3. Be able to do all three splits.
10. Run a real world mile in less than ten minutes.
11. Buy $10 of stock during the first week and do NOT look at its earnings (or losses) until Day 1001.
14. Turn off the internet for a week [in preparation for...]
15. Turn off the computer for a week.
21. Replace every lightbulb in my living space with an energy-saving equivalent.
46. Serve on a grand jury.
47. Fast - 3 days
48. Fast- 5 days
49. Fast - 7 days
Sundry Items 52-80 may be found in Part 2, while 81-101 are located in Part 3.
Details
3. Be able to do all three splits.
In my youth, I did gymnastics and dance. While I wasn't particularly graceful or strong or dedicated, and wasn't able to get very far in either, I did have a lot of fun at it and I enjoyed all the flexibility it yielded me. I've kept up with a stretching routine over the years, but I still feel like I'm old and creaky sometimes. Ergo, I want to reclaim the ability to do left leg, right leg, and center splits. Whenever I make some sort of progress on this goal, it will be posted with an additional tag of "Physical Health."
10. Run a real world mile in less than ten minutes.
I can run a mile on an elliptical in a gym in just over ten minutes with the incline set at 12 and the resistance fluctuating between 6 and 9. For the life of me, I cannot run on a street or outdoor track or through the woods or anything for more than a few minutes, let alone an entire mile or ten minutes. I have never really worked at it, though, except for training two days a week at the gym on the elliptical - if you could call it training. I don't think so, since there was no end point in mind. It was just exercise. And gyms are expensive, and they play loud, bad music, and... so many things. So I want to train up and be able to run a full mile in the real world in under ten minutes. Progress on this goal (including a baseline post) will carry the additional tag of "Physical Health" as well.
11. Buy $10 of stock during the first week and do NOT look at its earnings (or losses) until Day 1001.
This is one of those more ridiculous sorts of goals, but it's one that I think will be very entertaining at the end. As I wrote in the last weekly update post, the stock I chose will probably be on my radar for the first six months or so, but I'll try my hardest to avoid it and my dad promised he would make an effort to keep it off his monitor in the office. Again, I have 8.5 shares in Hyperdynamic Systems (NYSE: HDY(?)) and it will be interesting to see where this baby company goes in the next three years.
14. Turn off the internet for a week.
This goal partially comes out of a hypothetical bet, which in turn came out of a South Park episode in which America loses the internet. The question was whether you would rather go one year without TV or one year without internet. Everyone else said they could just watch TV on the internet, but I felt that was against the spirit of the question and claimed I not only could go one year without the internet, but that I would. For about two weeks at the beginning of the last school year, I firmly believed that my post-collegiate job would be documenting my decision to live in New York City without the internet. That didn't pan out, but I still think it's an interesting experiment since we're the first generation of adults that has been online for all or most of our conscious memory. This goal is also training for...
15. Turn off the computer for a week.
This is obviously in the same vein as the previous goal, but MOAR XTREEEEEME. Nothing else to really say about these two, except that 1) vacations/moving will not count and 2) exceptions will have to be made for work if required. My computer and I are literally attached at the hip for more than half of my leisure time. This will be very, very difficult.
21. Replace every lightbulb in my living space with an energy-saving equivalent.
One year for Christmas, everyone in my family got compact fluorescents because the school was giving them out to us to change out bulbs in our dorm rooms. Changing one bulb doesn't make a big difference, but changing the bulbs of 2000 students... then you're starting to get somewhere. Anyway, they left boxes of bulbs in the vacuum/free box closet of every dorm in case someone had missed the door-to-door exchange, and... well, yeah. Everyone in my family ended up getting some for Christmas. Call it taking full advantage of my student activity fee.
Anyway. These bulbs produce a perfectly fine light when covered with a shade, and save power, and are a bit less expensive than they were two years ago. I know there's this whole contingent of people who think they cause cancer... but what doesn't, anymore?. Some say that the mercury in them seeps into landfills... but if the alternative is continuing to use tungsten bulbs, I can't really see that being an improvement, on balance. And there are ways to properly dispose of them, so... unless LED lights make some major progress in the mass consumer market, CFLs will be it. For this goal to be fulfilled, I need to have my own living space; living at home and replacing the three bulbs in my bedroom will not count.
46. Serve on a grand jury.
First off, I know you don't request jury duty. You do, however, request GRAND jury duty. The difference is that jury duty lasts for one case, and you make the final determination of guilt or innocence, while grand jurors handle hundreds of cases a week and preliminarily determine whether there should even be a trial. A term also lasts three months. For most people, three months of jury duty sounds excruciating. I know it won't be, mostly because I've sort of already done it. While interning at the District Attorney's Office in Dallas, the "learning" portion of the day was spent down in the grand jury room. Maybe it's because I wasn't allowed to actively participate in the proceedings, but, aside from the daily slew of drug cases, it was fairly interesting to hear everything. And there were moments when I really wanted to speak up, because there was something I thought the grand jurors were misunderstanding, but I wasn't allowed. That's probably why I want to do it so badly. Anyway, I don't think I'll say this for any other goal, but if I haven't completed it and I end up leaving the country to work in an Embassy (or for some other yet unforeseen reason), I will use an as-yet-undisclosed backup goal instead. I'm fairly certain it's illegal to serve on a grand jury in a country of which you are not a citizen.
47, 48, and 49. Daylight Fasts - 3, 5, and 7 days.
Before I added the word "daylight" to this goal (the actual writing of it, not the spirit - that was always intentional), everyone told me this was a very bad idea and some, I think, were concerned that I was trying to sneak in some sort of anorexia into my Mission 101. Let me be clear: that is not the case. Plus, many of you have eaten meals with me; you know that I eat. Quite healthily. Well, a decent amount, anyway, and there are sometimes vegetables involved.
Anyway. Sometimes I do think I eat too much, in that way that I think everyone in America can eat too much, and there is something to be said for the willpower it takes to not consume anything during the daylight hours. This is not a religious project, although I am hoping to sneak some meditation into these fasts, but I basically want to prove that I can. I will probably not eat anything for breakfast, drink water during the day, and eat a very light dinner of rice or peanut butter and crackers (alternating days, perhaps) after dark before bed. Each length of fast is a separate goal because these will be very, very difficult. I'm fasting from the internet and the computer during this mission. I should probably do a fast from something that reminds me what it's like to not have your basic needs met, too. Posts about all three goals will also be tagged with "Physical Health."
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