[S] Fitness Journal #9.5 - Voluntary Spotter

A very short entry about something that happened in the gym today:

I was doing my sets at the bench when this big (not muscular, just bigger than me), timid-looking guy asked to share the bench with me. After his first set of 5, he began to stop at 3 reps for his next 2 sets, clearly struggling with his 2nd and 3rd rep.

I wanted to offer to help him spot his 4th set, but I was scared/shy so I didn't... then I saw him struggle to only 3 reps again on his 4th set. Then I couldn't take it already.

"Hey, do you want me to spot for you?"

-shyly smiles and shakes head- "It's okay..."

"I think you can do 5 reps. You're stopping at 3 reps because you're afraid you can't lift the weight again right?"

-he nods timidly, and mumbles something about his brother usually accompanying him-

'I spot for you, you go for 5 reps. okay?'

- he nods again-

So I proceed to get into position behind him, and spotted him for that set - with some help and me going 'COME ON. PUSH! ONE MORE! PUSH! LAST ONE! PUSH! PUSH!' etc, he managed to push his way through 5 reps, and I could see the look of accomplishment flush on his face as he appreciatively mumbled 'thanks' and offered to spot for my next set which I declined cos I wasn't doing my max.

Deep inside, my heart glowed too at having helped someone else accomplish something he didn't think could be done.

[S] "You got any job lobangs?"

My friend J, who some of you may remember from my MLM adventure blog posts, suddenly messaged me on Facebook today:

"Hey alan, you got any job lobangs?"

It took everything I had not to reply:

"Yea I do, you want to meet my boss to talk about it? I can't really give you much details, but it's flexible hours, can work a few hours per week only, and very good pay! It's something to do with manipulating your friends and family into parting with their money to extend YOUR personal wealth! If you can do that you'll be rich! Oh wait but I think you may know something about this already..."



I don't even know if he reads this blog. Will be awkward if he does huh hahaha

I don't hate or dislike him. I dislike the concept. I dislike what it turned him into and what it almost turned me into. J, if you're reading this... no hard feelings yo ;0

[S] New Banner!

Yay! Have a personalized banner now which I got someone to do for me. There are a few variations so keep hitting F5 and you'll see them all :)

The brain thing smart anot ah? Haha! It represents Psychology, and also being above my name (one of the variations) it means I have the brains! hahahaha. Ok lame I know but pretty cool, no?

The final image I chose was actually this one:



And the rest of the images that you see are the drafts, but I discovered I could have a dynamic banner (rather than a single static image), so I decided to use some of the drafts as well!

I can't think of any other picture to use as the background image besides that cool zergling, but I understand it may look scary/threatening to some people. Anyone with any ideas for a suitable image please let me know!

[S] How to Remember my Blog URL

You may think it's difficult to remember the number of Zs in my blog URL. Is it alanz? alanzz? alanzzzzzzz? Why the heck do I even put Zs?

Well, I don't have a quirky nickname like mrbrown or xiaxue or anything, (my gaming nick is probably too hard to remember) and I want to retain some individuality in the URL (and not like averageboi194.wordpress or something).

SO. It's very simple.  How many letters does my name have?. A-L-A-N.

Four!

That means 4 Zs.

There we have it. alanzzzz

[S] Early Development

After my exams, I will be trying to revamp my blog. Some things that I hope to do:

• Use a better layout (gonna ask the gf to help =X Wonder if she will haha)


• Update the sidebar ---->


• Add labels to as many (if possible, all) of my posts as possible. (e.g. humor, school, TV, etc)

I really love blogging, just that with Twitter and Facebook as more convenient alternatives (Twitter you can just microblog, and Facebook you just upload the photos and add captions, whereas in the past I would add photos and write stuff in a blog entry) it's hard to overcome the lazy nature in me to actually write a blog entry.

Anyway, I'm starting this new thing of 'mini blogs', which is something like a short thought I had that is too long to be expressed on Twitter. Yes, I know Twitlonger can probably accomplish the same thing, but I kinda want them to be archivable. These posts will be recognizable by the [S] in front of the title, meaning 'Short/small'.