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Picnic Day

This last Saturday was Picnic Day, a Davis tradition that has occurred for the past 96 years. About 75,000 people flocked to the UC Davis campus to attend over 200 family friendly events ranging from an entomological petting zoo to a battle of marching bands.



Officially, Picnic Day is UC Davis' annual open house event to showcase the work the campus is doing and allow prospective students and members of the community to investigate the school.


If that sounds unexciting, you would most likely be surprised at the frenzied excitement the average student would convey to you in a description of Picnic Day. The anticipation surrounding the event in the preceding weeks rivals that leading up to Christmas. Indeed, the night before Picnic Day is often compared to Christmas Eve due to the excitement students feel.

You may be skeptical at this point. What could be so great about Picnic Day that a bunch of college students would be so excited about it? Are they really that excited by the prospect of watching wiener dog races and eating overpriced carnival food? You would be right to be skeptical about the excitement surrounding Picnic Day, because none of these things really get the students very excited. I have not yet mentioned the piece of the puzzle that makes Picnic Day such a tremendous holiday on the UC Davis campus.


Alcohol. That's the reason people get so worked up about Picnic Day. It is seen, for whatever reason, as an opportunity to drink all day and then drink all night. Why the student body chooses this one particular day to engage in such raucous behavior while leaving other weekends lifelessly sober is beyond my knowledge. And it would be inaccurate to portray this as the behavior of the entire student body. Really, I would estimate that about sixty percent of the students engage in the revelry while the other half are a bit more temperate. But it is at least a sizable enough chunk of the population that it is noticeable even among the hordes of visitors on campus.


I first encountered the joys of Picnic Day at approximately nine thirty in the morning when I went to breakfast. The unusual thing was that there was a very large line trailing out of the dining commons, which has never occurred at breakfast previously. The reason for the line became apparent once I joined the throng. Normally, there are very few people at breakfast, especially during weekends, because the vast majority of people are taking advantage of the spare time to sleep.


But not on Picnic Day.


No, the people who would usually be recovering from Friday night had gone to bed early the night before, knowing that they would most likely not be sleeping again until Sunday morning. And every minute of Picnic Day is too valuable to waste by sleeping. It is customary for thirsty students to rise around seven in the morning to begin priming their stomachs with a healthy dose of alcohol (the Graduate, a local bar, opens at 6 am to satisfy demand). As I stood in line to get into the DC, I listened as students behind me discussed what clever concoctions they had created to start the day off right. One pair of girls emerged from a dorm visibly inebriated and staggered into line with their other friends, who laughed in an uproar at the silly behavior of the two sloshed girls.


As the day went on, students would disperse throughout the city to join friends at house parties from which they would return without their good sense. It makes a particularly interesting day for the police, who made 33 arrests this Picnic Day. Some inebriates peed on storefronts while others engaged in group fights around the city.

Matt Robbins, the college pastor at the church I'm going to, entered his dog in the frisbee dog competition, so I spent much of my morning with his family watching him compete.

This description of Picnic Day, fortunately, does not really carry over to the campus too much. The dorms definitely have their share of stumbling sots (although my honors dorm insulated me quite nicely), but most of campus is happily occupied by families who are quite content to watch their kids make tie-dye shirts. It was in that environment that I spent most of my day. I floated from parade to sheep dog exposition to A Capella performance and beyond, and the day was quite enjoyable.


So that was Picnic Day.

Pascha

Last Saturday night (the night before Easter) I attended the Orthodox celebration of Pascha (pronounced paw-skuh, like you’re an old Russian guy). It’s basically an Easter service, except that it starts at 11:30 p.m.

And ends at 3:00 a.m. And there are no chairs. And you can’t fall asleep even if you manage to find a wall to lean on because you might drop your lit candle and set the church on fire.

Despite these conditions, I actually quite liked it.

I’d never been to any Orthodox service (or even a Catholic service) before, so just the initial entry into the small sanctuary was a bit of a shock. The room was dark, with only several dim chandeliers providing most of the light, supported by an array of candles resting around the room. A small stage sat at the front of the room, dominated by a lavishly decorated partial wall separating the greater part of the room from a holy area behind the wall reserved for clergy.

At the entryway to the sanctuary sat a small painting bearing the image of some saint, surrounded by more candles, before which entering practitioners would cross and prostrate themselves. As I followed into the sanctuary, an aged male voice somewhere near the front of the room was reading the book of Acts in a monotone voice that sounded not unlike the chanting of a Buddhist monk.

I claimed my piece of territory (meaning that I chose a spot where I would be standing for three and a half hours) and looked around the room. It felt like I had stepped into a church of the year 300 A.D. Moreover, it felt like that church would have been located somewhere East of the Mediterranean.

I’ve heard one of my favorite speakers, Rob Bell, talk about rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion. Rediscovering roots that we might look upon today as weird or foreign. That finally made sense to me as I stood there absorbing the crudely shaded artwork and monotone chanting that filled the room. I figure it was about as close to original church tradition as it gets, and it felt extremely unfamiliar.

The experience after the service was just as novel. Around 3:30, they really got the party started. The members of the congregation had basically followed a vegan diet for lent, so following the service, an outdoor feast featuring all different kinds of meat-centered dishes was unveiled. More interestingly, Orthodox folks seem to have quite the affinity for alcohol (which I'd actually heard about before). It was quite the transition going from the most reverent church service I've ever attended to a party with significant amounts of hard liquor. We didn't stay too long, mostly because it was cold outside.

The guys with whom I went to Pascha. Several are in one of my bible studies.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting night. I'm still digesting the whole experience. I've tried about five times to write out some of my intellectual feelings concerning the service, but each time I've found myself unable to even wrap my head around my thoughts. So perhaps in a future post.


For now, I can simply appreciate that it was a great complement to a regular Sunday morning Easter service.

Baptism

Last Sunday, March 21st, I was baptized at Living Spring Christian Fellowship. I figure that the video will supply all relevant information, so I'll leave it at that.

Happiness and Joy

On Friday night, I played broomball for the second time this year. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically field hockey on an ice rink, plus at least one extra ball. It’s loads of fun. Slipping, falling, and laughter define the experience. Add in some friends, and you’ve got yourself a fun night. A happy night, we’ll say.

A view out the front door of my building.

Later that night in my dorm, after I’d been asleep for a while, I awoke as the door crashed open and two people came in holding my roommate, Patrick. I didn’t actually see this, because I still had my eyes closed, but I could discern the situation from the dialogue of the voices. The first voice I heard was a neighbor from across the hall, Tom.

“How the heck did he get back here?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know.” This time, the voice was that of Patrick’s girlfriend, Nicole.

At that point, I think they must have figured out that Patrick would be needing a toilette, because they left and took Patrick to the bathroom next door before I even had a chance to look up. A minute later, I heard them reemerge from the bathroom (the door to my room was still open), but after listening to their conversation for a minute, it seemed they had left Patrick at the toilette. After listening for about a minute, I understood that Patrick was sick in the bathroom, having come back from a party with more alcohol than he could handle.

I decided to get up and see what was going on. When I came out of the room, Nicole quickly apologized for the commotion, but I tried to tell her not to worry about it.

“So I guess Patrick had a little to much to drink?” I asked. Indeed it was the case. I would find out the next day that the party Pat was attending had a special twist. There was a “sheriff” who could put people in “jail”, and the only way to get out of jail was to take a number of shots. So unfortunately for Patrick, he landed in the slammer, and he didn’t get out in his right mind.

I expressed concern and asked if Pat was going to be okay or if they thought if it was bad enough to warrant medical attention. They judged that he’d be okay.

At this time I think I need to explain my past interaction with Tom, the neighbor who helped get Patrick to the bathroom. I’ve had several conversations with Tom regarding my spiritual outlook, and I’ve defied many of his stereotypes of Christians (and he has many). When I come back from Christian events, he’ll often ask, “You guys make some good Jew baby sacrifices tonight?” to which I’ll jokingly reply in the affirmative.

Evidently, he went to a Christian elementary school and left with some rather scarred views of Christianity. So at various times he’s asked me what I think of the “heathens” who go out and party. I’ve generally responded that it’s not my business, and while I would hope that they would find a more productive way of enjoying themselves, it’s not really my place to judge them. This has shaken up his view of Christians slightly, but I don’t think he really bought it until Friday night.

When I came out after being rudely awakened and showed concern for this “heathen” who’d gotten himself sloshed, Tom suddenly asked with real exasperation, “How are you so freaking nonjudgmental? I don’t understand. You’re a Christian. You’re supposed to judge people. What is it with you?” Nicole was sitting rather shaken right next to us, so I didn’t think it was the best time for an explanation of how it’s a lot easier to not judge people when you’ve been saved from judgment, but I offered Tom the advice that his past experience with Christians might not be the best indicator of how Christians are supposed to live. The conversation was cut off by the need to check on Patrick, but I could tell that I had challenged the structural integrity of the Christian box Tom had put me into.

A few minutes later, Patrick was about done hurling in the bathroom, so we helped him back to bed to get some rest. He threw up a few times throughout the night all over his sheets. Somewhere during the night his iPhone was submerged in water. Not a good night for Pat. I was glad to have the opportunity to at least give some moral support even if he refused my offers to clean up. He genuinely appreciated the willingness to help, but I suspect that his ego was already amply crushed without accepting more assistance.

I’ve been thinking lately about the difference between happiness and joy. I can say that for all involved, this was not a night of great happiness. For me, however, every moment was dominated by joy. While it might not have been a terribly comfortable night, I felt like my actions carried potential for eternal repercussions. Tom’s view of Christianity was at least challenged if not changed. Patrick will hopefully remember a quiet offer in the night and somehow connect it to the love of God.

My experience of the night was largely informed by the conclusions that I’ve reached concerning happiness and joy. As I see it, happiness is pleasure in the moment. It is defined largely by circumstances. In contrast, I have come to see joy as hope in eternity. It does not go away. Even when I’m in the toughest of circumstances, I can reflect on the fact that I’ve been secured in eternity by my Creator, and I experience joy. The joy is increased upon realization of the fact that we can be a part of His eternal work in the present. As a result, it’s often the hardest times that bring the most true joy because it’s in those moments that we start seeing the long term importance of things. The worries of the everyday are eclipsed by the hope of eternity. A night of broomball begins to pale in comparison to a night of puke and shattered expectations. A night that could be filled with frustration and judgment suddenly makes so much more sense as a night full of God’s mercy toward others.

Truly, there are much greater things to pursue in this world than happiness. Happiness did not survive the night.

Joy did.

Spotlight on Biophotonics

On a field trip to the Center for Biophotonics research center in Sacramento, we got to see a bunch of really interesting equipment. Above, one of the researchers shows us the highest-resolution optical microscope commercially available. It uses Moire patterns to focus down to 15 nanometers in size (that's 15 millionths of a millimeter).

This quarter, I am taking a particularly interesting class called 'Introduction to Biophotonics'. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re in the same boat as everyone else I’ve told about it. I didn’t know what it was until I took the class, but I can testify that it is incredibly interesting. If I were pursuing a more science-oriented path, I would definitely consider a career in Biophotonics.

I suppose I should clarify what it is before I say any more about it. Biophotonics is essentially the combination of the fields of biology and photonics. If you’re as informed as the average layman, you’ll know that biology is the study of living organisms, but you won't know that photonics is the study of light (the real definition is slightly more complex, but we’ll keep it simple). Therefore, biophotonics is the study of how light can be used in biology and medicine.

Another set up at the Center for Biophotonics. Each one of those little posts holds a prism, filter, or diffractor that manipulates the laser beam that passes through them.

Perhaps the best thing about biophotonics is that it is very non-invasive. Consider the following examples that show some of the applications of biophotonics.

Infrared Thermometer:

The infrared thermometer uses infrared light to take your temperature. You just swipe it across your temple, and it instantly displays your temperature. It does this by measuring the amount of infrared radiation emitted by your temporal artery, which runs across your temple. Our bodies emit infrared radiation according to how much heat they produce. The hottest parts give off the most infrared radiation while the coolest parts give off the least. Our blood is a good measure of our core temperature, so measuring the infrared radiation given off by an artery (particularly one that’s close to the surface of our skin) is a good way to measure our temperature. No more waiting!

Pulse Oximeter:

This is a better example of how biophotonics is minimally invasive. In the days of old, there was no easy way to discover how much oxygen was being carried in a person’s blood. The only way was to take a blood sample and run time-consuming tests. This little device, however, makes all that obsolete.

Here’s what it does. You clamp it to the end of your finger, wait a few seconds, and then the LCD screen displays how oxygenated your blood is (typically around 98%). It’s that simple. How does it do it?

On one side of the clamp is a red light that shines through your finger to the other side. On the other side of the clamp, there is a detector that senses the color of the light passing through the finger. If you’ve ever shone a flashlight through your finger, you’ll know that the white light of the flashlight emerges on the other side of the finger as red light. If you know anything about the properties of light and color, you’ll know that things basically get their color by what wavelengths of light they absorb, and what wavelengths of light they reflect (if you’re not familiar with this, the quirky video below shows it pretty well*). So for our flesh, red is reflected while the other colors are absorbed, chiefly because of blood and other tissues which take on a red color.

In school, you probably saw diagrams of our arteries and veins with arteries colored red and veins colored blue. Many people get confused and take this to mean that blood carrying oxygen (found in arteries) is colored red and blood lacking oxygen (found in veins) is colored blue. This is not the case. In reality, oxygenated blood is colored bright red and deoxygenated blood is colored dark red. In fact, the more oxygen blood is carrying, the brighter the color of red, and vice versa. You can now probably guess how the pulse oximeter works. It senses the exact color of the red coming through your finger and by that color, it can determine how much oxygen your blood is carrying.

This has many useful applications that would not be possible with the older, more time-consuming methods. The most obvious application is in emergency situations, where the oxygen content of a person’s blood might predict the success or failure of a particular course of action. There are less obvious applications too. Pilots at high altitudes can use them to determine if they are receiving enough oxygen from the air, or if they need to use on-board oxygen tanks (which is expensive, and best not used if it can be avoided). Even athletes can use them to track respiratory progress in training.

These tools are just a couple of applications of biophotonics. What I find most fascinating, however, are the applications on the cutting edge of research.

I could go in several directions at this point, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll highlight just one of the areas in which biophotonics is showing very exciting possibilities: cancer diagnosis.

Currently, there are few ways of conducting reliable cancer diagnostics that don’t involve invasive techniques such as biopsy. Often, this results in the patient getting a bunch of tissue cut out of them only to find out that they don’t have malignant cancer.  Specifically for breast cancer, nearly 85% of all open surgical breast biopsies are found to be clear of cancer. In the U.S. alone, that’s nearly 19,000 women every week losing valuable tissue for no reason. Unsurprisingly, this process leaves many women feeling physical and emotional trauma.

Biophotonics shows promising signs, however, that such methods may not be necessary in the future. Now brace yourself for a little more science. I’ll keep it simple, both because I haven’t really learned the full complexity of it, and because most readers care more for the application than the theory.

So when light comes into contact with living material, it interacts. Specifically, when light hits a particular molecule, it will interact with the chemical bonds in the molecule and cause tiny changes in the characteristics of the light. It does this by momentarily absorbing a photon (a particle of light) at a time, which “excites” the molecule to a higher energy state. After a moment, the molecule “relaxes” and spits the photon back out, but the photon that comes out is slightly different than the one that went in. The molecule might emit a photon with slightly less energy than the photon that it absorbed (which would leave the molecule still in a slightly excited state). Or, conversely, the molecule might emit a photon with slightly more energy than the photon that it absorbed. This would leave the molecule more relaxed than it had been before absorbing the photon.

Particular types of molecules will exhibit different types of behaviors. Furthermore, any given molecule will interact differently with lights of different energies (effectively, different colors). So by systematically studying a molecule’s (or cell’s) interaction with different colors of light, that molecule’s chemical makeup can be determined. More importantly for cancer diagnosis, molecules and cells can be identified by their interactions with light. So a cancerous cell will interact with light differently than a healthy cell.

The visual representation of a molecule’s interaction with different colors of light is called a Raman Spectrum, shown below. As you can see, the spectrum of a healthy cell (black) is visibly different from the spectrum of a cancerous cell (red).

But here’s where it really gets interesting. You may be wondering how they can measure one particular cell’s spectrum. If you’re a fan of science fiction, you’ll be enthralled to learn that tractor beams exist! Thanks to the physics of light, lasers can be used like tweezers when focused correctly to trap and move small particles such as individual cells (check out the video below).

For the scientifically inclined, this provides an interesting conundrum. How can one explain the fact that photons have no mass, yet they still have some degree of inertia to exert physical force? A question that I cannot answer (there are folks who can), but interesting to think about.

This technique is what makes it possible for researchers to capture the Raman spectrum of a particular cell. Without it, it would be impossible to hold a live cell still for long enough to capture its spectrum.

So through these means, researchers have been able to develop techniques to identify these Raman “fingerprints” of different types of cells, namely cancerous vs. healthy cells.

The challenge that remains is finding a way to use this technique to diagnose a patient. In this respect, biophotonics has run into some of the same problems as conventional diagnostic techniques. As it stands, physicians are forced to take part of the patient (a biopsy) to the diagnostic tool (typically a microscope). The challenge is to bring the diagnostic tool to the part of the patient.

One possibility that biophotonics presents for solving this problem is the use of fiber optics to enable doctors to bring their tools into the patient rather than removing a part of the patient. The function of fiber optic cables is basically to move light from one place to another. They have total internal reflection, which means that the light that goes in on one side of the cable comes back out on the other side with very minimal distortion. So a possible tool for the future would be inserting an electro-optical probe into the patient to bring light-related information (such as a Raman spectrum), to the tools that help analyze the material that would otherwise have to be removed from the patient. A great deal of work and research remains to be done to make this an actual reality.

A final interesting bit of information. An interesting aspect of our learning has been hearing about the many obstacles that stop potential cures from getting used in hospitals. Many research projects are abandoned due to lack of investor capital. The U.S. spends far more on research than other countries (which contributes to our high healthcare costs), but even so, research has to ultimately take on the form of a product to be profitable. If research lacks a vision for how it will be brought to the marketplace in a profitable fashion, the odds are that it won’t survive.

I’ve really enjoyed learning about biophotonics this quarter. I’m still ultimately convinced of the direction I’m heading, but the class has reinforced my feeling that I could be happy doing a myriad of things with my life. There is so much to learn and discover in the world that it’s hard to choose what to focus on.

Forty-five people...one house...no showers allowed.

On a more personal note, the quarter has continued to be busy. This last weekend, I attended another retreat (no planning for me this time!), this time with the freshmen of College Life, the fellowship where I think I feel most at home. It was quite a weekend with forty-five people crammed into a beach house in Santa Cruz. On the last night of the retreat, there was a time where all forty-five people gave a short testimony of where they’d come from and how they felt about their current relationship with God.

I think it was the deepest group experience I’ve ever encountered. While some people gave testimonies of relatively peaceful lives, others shared stories of broken pasts, the likes of which I’ve never heard personally. There were stories of molestation, suicidal friends, deaths in the immediate family, and overwhelming loneliness. The same stories were filled with joy, hope, freedom, and forgiveness. After this, the thirteen guys at the retreat met together and talked and prayed for four hours. It was truly amazing.

And we’re only five months in. 

A Busy Week

So this is a rather long post, but I felt it was worth putting up if only because it's full of stuff I'll want to read later. So with that brief caveat...




This last week was definitely the busiest since the start of my college experience. I had two midterms, a field trip, and of course regular classes to attend.

Photo courtesy of Emmeline Yen.

The biggest contributor to my busy week, however, was a retreat that I helped plan and attended this last weekend.

About a month ago, I was recruited along with the other five freshmen from Catalyst (one of the fellowships I attend) to plan the winter retreat for the group. Catalyst is much smaller than the other groups I’ve gone to, so they rely heavily on student involvement to get things done. I volunteered to help plan the food for the weekend, along with one other person. So everything seemed to be on track until about a week ago. Out of five or six possible speakers, none were able to come to give the message at the retreat. This was with a week left until the retreat. So with few other options, it was suggested that we try to plan some sort of group discussion time instead of having a message.

Having experienced the general inefficiency of our meetings at planning out such specific things previously, I decided to try to avoid deadlock by writing out the general structure of what I thought would be good to discuss. We had already established the theme of the retreat, so I knew the general idea we would cover. I emailed my thoughts to the other freshmen, and I got great feedback, so I figured it might even be enough on its own to structure our "discussion time". This was on Sunday.

The next day, Monday, we had our weekly group gathering in the evening, and afterwards the freshmen met with the college pastor of the group, Matt, to check up on our progress. I mentioned to him that I had written out my thoughts on the general structure we might use, and it was decided that Matt, myself, and two other freshmen would meet the next day to make some concrete decisions about our main Saturday night session. In the meantime, I forwarded the email I had sent to the rest of the group to Matt.

So on Tuesday, we met at the appointed time to hammer out exactly what our plan would be. I met Matt at the parking lot to show him where to go, and while we walked to the meeting spot, he seemed to be really impressed with what I’d written. He asked me if I knew what my spiritual gifts were, and I told him that I didn’t really have a clear focus on what they might be. He said that judging from the email I wrote he suspected that teaching might be among them.

At this point I began to sense that I might be getting more than I bargained for.

We continued until we came to the meeting place where the other two freshmen were waiting, and our meeting began. Matt made some comments about what he thought might be good things to include that we hadn’t thought about, and we began to formulate the experience that we wanted people at the retreat to have.

Then came the question, aimed directly at me. “How would you feel about giving the main talk on Saturday night?”

I had begun to expect this question after our earlier interaction, and truth be told, it wasn’t that hard for me to say I’d be willing to do it. The thought I had put into the email had really helped me internalize the ideas it expressed, and quite honestly, I felt like it wouldn’t be a huge expansion to turn it into a spoken message.

So with a mixed feeling of nervousness and excitement (they feel so similar, don’t they?), I said I would do it. We arranged for Matt and I to meet the next day so he could just give me some general pointers for preparation and presentation.

So the next day, Wednesday, I met with Matt to discuss these things, along with logistics of how the talk would fit in with the rest of the night. I think the most important tip that he gave me was to write out the entirety of what I was going to say so that I would already have a word choice sorted out in my head instead of having to come up with phrasing on the spot. So later that night, I wrote out the first half of the talk, to be completed the next day.

Additionally, on Thursday, I went shopping for the food with two other planners. Another issue on its own burner, so to speak (no pun intended, of course).

Then, Friday, we left for the retreat (after my calculus midterm). Everyone got there in fine shape—it was at a Cabin in South Lake Tahoe. There was lots of snow, and everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time in the cabin playing various games and engaging in conversation. Food was a little bit sketchy throughout the retreat due to last minute realizations of missing items and quick trips to the store, but overall it worked out fine. I was also one of four small group leaders, and that went really well. People opened up willingly and I felt like relationships were nurtured extensively.

Oh, the things we'll do for nine points on a photo scavenger hunt.

So I’ll spare you too much detail, but it all went well leading up to the talk on Saturday night. A couple of hours before the message was scheduled, I gave it a whirl privately in front of Matt, and he gave me some last minute touches to add, but was overall very positive in his response.

Then the time came to give the talk. Before I knew it, it was over. And it went well. I got very encouraging feedback from several people afterwards, and while there were inevitably things I would have done differently in retrospect, I was quite happy with how it went on the whole. I felt like God was really speaking to me and enabling me to speak His words to others throughout the experience. In hindsight, even the process of writing the original email was very strange in that a lot of the content just kind of came to me. God was definitely at the center of whatever good I managed to express to the group.

Now, if you’re at all similar to the people I’ve talked to this about, you’ll be wondering by now what the talk was about. And I suppose that I might as well sate your curiosity while I’m writing about it.

The theme for the weekend was One Life. Here’s the basic idea from the summary that I wrote:

One Life

It is easy for us to neatly partition our lives, separating our different circles of relationship, effectively becoming a different person in each of them. Whether it's "saying all the right things" to blend in with Christians or abandoning our values around non-Christian friends, we constantly face opportunities to shift our identities for the sake of reputation or comfort. Our goal is to eliminate these personal divisions, to live one life authentically in Christ, with Him permeating our identity and actions in all circles.

So that was the basic idea, as well as how we can actually live one consistent life. For the exceptionally curious, here’s a link to the full manuscript that I used to organize my thoughts.

Aside from the fact that I’ll probably speak again at some point, and of course God’s great ability to speak into our lives, I think that an amazing take-away from this experience is just another confirmation of Parkinson’s Law. If you haven’t heard of it (I suspect most have not), it basically states that work will expand to fill the time you allot for it. In other circumstances, I probably would have wanted months to develop my first message just out of sheer intimidation. But in this case, a week was all the time that was available to get it done, and that turned out to be quite adequate. So we might not always need as much time as we give ourselves to accomplish certain goals or tasks. We just have to go for it without over-thinking it and prevent procrastination from being an option.

So that's all for now. More to come soon.