I did complete the Spartan Ultra Beast

It took me two years to complete the Spartan Ultra Beast in Quebec.

My lap one was completed in 2017 and my lap two was completed in 2018.

Hahahaha!

2018 Spartan Ultra

Once again, I failed to complete the Spartan Ultra Beast at Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, Quebec.

It was nice to travel to that area again because it is very different from where I reside.

This time, I felt a lot more prepared than last year; however, I went to the event with an injured body so my body wore out a lot quicker.  I couldn't help but laugh at myself during the climb because the hills were so steep that I couldn't believe I signed up to explore this mountain on foot again.  This year I had to carry a heavy log up and down the mountain.  I carried a heavy one and began talking to it.  I also pretended to be the log and responded to my own questions.  I had a real good conversation with this heavy log I had to carry up and down the mountain.  I was close to dead last at that point.

I brought lots of food with me this year.  For example, I had chocolate.  It was nice to eat in front of other participants.

I can now complete some of the obstacles I had trouble completing with ease now.

Overall, I feel that I did better this year.

Aside from participating in Spartan Race, I also went canoeing, belly blow up boat river rafting, swimming at the beach, watching people row boats at a lake and more.

My mother and I clumsily lost our spare car key but were able to find it before we left Quebec.  We basically let everyone know we lost our spare car key.  After we found it, we had to let everyone know we found it and all was good and we were happy and relieved.

The sounds of summer nights

The other day, I wrote about my love of rainy days.  Today, let's cover the sounds I love in the summer evenings.

Summer nights are quiet.
People are resting from the hustling and bustling of the day.
When the night is quiet and all are resting, you hear many things;
like the wind blowing,
the insects snoring,
the leaves moving.
It is as close as I can get to nature. 

Some summer nights are not quiet.
That's because some people are not resting.
When the night is not quiet and not all are resting,
you may hear those who are not sleeping screaming, laughing or shouting.
You may also hear instruments they operate like the sound of a car engine or music they enjoy dancing to.
It is as close as I can get to a party I don't want to attend.

A play I may never finish

As a child, I enjoyed listening to the sounds of the rain.  Things you've liked as a child doesn't really change.  A very memorable poem I had to memorize was "rain rain go away, come again another day!". I had fun chanting that but I think I'll chant that wholeheartedly only if it's been raining heavily for 72 hours non stop and the condition prior to the heavy rain was not a drought.

I digress.  As the drafting of this posting, it is raining and I just can't help but express my love for the rain.

I started writing a play a while ago but it's hard for me to pen it.  It will be too long and scattered and probably not enough dialogue.  I guess I am stuck.  If I revisit it, I'll probably just edit what I already wrote which is really just a waste of time.  I want to continue the story not edit the introduction.

Recently, I have been fed a lot of bad things that have happened to meeting people on the internet.  It is a bit annoying because my experience with meeting strangers from the internet has been quite normal, random and pleasant.

As a high schooler, I had no intention of ever meeting anyone I encounter on the internet.  I never posted photos of myself, I speak with people for a long time (we actually had conversations), I don't tell them exactly where I live but I might tell them approximately on a big plot of land where I may live so they would tell me the same thing.  Once I have established that you are way too far for me to travel to and vice versa, we can finally hang out on the world wide web and travel together in the virtual world.  We might meet many years later, never meet or eventually lose contact but, at least, we kept each other company for a period of time.  Even on the internet, people still judge you the same way.  Some people on the internet said I had no life.  It's partly true but when I think deeper into it, I had a life, it was just different.  Another way to look at it is that I protected myself from people that were not nice to me but I might see everyday.  I chose to not socialize too much in high school because there was at least a small group of people that was extremely cruel and mean to me for no reason or a very small reason that was never explained to me (I took my guesses).  I moved myself away from the potential of more unpleasant experiences by being very unreactive to anything they did.  Luckily, those people were of no importance so I don't have to interact with them at all.  If I did have to interact with them, I made sure it was as minimal as possible and only for group projects where I am assigned randomly to be part of their team.  I didn't want to dwell on how they affected me and high school was only four years.

As I grew older, I finally met some people from the internet but the difference between this and my high school internet travels is that I state clearly at the beginning that I intend to meet but we may not meet.  It's more fun when you don't know how the other person look like at all but at the same time you are scared of offending the person when you meet in person and just find that person totally boring or unattractive or whatever or too different from me and vice versa.

In life there are unpleasant situations, you always have to work towards them to change it.  The bigger the problem the longer it takes to fix.  I tackle my problems daily and slowly. People let me take my own time because it's so small that they don't even know there was a problem when it's solved. Sometimes people create their own problems when there's no problem at all.

At school there's always an answer for things that are taught and tested.  Those skills could be used in real life where you really have to come up with your own answers.  You had trouble with figuring out percentages?  That could be a big problem and really hinder your future.  The dude that is always right may actually be wrong.  That dude that is always wrong may actually be right.  Knowing at least the basic would be nice.

Anyways rambling again.  #old

Tree

There are many things you can do with a Tree.  As a child, I used to climb the tree at least once a week.  I sometimes even read on the tree.  As I grew older, tree and I grew apart and I haven't climbed it until last last year.

Blizzards and all, it took me two years to clean all of the dead branches.  Climbing the tree is a lot easier now because I grew taller and stronger!  I also find it very relaxing to stretch on the tree.  The tree is nice to stand on, to sit on and even to lie down on. 

Removing the dead branches has taught me a lot about the tree.  I'm amazed by how strong it is.  Dead branches are also very fun to play with as they are brittle.  The big ones are very fun to break down.  I found it very soothing to take the time to make the dead branches into smaller pieces one by one.  I'm creative with my ways of breaking down dead branches.  My time with my tree is really one of a kind!

My beef with the internet

Over the long weekend, I finally closed my Facebook account and updated my LinkedIn profile.  Closing my Facebook account was nice because I don't really use it and it contains too much misinformation about me.  Afterall, I have accepted a lot of friends requests from people that are simply acquaintances and there are also photos of me with people I may have only seen once in my life.  Facebook has grown too confusing for me now, whenever I log in, I worry about realizing I missed another social gathering among friends, or receiving fund raising requests from people raising funds for diseases that they don't have, seeing people voicing their opinions on politics that I cannot comprehend or reading a bunch of people's prayers and feeling like I am an ungrateful person.  Let's say I have closed my Facebook account for good and will never reactivate it again.

Now, LinkedIn is not that much better but I figured I should keep it up to date since I am working.  I like to keep it simple because I have learned the hard way with Facebook.  I hope people who visits my LinkedIn profile get the sense that I am witty, mature and responsible but still human.

I find that when you write for free with your face, people refrain from commenting on your writing.  When you write anonymously on the internet to respond to someone's question and take a stance that some very opinionated people but caring people disagree with, you will never be able to end the conversation.  Anyhow, sometimes it feels like the internet is filled with people I avoid in person.  I can carry on a conversation when the time is right and when the topic is interesting; however, just because I am talking does not mean I find the topic interesting.

Disney Prince Series

I have been wishing for a Disney Prince Series for a while.  We saw the princesses for an extended period of time in each movie but the Prince lacked screen time.  It is now time to find out what the Prince did before encountering the Princess.

I also miss 2D animation.  It would be interesting if the format of the Prince series is exactly the same as the Princess.  The 3D stuff, to me anyways, just doesn't have the same fairy tale feel to it.  Maybe you can even use some of the same background music in the Princess counterpart.

Currently, besides the Beast and Aladdin, by the end of each Disney Princess movie, the dude, I mean the Prince, is still a stranger to the audience.  I may be wrong but, I believe the main people involved in making the Disney Princess movies were men, so perhaps the Princesses in Disney movies are depictions of the ideal girl.  The Prince is still a stranger by the end of each Disney Princess movie because the men who are revealing what their definition of a Princess is may not want the audience to know who the Prince is, what a Prince is or show how a Prince become a Prince.  The audience only gets a glimpse of the Prince but never the journey of how the Prince became the person capable of saving the Princess.  His appearance is short, efficient and effective.

In summary, every girl is a Princess and the road to become a Prince is unknown.  There will be no happily ever after if the Prince fails to safe the Princess.  The Princess was not weak so she only got stuck in trouble when the situation was too tough for her to handle.  The Disney movies just exaggerated the problem the Prince need to solve in order to rescue the Princess.  We all know dragons don't exist!

Krusty

I feel like the past few years have been depressing, I noticed in media I came across of the passing away of a few well known person.  Part of me wishfully hope that they did not pass and it's a stunt like what Krusty the clown did in an episode of the Simpsons to get away from people.   Krusty was tired of being the clown or maybe tired of being around the crowd and needed some time to himself.

Anyhow, humour is something the world will always need. (Start of ramble) I don't know if anyone else remember the episode where Krusty faked his death and everyone was searching for him or something.  The Simpsons was a very hard show for me to watch as a child, it was in English, a language I could hardly understand and it was a cartoon for adults.  As an innocent child, from a different culture, who loved watching Disney movies and Sailor Moon, I probably missed most of the things being told in the Simpsons. Yet, I still watched it everyday after school, after I have completed all my chores and homework of course!