oh yeah...bouldering is hard

I finally made it outside to climb today.  I've been saving up to buy a crash pad and received it yesterday.

48x41x3.5

With no work today I made the drive down to Athens, Ohio to get on some good old sandstone.  Unfortunately, it has rained a lot in the past few days and the area was still muddy and the rock damp.  Sandstone becomes brittle when wet and is likely to break if you put too much force on it, so I spent some time wandering the area looking for something dry.  I settled for a boulder that looked "dry enough" and chose routes that I thought had solid holds that wouldn't break on me (of course I still managed to chip a couple pieces off, thankfully they aren't integral to the route).

Bouldering on real rock reminded me of two aspects of climbing I have forgotten about while climbing at Kinetic; a) real rock is sharp! and b) no one has taken the time to tape the route, meaning that you have to spend more time thinking about foot and hand placement, thus making the climb more difficult if you interpret the wrong moves or don't take the time to consider hand and foot placement.  Bouldering ranges in difficulty from V0 to V15.  When climbing indoors I average around V5 or even V6 on a good day.  Outdoors I climb V2.  I'm plenty strong to climb hard routes, but I don't have the technique or mental sharpness to climb moderate routes yet...but soon!  Below is a picture of the route I sent:

The route runs from the bottom right along the lip of the boulder to the bulge in the upper left of the picture.  From there you mantle to topout.  Another aspect of outdoor climbing that is rarely practiced indoors is the topout.  Topping out is what it sounds like, you get on top of the boulder.  In most gyms you just climb to the final hold then drop down once you reach the top.  Some specialized gyms have "topout boulders," freestanding structures that you can climb on top of with a set of steps or large holds you can climb down on.  

The V2 boulder took a while to finish, but once I understood the route it flowed very nicely.  I need to get outside to climb more and it looks like Spring Quarter will be a good time to do so.  The weather is unseasonably warm in the Midwest, but that also means that intense storms are more likely as well.  There have been a few storm and tornado warnings in the area.  Though I doubt a tornado will touch down in Columbus the thought still worries me and I'll have to put together an emergency preparedness kit just to be safe.  

One of the guys from Kinetic told me about a trip to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama in April that I will be training for.  Gonna have to hit the books hard before and after the trip...but it will be worth it I think!

When I'm not in class...

I realized today that I'm averaging two posts a month.  That number is sad seeing as how writing is how I propelled myself through undergrad and now grad school.  Time to step up the posting while I can.


OSU is on Spring Break right now and most of my people are gone for the week.  I'm still in Columbus which is fitting since I've rarely done anything for Spring Break in the past.  Last year I worked.  The year before I worked.  Junior year I went skiing.  The two years before that I was training for cross-country.  It feels weird to be content doing nothing when my peers are all doing something.  Thankfully, I ordered a bouldering crash pad which I expect to be arriving soon.  The weather for the week of Spring Break should be warm and sunny, which are perfect conditions for driving down to Athen, OH and bouldering to break in the new pad and wrap up 10 weeks of training at Kinetic.

I talk about Kinetic a lot and get a few questions about it from time to time.  Kinetic is a private climbing co-op in Columbus operated by a local climber and industrial designer who creates climbing holds for companies.   Kinetic is where most of the focused and elite Columbus climbers converge since the gym focuses on overhanging, technical routes.  Climbing there has made me stronger than alternative gyms simply for the fact that I'm hauling my weight around on a 30 to 60 degree overhang.  Another perk is that everyone gets a key.  In fact I just returned from a productive night session there.  Below are some pictures of the gym:

 
Hopefully I can update again this week about bouldering in Athens.

Getting my stuff done so I can look in the mirror

Back in October the Chronicle of Higher Education had a humorous article about procrastion and productivity.  The writing style is clever and the point is obvious, procrastination lets us tend to tasks that appeal to us simply because they are less arduous than whatever deadline is looming before us.  We rationalize these lesser tasks as more pressing than the more important task.    A similar Youtube animation poses the same point.

 I lived that experience yesterday when I realized I still had to read two books for a paper due on Sunday night.  I found the books after cleaning up my apartment from the production of last week's Org Theory paper.  I put them on my desk after cleaning the desk up so I had a productive space.  Then I realized that I needed to clean the kitchen and do some dishes.  In the process of doing that, my disposal broke and leaked all over the floor.  I cleaned that up and called Maintenance for a repair.  I decided that working while someone was fixing my apartment would be difficult.  I was hungry so I went grocery shopping (Kroger is only 200 feet away).  I came back and the maintenance worker was finishing the repair.  He left and I got down to work on taking notes from the book.

Now, one very important thing that both of the above authors forgot to mention is the sense of elation and/or accomplishment that accompanies this gradual progression towards doing work.  After I finished the first book I felt ready for a break because I felt so proud for having done so much before 1 pm.  Fueled by this ill-gotten sense of accomplishment I threw my climbing gear in my bag and biked to Kinetic (the climbing gym) because it was sunny out...but not warm and not without a strong headwind while riding up High St.  At the gym I had a surprisingly productive workout considering that yesterday I had tried the same workout and failed miserably.  

Upon returning home I felt further buoyed by my accomplishments-that-were-not-helping-me-finish-schoolwork so I cooked up some cod for lunch and made burritos.  Followed by a nap and going to one of the most dubious bars I've seen in a while, followed by dinner with a group of Japanese folks from Honda. 

At dinner I quipped that my grandma would be so happy to know that I was having dinner with a group of Japanese people.  Most of them work for Honda and emigrated to the U.S. as a result.  Dinner was a blend of Indonesian and Japanese dishes, which I was very grateful for since my cooking pales in comparison in both taste and nutritional content.  More importantly, this dinner was a chance for me to be a part of the Japanese community in Columbus.

Those of you that know me know that I rep my Japanese heritage hard...obnoxiously so at times...possibly ad nauseam.  But as much I as enjoyed eating and talking with them I also felt like the odd man out.  Language was an obvious factor, they all spoke fluent Japanese while I spoke none.  That wasn't off-putting so much as the physical differences.  I've always contended that I look clearly Japanese and that to confuse me for another Asian race, let alone a non-Asian race, was a clear indicator of cultural incompetence.  But after sitting at a table of all Japanese I realized that I do not look Japanese at all.  For one thing, Japanese have black hair.  I mean black, obviously black hair, whereas mine is a dark brown that could pass for black (and I have argued with people that my hair was black).  Likewise, the Japanese at the table had darker skin than I.  I don't attribute this fact to sun exposure since they all work full-time in an office whereas I have the luxury of going outside practically as the whim (and weather) suit me.  All of this was a subtle reminder to me that I am Hapa.

I don't feel shame at being Hapa, but sitting at that table brought back a slew of feelings that haven't been felt since I debated joining the Japanese Student Association at Seattle U.  The most prominent feeling being the notion that, "I'm not Japanese enough."  I had the good fortune to read some theories about intersectionality and identity development in multi-ethnic Asian-American students so I feel well equipped to grapple with the issues in my head.  Obviously, my "Japaneseness" cannot be measured quantitatively, so it becomes a qualitative measure of my appearance, that is, the image I portray.  It's a strange sensation to suddenly be unstable in something so central to your identity.  

However, these thoughts only came to me on the drive home and did not spoil the night.  In a particularly funny moment, I explained my tattoo to Tokyo Hip Hop and another woman who both laughed when I told them that the rising sun was in the background.  I was perplexed and asked why they laughed.  They told me it was cheesy, but after explaining the tattoo more and showing it to them the tattoo seemed more respectable.  What was funny about that exchange was how much pride I associated with the rising sun portion of my tattoo and how that pride was deflated when I was told that such a showing of ethnic pride was cheesy.  But, I realized that if a friend came to me talking about getting the American flag tattooed on him to represent his ethnic pride I would do the same thing.  It was a weird moment of being disconnected from my heritage  then coming back around to better understand it.  

Anyway, I'm off to do my stuff because I wanted to write this all down so it wasn't in my head 'cause I need to focus when I'm working on my stuff.      

Break on Through to the Other Side

Jim Morrison could not have phrased this sentiment better.  On Tuesday everyone in the Higher Ed and Student Affairs program had to turn in a monster of a paper for our most challenging professor.  We also presented to the class, which was less stressful but still added work.  Tuesday was not a good day for me.    I had coached myself to begin work on my paper early with positive, albeit meager, results.  The goal was to finish the paper on Sunday evening, then Monday at 2 pm, then 5 pm, then 8 pm, then midnight, then noon on Tuesday.  By one pm I had finished everything I needed for the presentation and skimmed the paper for errors.  But everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong as I traversed the campus looking for printing.

But finishing that paper and presentation brought on a wave of euphoria that only Coors Light and Buffalo Wild Wings could complement.  Frenchie's Choice, J.T. York, Dandy Woo, Cardmaster Cider and Ms. I Know You Can dined on greasy, saucy food and drank to celebrate finishing our papers.  It was delicious and everyone left happy.  Ms. I Know You Can is a new addition to the blog's cast of characters so she merits a brief introduction.

Ms. I Know You Can works at a local non-profit in Columbus serving as a coach and mentor for disadvantaged youth who want to attend college.  Often she is quiet in class, but when she has something to say her words are poignant and insightful.  She's also very sassy and it's satisfying to hear her opinions on things, as she has a lot to say.

Now that I'm on the other side I'm getting ready for the ACPA National Conference.  ACPA (American College Personnel Association) is one of the national associations of student affairs professionals.  Because their conference is in nearby Kentucky I'm going to Louisville for four days at the end of March to meet my peers in the field, learn from my faculty and others, and reconnect with friends from Seattle University.  I've been told that as a graduate student the conferences are a great way to network, learn and market yourself.  Then, as a professional, it's like a field-wide reunion of people you've worked with and people you've met.  I'm looking forward to learning a lot from the presenters and seeing a larger portion of my field.