my bag been plundered and pillaged while I was away? Would I have any chance of recouping my stolen goods? ? What would I do if I had been jacked?

As I sat down, I immediately reached below my desk looking for my backpack. ? Merely discovering its presence below my desk brought some comfort, but I had to be sure. Pulling it out from under the desk, I quickly inspected each pocket one by one looking for any signs of tampering. ? My books & notebooks were present, but who would steal those? ? My Mexican candy pockets had been left untouched. My loose change was all there. That???s when I discovered…my chocolates pocket was wide open! More »

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Like any good businessman, I was constantly thinking up of ways to improve my business. I upgraded from small hand written notes passed around in class, to ink-jet printed menus with full color pictures of the candy & prices. ? I would do my best to arrive to class early to pass out my menus without drawing too much attention.

For some of my more trustworthy customers, I carried around a notebook where I would keep track of their IOU???s. Being such loyal customers, I wouldn???t want them to go candy-less at any point. ? Of course, should one of them fail to pay up their IOU???s before the end of the week, they would be cut-off from my services. Once you???ve gotten used to all that candy, it???s hard to be cut off for any extended period of time, they always paid up eventually. More »