Time Capsule: High School Graduation Speech

While rifling through my room as part of some spring cleaning that I've been doing, I decided to flip through the various awards I've gotten throughout the years (how narcissistic of me), specifically those received in the era spanning from elementary school through the end of high school. Nestled together with my high school diploma, I found the printout for my long-lost valedictorian speech at the graduation ceremony (I no longer have the original digital version of it, although a recording of my speech exists somewhere on a DVD). Excited, I reread it and typed it up to save for posterity. Although the speech itself is overly referential and wouldn't make a lot of sense to someone who did not experience middle school and high school together with the Landon Class of 2009, I still think there's some merit to posting it for all to see. Personally, I am simultaneously embarrassed by and fascinated with the actual content of the speech, because it provides a window into a very different version of myself from almost exactly six years ago (whew, it's been a long time). In any case, here it is:

June 5th, 2009

It is an honor and a privilege to be speaking to you today, and I cannot fully express how thankful I am to everyone who has helped me get to where I am today. To my mom, who has always been there for me, and my dad, who has sometimes been there for me, to my teachers, who have not only taught me a great deal but have also helped shape me into the person I am today, to my friends and classmates, who have helped keep me sane and smiling throughout my years here at Landon, to the members of the Landon community, who lovingly accepted me into their great bear family and have been supportive every step of the way, and to countless others who have touched my life in countless ways, I owe a great debt of gratitude.

Coming to the United States at the age of nine was quite an ordeal, but I’m happy my mom brought me here, because it’s such a great place. The first few months at school were a bit awkward, however, because I didn’t know any slang and had no idea what some kids were calling me. Luckily, I had a friend who brought me up to speed and taught me every swear word in the book. After two years of public school, I found Landon, or rather Landon found me. It was a great fit, though it took a little while to get used to the dress code.

Middle School was kind of rough, but given all of the changes taking place all at once, I think it went pretty well. I remember how many of us hated our trip to Echo Hill, not knowing how much worse Woodlands would be, how awkward a certain segment in Mr. Lewis’ class was, and how a number of us tried Mr. Wu’s patience on a daily basis in Chorus, and later Choir and Glee Club. I remember how everyone started using the word “defenestrate” after having learned it in Mr. Harding’s geography class, how some of us sent hundreds of blank emails to each other just to be annoying, and how boring Julius Caesar was. I remember how bad we smelled after Woodlands, how noisy and obnoxious we were in Mr. Carter’s class, especially during the art history segment, and how awesome Mr. Johnson’s Ancient History class was. Yes, Middle School was certainly an interesting experience.

Upper School was very different from Middle School. No longer did we have to put up with assigned lunch seating, and we slowly became more and more independent. We had a huge influx of kids freshman year, which completely changed the social structure and made things a lot more interesting. Freshman year was a lot of fun – we had a blast at Camp Letts, tried to walk in a straight line while wearing beer goggles in Mr. Lawson’s Life Skills class, and dissected rats in Ms. Osborne’s class. Sophomore year was pretty good, too – I remember how Mike Mutryn made Mr. Fed’s PowerPoint a lot more moist, how my old laptop made me walk right into a “that’s what she said” joke, and how we all learned just how awesome free periods are. Junior year was a lot harder – we all got to see the inhumane side of Humanities, and we learned to hate the SAT – but quite a few of us had some fun playing L.I.F.E. and making fun of Justin Donaldson. Senior year was a mixed bag – first semester was really stressful, as each of us scrambled to shore up his GPA and to complete his college applications on time, but second semester was a vacation by comparison. One of the most important things I learned all year was that I had been using my electric razor incorrectly – apparently I wasn’t supposed to use shaving cream. I also learned that you don’t mess with raging rapids, especially not when you’re on a raft with five other people.

All joking aside, Landon has been a great place to be, and I’m sad to say goodbye. I will never forget the life lessons Landon has taught me and the strength of the bear brotherhood. We have had some good times together, and I’m confident that we will have good times in the future. We will all soon be attending fine institutions that will continue to prepare us for anything life can throw at us. Most importantly, we will always be the Landon Class of 2009, which means we will keep in touch with each other and will return to Landon as alumni more often than our busy schedules will permit. To all my ‘09 brothers, and to everyone in the audience, I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Thank goodness, the cringefest is now over. I hope it was at least mildly entertaining.

--lbds137

In Honor Of National Poetry Month

I almost missed the occasion due to ignorance (my 7th and 8th grade English teacher's efforts notwithstanding), but today I remembered that April is National Poetry Month in the United States and realized that I only have a handful of days left to use it as an excuse to post some more of my homegrown poetry. The poetic series (really, just a humble "dilogy") under this post's spotlight deals with the complex subjects of consciousness and cognition, particularly the subjective nature of perception as experienced on the individual level. We often take the intricate machinery of our minds for granted, but during instances of altered mental states (such as those encapsulated by the continuum that separates wakefulness and sleep) we are given the uncommon opportunity to witness the sometimes beautiful and often bizarre inventions of the creative subconscious, unmolested by the filters that are normally in place when we operate on the normal level of waking consciousness.

[ I ]

Ruminations upon the state of the world
Electrify the neural conduits of my brain,
Buzzing along majestic axons unfurled,
Opening new paths in a quest to explain
Opaque overtones and Orwellian occurrences.

Tarnished by habitual consumptive recurrences,
My mental motivation molds and mildews,
Enfeebled by excess, entitlement, and ease,
Suspending earnest goals and ambitious to-dos
'Cause it's easier to wait for calmer seas.

Overwhelming at first, sober lucidity paves
The way to the light, leaving behind dank caves
To pursue true greatness unfettered by fear,
Youthful and confident that I belong here.

[ II ]

Softly drifting forward under a bright yet burdened sky,
Weary travelers thoughtfully reflect on journeys past,
Entranced by the implications of a question: Why?
Earnest explorations of a realm intricately rich and vast,
Together with insatiable curiosity, certainly play a part.

Shapes of habitual mundanity shatter and become art,
Undulating rhythmically yet unpredictably, like unending
Random digits in the natural constants, proceeding without
Regard for established orderly ways but rather bending
Every physical rule with absolute glee, devoid of doubt.

Novel ideas and perceptions often face stiff opposition,
Driven by fear, tradition, and implicit societal imposition.
Explorers defy convention and give up easy acceptance,
Rather forging an uncertain path towards transcendence.

These poems were written almost exactly five months apart, the former in late November and the latter literally today. Although the first part was written with a sequel in mind, the minutiae and trivia of daily life caused me to put that project on indefinite hold, until I had a sudden burst of inspiration and wrote the second part this afternoon. I had considered reversing the displayed order of the poems to violate their true chronology, but then I decided that their natural order works better thematically. Feel free to reverse the order mentally if you think I made the wrong call – after all, these poems are about subjective experience, not only mine as the author but also yours as the reader!

--lbds137

Close Encounters Of The Canine Kind

There are few experiences in life that are as raw and visceral as sex and fear. In the name of decency and privacy, I will probably never write about the former, but in the aftermath of today's events I am compelled to write about the latter.

Ever since I was a little child, I have never been particularly fond of dogs as a species. Setting aside pragmatic concerns such as hygiene (dogs like to get dirty and stinky if given the opportunity) and time commitment (pet dogs need an escort in order to properly do their business outside), what I take issue with most regarding dogs is their natural potential for aggressiveness and ferocity. I discovered this potential at an early age, having had the misfortune to be bitten by both stray and pet dogs, both times in the same park near my childhood home.

Although I was spared the unpleasant experience of the old-fashioned series of abdominal anti-rabies injections after being bit by the stray, I still had to endure several comparatively less painful shots, in addition to the terrifying encounter itself. The second bite was different in that I was riding a bike and the aggressor was a pet rather than a feral dog, and I was also unprepared for the bite since I thought the dog was only playfully chasing me as I rode laps around the park. Still, both events left a lasting impression upon my young mind, and it took me a long while to get over these negative experiences and begin developing a more neutral attitude towards canines.

Imagine the relief I felt when, upon returning to Bucharest for my first visit in almost four years, I was informed that the stray dog problem was finally resolved (unfortunately, it seems that it took the death of a young child for things to finally change). Although my father cautioned me that, despite the best efforts of animal control personnel, some strays likely remained in more remote pockets, I put an excessive amount of faith in the abilities of the Romanian authorities and decided that it ought to be perfectly safe to go running anywhere in the city. This is not to say that I recklessly threw caution to the wind and deliberately sought danger, for this was not the case, but I didn't worry much about taking detours on a whim for the purpose of urban exploration. Having already completed two runs without incident, I developed a false sense of security and paid less attention to my surroundings as I let whimsy guide my path, unknowingly taking a wrong turn along the way and ending up in a less traveled part of the city.

I did develop a slight suspicion that had I ended up in a different place from where I intended to go, but I shrugged and continued onward, figuring that I would find my way eventually and color in my Strava heatmap in the process. It came as a complete surprise to me, then, when I unexpectedly ran into a pack of five stray dogs on the shore of Lake Floreasca (a mostly drained, muddy shell of its former self). When I entered their line of sight, the feral creatures almost immediately started running towards me, barking furiously. At that point, I entered an almost dreamlike mental state, with a sinking feeling in my stomach and thoughts along the lines of "this can't be happening to me".

At first I tried the calm approach, orienting my palms parallel to the ground and verbally pleading with the dogs to leave me alone. Once the dogs darted towards me, I realized that this approach wouldn't work, so my self-preservation instincts took over and I adopted an aggressive stance, stomping the ground, yelling, and inching forward toward the dogs to get them to back off. This worked, albeit earning me only a foot or two of extra distance from the snarling animals, but it was enough for me to get a running start in the opposite direction. Unfazed, they started chasing me, and when they got within five or six inches of my exposed calves I turned around and repeated the aggressive stomp maneuver, once again getting them to back off a bit.

The thing that worried me the most was the dogs' intelligent attempts to surround me: as two of them gave chase behind me, two passed me on either side and tried to cut off my escape (the fifth dog was a bit late to the party, but nonetheless it caught up and joined the angry posse). I had to engage in a delicate balancing act, stomping towards the flanking dogs and also paying attention to the one nearly nipping at my heels. After three or four repetitions of the stomping game, I finally caught a break: a white van drove down a perpendicular street and turned in the direction the dogs were coming from, scaring them off as it almost ran them over. Still, I desperately wanted to get out of there, so I appealed to the kindness of a lady in her compact car, heading in the same direction as the van.

I knocked on her passenger window, presumably looking like I had seen a ghost, so she rolled down the window and I breathlessly explained that I was being chased by dogs. She agreed to give me a ride to a safer place, and I apologized to her profusely for my physical state (I had slipped and fallen in a mud puddle during my getaway, luckily getting back up quickly enough to avoid being bitten). Despite the emotional overload caused by the fear response (good old fight-or-flight), I still managed to remember to turn off my GPS for the duration of the quick drive and then turned it back on once I got out of the car and started running back home. I even contemplated the fact that I'd probably want to stitch together the two GPX files generated by Strava once I finished my run, just for the sake of having a more or less contiguous run map (the result isn't perfect, but it's certainly the best I could have hoped for given the circumstances).

As I ran the rest of the way home, I must confess that I briefly indulged vivid mental fantasies of returning to the scene and "euthanizing" all five dogs for the anguish they had caused me (and to prevent others from suffering a similar fate), although of course pragmatic concerns quickly put an end to that line of thought. Ultimately, when I finally walked in the door, I felt more scared than angry, but I was also relieved and thankful that I had emerged from such peril with only a muddy right flank.

--lbds137

Better Late Than Never

Cliché is generally frowned upon by writers with any degree of skill and self-respect, amateur and professional alike, but from time to time certain occasions arise in which it is desirable and even preferable to utilize such a literary device (if it can be termed thus). As I attempt to write this post for (at least) the third time, I am willing to do whatever it takes to convince myself to follow through and actually publish it, and if I can use cliché as a tool to get the ball rolling, then so be it. Quite obviously, the cliché I refer to is the title of this post, which is a rather blunt acknowledgement of the nearly 11 months that have elapsed without a single entry in my humble, languishing blog.

It is highly tempting for me to offer excuses (valid or otherwise) for why I have not written anything here in so long, but I will (at least temporarily) refrain from doing so for a couple of reasons: first, I am still struggling to compose a convincing mental narrative (a prerequisite of any autobiographical writing exercise, as far as I'm concerned), and second, I want to return to blogging with a flourish, not a whimper. To this end, I am finally posting the Valentine's Day poem that I promised back in January, rather than waiting another couple of months for the relevant occasion to arise again.

Adrift on the endless sea, subjected to the whims of the cruel wind,
Lost in the vast, tumultuous expanse yet not quite wanting to be found,
Overwhelmed by the suffocating solitude yet strangely calm, I grinned.
No longer deferring to violent and mercurial emotions, I was unbound.

Enchanting as they may be, the sirens of the sea are a dangerous lot,
Offering their victim false companionship with their poisonous tune,
Nefariously indulging his wildest dreams to lure him to their hidden spot,
Voraciously devouring him and then swiftly resuming their evil croon.

Approaching the sirens' lair, I quickly searched my ship for beeswax,
Liquefying it with a strong flame and hastily jamming it into my ears,
Eliminating the witches' auditory threat and allowing myself to relax.
Nearby, I imagined them cursing my escape and succumbing to tears.

Though the end of my journey seemed distant, even many years away,
I rejoiced in the knowledge that my mind was free and my heart content,
Not weighed down with longing but rather savoring the present day,
Eagerly awaiting the next grand adventure, no matter where I went.

Someday you will find this message in a bottle, and I will be long gone,
Dead and decaying in a quiet grave, a lone corpse forgotten and alone.
All I ask is this: be not the duckling that desperately wishes to be a swan.
You are worthy in your own way, so seize this day and make it your own.

I would likely succumb (once more) to arrogance if I seriously entertained the idea that this poem is complex enough to warrant a lengthy and scholarly explanation, and moreover, even if I were a poet of such caliber, it would take away from the poem's mystery if I were to pull back the curtain and expose the process by which I composed it. Suffice it to say that I wrote it to make myself feel better during a (both literally and figuratively) dark and cold winter season and that the optimistic imagery in the latter half of the poem did at least partially accomplish that goal. Any further interpretation is left as an exercise for the reader.

--lbds137

Valentine's Day Prelude: A Trilogy

In anticipation of the rapidly-approaching annual celebration of Valentine's Day, I thought it might be appropriate to share a recent trilogy of poems dedicated to a special someone, even though my attempts at courtship ultimately floundered. I have since escaped the clutches of the negative emotions accompanying the rejection (in fact, I'm still good friends with this person), and I figured that, instead of keeping my artistic expression under lock and key, I should expose it to the light and take some pride in the time and effort I expended to produce it. The first poem in the series was written shortly before my previous post on Greek mythology, and the latter two were written just after the beginning of the new year. Like the poems in my previous post, the poems in this trilogy (and likely all of my future poetic creations) follow my new convention of embedding a vertical message using the first letter of each line. The entire 50-line trilogy follows below.

[ I ]

Spirit me away, o autumn zephyr,
Caress me in your gentle arms
As my tired hands pen this letter.
Let not my adoration bring me harm,
Disfiguring my countenance with a frown,
Intoxicating me with a dizzying potion
Not of this world, a concoction sent down
Gently from the azure celestial ocean:
Liquid death in a dazzling crystal glass
On a silver platter, an overdose of emotion
Violently growing into a cancerous mass,
Engulfing and rending me into a lifeless quotient.
Take me instead on your airy wings,
Ascending towards astral planes,
Realms of thoughts and hazy things,
As I drift to sleep in the company of the rain.

[ II ]

Forsaken in the frozen depths of the ninth circle of hell,
Reposed in idyllic icy immobility, bound by bitter frostbite,
I serve my eternal sentence, having no soul left to sell.
Endless is my suffering in this place deprived of light,
Numbed by the cold but set ablaze anew by cruel hope.
Denial and rejection are the wardens of my gloomy gaol,
Zealots of romantic indifference and masters of my scope,
Oppressing lonely hearts and wickedly watching love fail.
Nuptial melodies echo faintly in the cavernous expanse,
Excruciating reminders of a happy world of song and dance.

Though my melancholy prison resides entirely in my mind,
Hidden away amid bushy forests of axons and dendrites
Entwined in ironic intimate embraces purposefully aligned,
No escape can be engineered, nor can the sleepless nights
I endure be convinced to cease their dreaded recursion.
Nefarious nocturnal musings provide unwelcome diversion,
Trapping me in idle fantasy and spellbinding immersion,
Helpless in the throes of imagination's slumber subversion.

Condemned by the court of your heart to exile in the arid waste
Innocently designated "the friendzone", I soon collapse of thirst,
Rising briefly only to fall once more, sweating and red-faced,
Casualty of an unrequited infatuation, cast out and cursed.
Looking out at the sandy desert, facing no particular direction,
Exhaling heavily as the sun sets, I mourn the death of affection.

Once again my delirium abates and I find myself in your room,
Friend but not lover, in close proximity and yet worlds away,
Harboring heavy emotion in my heart, buried deep in a tomb.
Excitedly engaging in irreverence as night succumbs to day,
Laughing happily with you at the absurdity of the world, still I
Long for more, but the thought fades and I let out a silent sigh.

[ III ]

Tormented is the lengthy verse flowing from my sharp, lonely quill,
Lovingly crafted but written with an illicit, mind-altering black ink,
Delivered but then returned to sender. I now watch the words spill,
Ripened by the flame, onto my broken skin until I cease to think.

I have already written a follow-up poem, but I'm saving it for Valentine's Day proper. Stay tuned for a 20-line epic that will return to the Greek theme of my previous post but also mix things up by using the mythological setting as a metaphor for my internal mental and emotional processes.

--lbds137

A Foray Into Mythological Poetry

I've been fascinated by ancient mythological stories for as long as I can remember. My first exposure to mythology came at an early age in the form of a (likely pirated) videogame, Disney's Hercules. Then, in elementary school, I learned about Egyptian and Norse mythology, becoming enamored with the ancient Egyptians in particular, especially their peculiar hieroglyphs and intriguing pantheon. Throughout middle school, Greek mythology made sporadic appearances, but it wasn't until my 11th grade Humanities class that I got a solid grasp on the subject, thanks to our fairly in-depth study of The Odyssey and (parts of) The Iliad. The culmination of my academic involvement with mythology in general, and the Greeks in particular, came in the fall of my sophomore year of college, when I took a course on Greek mythology to fulfill a distribution requirement in Literature and the Arts (LA). Although we were assigned a large amount of material to read each week, I really enjoyed the class, earning one of my precious few college As and gaining an even more profound appreciation for Greek mythology in the process.

In contrast, my involvement with poetry has been considerably more limited. Although I have been exposed to (read: forced to read) copious amounts of well-known poetry in school, the only time I was ever invited to produce poetry in an academic setting was in 5th grade. In the "advanced" English class, we had a segment on poetry during which a certain Mr. Shahriari was invited to teach and encourage us to embrace our creative side. I really enjoyed working with poetry under Mr. Shahriari's tutelage, but unfortunately my poetic side went into dormancy as soon as I started middle school. Since then, the only poetry I've written has been strictly for romantic purposes (read: to impress girls). However, after a recent frustrating letdown, I decided to free myself from the constraint of the romantic context and resume writing poetry for myself, just for the fun and challenge of it. For your entertainment (and the enlargement of my ego), I'm sharing my recent compositions below.

[ I ]

Hovering loftily in the unblemished blue sky,
Eternally exuding luxurious golden rays,
Lovingly illuminating fields of grain and rye,
Inspiring bards to sing of your iridescent days,
O Helios, lord of the vast celestial domain,
Soothe my soul with warmth and ease my pain.

[ II ]

High on snowy Olympus, above the clouds and rugged peaks,
Expedient Hermes dwells. Esteemed by the gods for his speed and wit,
Resourceful and clever Hermes listens closely as Zeus speaks.
Memorizing perfectly the gilded words, he flies away with youthful spirit,
Effortlessly traversing the skies and rushing towards the realms of men.
Swiftly relaying Zeus' edict to mankind, he smiles and takes off once again.

[ III ]

Hidden in a dark hollow deep under the ground,
A dreary and sorrowful place reserved for the dead,
Depressingly devoid of mirth and melodic sound,
Echoing muffled cries and reflecting shades of red,
Sinister Hades' lair instills dread in the hearts of men.
Blood, the essence of life, is absent from Hades' domain,
Evaporated by desiccating death and turned to dust when
Life gasps its last breath. Hades' home is a palace of pain:
Overwhelmingly joyful memories of life tantalizingly replay
Within the minds of the dead, unattainable as the light of day.

[ IV ]

Powerfully gripping his mighty adamantine trident,
Overseeing the tumultuous waters of the murky seas,
Striking his three-pronged instrument to create strident
Earthquakes when his wrath falls upon unfortunate cities,
Ironfisted Poseidon commands mankind's respect.
Destroyer and defender, Poseidon grants safe transport
Over the frothy waves to those he chooses to protect,
Neutralizing all turbulence as they travel from port to port.

[ V ]

Drunkenly reveling in a surreal, divinely-inspired trance,
Immersed in an intoxicating and irresistible ecstasy,
Overwhelmed by a fiery frenzy, they take off their pants,
Nakedly acting out their every forbidden carnal fantasy.
Young Dionysus raptly watches the scene he has created,
Sighing with delight as his enemies are consumed by lust.
Unaware and persisting in their debauchery unabated,
Soon they will regain lucidity and drown in shame and disgust.

All of these short poems were written over the course of five days, one per day from October 20 to 24. I had initially planned to maintain a streak of at least 7 or 10 days, but my creativity was prematurely depleted by the mental and physical exhaustion of midterms week. I will likely write more poems in the near future, but I need some time for my inspiration to return. One last thing: take a close look at the first letter of each line.

--lbds137

My Musical Metamorphosis

I bought my first music CD sometime in fourth or fifth grade, setting off a grand aural adventure and amassing a rather sizable collection of shiny flat plastic doughnuts in my bookshelf in the process. My interest in music began after I heard Linkin Park's In The End several times on DC's (now defunct) Z104 radio station, and I acted on it by heading to my local Best Buy and excitedly purchasing the band's Hybrid Theory album. Back in those pre-iPod days, I listened to the album with rapt attention on a portable CD player with 45-second skip protection. Loving every second of Hybrid Theory, I soon craved more auditory stimulation and expanded my repertoire with (in no particular order) Hoobastank's self-titled album, P.O.D.'s Satellite, Evanescence's Fallen, and Lostprophets' Start Something. I found at least one song I absolutely adored on each album: Crawling In The Dark, Youth Of The Nation, Bring Me To Life, and Last Train Home, respectively.

At first, I was quite picky about what music I would purchase, shunning the vast majority of the music I heard on the radio and thus growing my collection quite slowly. I bought No Doubt's Rock Steady because I rather enjoyed hearing Hella Good on Z104, but I quickly realized that I really wasn't a fan of the rest of the album. Refusing to "pollute" my music collection with songs I didn't like, I ended up getting rid of the CD, washing my hands of it entirely by giving it to my mom (for what it's worth, I recently reacquired the album and shed my unfair prejudice against it). Wary of making the same mistake again, I politely declined to keep a 3 Doors Down album that had been given to me as a gift after listening to it briefly and deciding I didn't particularly like it.

For the most part, I grew my collection by purchasing more albums by the artists already in my library, such as Linkin Park's Meteora, Hoobastank's The Reason, and Lostprophets' The Fake Sound Of Progress. Since Internet radio sites did not exist at the time, terrestrial radio and my friends were the only avenues of musical exploration available to me. Coupled with my persnickety musical preferences, this meant that I mostly listened to my small album collection over and over, frequently creating new playlists to mix things up. Most (or all) of these playlists have been lost to the ravages of time and an unfortunate accidental reformat of my computer (given their lack of musical diversity, I can't honestly say that I miss the playlists very much).

Sometime in eighth or ninth grade, things became a lot more interesting when one of my best friends introduced me to metal music. I had already dipped my toes into the genre after hearing and loving Static-X's The Only in Electronic Arts' Need For Speed: Underground, but my exposure was still fairly limited when my friend showed me Children Of Bodom's Trashed, Lost & Strungout and Avenged Sevenfold's Beast And The Harlot. My highly positive experience with these songs drove me to hungrily acquire and devour the albums they appeared on (Are You Dead Yet? and City Of Evil, respectively).

By this time, Pandora had come into existence, so I took advantage of this wondrous new music discovery tool to expand my repertoire. Using Children Of Bodom and Avenged Sevenfold as seeds for stations, I soon found a bunch of new music on my own, including In Flames' The Quiet Place, Soilwork's As We Speak, and a good portion of Shade Empire's Sinthetic album, especially Extreme Form Of Hatred and Ja Pimeys Laskeutui. From this point onward, the pace of my CD acquisition increased markedly, partially due to the availability of Pandora and other cool new methods of music discovery and partially due to my increased financial means as a result of getting a summer job in 2005 (a job I ended up having for quite a few years).

After reading an online review of Shade Empire's Sinthetic that compared Shade Empire's musical style to Nightwish and Children Of Bodom, I decided to check out Nightwish, since I had not heard of them before. A quick YouTube search led me to Amaranth, a song that I immediately fell in love with, and I snapped up Dark Passion Play as soon as I could get my hands on it. Amazed at the album's beauty and epicness, I proceeded to purchase the rest of Nightwish's discography and create Pandora stations for Amaranth and other songs from the album, which led me to Delain, a similar female-fronted metal band.

Not long after discovering Nightwish and Delain, I was riding in a friend's car when Kamelot's Blücher came up on one of his playlists. After the song was over, I excitedly asked him what it was called and which band had put together such a masterpiece, and he nonchalantly shared those details with me. As soon as I got home, I searched for Kamelot on YouTube and knew I was onto something great when I heard Ghost Opera. I ordered Ghost Opera: The Second Coming from Amazon, listened to the whole thing many times, and then gradually purchased most of the band's back catalog, with the exception of their first two albums (which I still do not own). As evidenced by my Last.fm listening history, Nightwish and Kamelot became my favorite bands of all time, eclipsing even Linkin Park (though most of my listening history for Hybrid Theory was not recorded by either iTunes or Last.fm since it preceded my involvement with, or even the existence of, both pieces of software).

By this point in time, I had become very well acquainted with metal, and my acquisition of metal music continued to accelerate as the genre increasingly became an integral part of my life and personal identity. Due to this rapid pace of music consumption, it's difficult for me to reconstruct a chronology of my discoveries with any degree of accuracy, so I defer to Last.fm's visualizations to showcase my listening trends from November 2009 to April 2011 and from November 2011 to the present (there is a chunk missing because Last.fm only uses data from the last 24 months, and I haven't generated the visualization for quite some time). In a future post, I will probably engage in an in-depth discussion of the various metal sub-genres that I like to listen to, and I will also talk about some of the non-metal music in my vast collection.

--lbds137

Running A MIle In My Shoes

Although running is indeed one of the few sports that require very little equipment, one still cannot do without the basic essentials of clothing, which (in most cases) include a pair of sturdy running shoes. I've already outlined the broad strokes of the debut of my running career, but talking solely about distances covered does not do the topic proper justice. Therefore, I will now turn to a (lengthy) discussion of the shoes that I have thus far appropriated for the purpose of taking me from point A to point A in my daily runs.

The retired Court Classic

My first "running shoe" was the humble Kirkland Court Classic, which I had been using as my quotidian sneaker for quite some time. From July 10 to November 6, I ran 361 miles in my trusty Court Classic, including a 5K race in September, but I was forced to retire the shoes when they developed holes in the soles. This wouldn't have been a huge problem, but Princeton was suddenly and unexpectedly showered with snow, which not only melted and seeped into my shoe but also packed into ice and stabbed my foot with every step towards the end of my evening run. The discomfort finally convinced me to visit the local running store and acquire a pair of "real" running shoes.

I didn't have a clue about what sort of running shoe I should purchase, aside from an endorsement of Mizuno as a good brand, so I just walked into the store and asked for help. A helpful employee had me run around a bit outside on the sidewalk, and she concluded that, due to my overpronation, I should look into stability shoes. She then brought out a few different pairs of shoes and had me try them on to see how they feel. Since I couldn't really notice any difference, I ended up getting the Mizuno specimen, which ended up being the Mizuno Wave Inspire 8. The very next day, I ran a 5K race in the new shoes, unaware at the time of the general consensus in the running community that running a race in brand new shoes is not such a good idea. Nevertheless, during the race, I quickly discovered the benefits of running in proper shoes, setting a PR of 21:32 that still stands today and having a blast in the process.

Over the next few months, I continued running in my Wave Inspire 8, picking up a second pair along the way and also a pair of its successor, the Wave Inspire 9. However, I also became interested in minimalist running after being exposed to the concept on the running subreddit, and in late December I used my birthday money to buy a pair of Vibram KSO from my local REI store. In January, I started adding a short run in my KSO right after my daily 10K distance in my Wave Inspire 8. I can see why this was a bad idea in retrospect, but at the time I thought I was killing two birds with one stone, simultaneously increasing my distance by a modest amount and beginning the transition to minimalist footwear. Unsurprisingly, this strategy backfired in a big way, causing me to develop moderately severe top of foot pain in my right foot.

I stopped running in my KSO for a week and dramatically slowed my running pace, which helped, but then I also developed pain in the middle of my plantar fascia in the same foot, most likely from involuntarily altering my gait in order to lessen my top of foot pain. Stubbornly, I continued to run despite the discomfort, slowing my pace even more in the hope that the pain would eventually go away on its own and even brazenly sneaking in a tremendously painful run in my KSO. Although I was absolutely miserable by the end of that run, I was surprised to see that I felt a lot better in the next few days as a result of taking that risk. I then hypothesized that my initial problem had been the constant alternation between supportive and minimalist shoes, rather than the minimalist shoes themselves. I continued to run primarily in the Wave Inspire 8, but I also did a minimalist run roughly once a week in an effort to strengthen my feet.

In March, I decided to expand my minimalist arsenal when I did some searches online and saw that I could get a pair of Vibram Bikila for a solidly discounted price at a local running store. I ran there in my KSO, tried on the Bikila, and confidently walked out with a small box containing my acquisition. Excited, I stopped for a moment to swap shoes and then walked to the Metro in my new Bikila. My excitement was tempered somewhat when I actually ran in them the next day, because they seemed stiff and not as comfortable as my KSO. Still, I was hopeful that they would loosen up with further use, and so I decided to keep them. In the meantime, I kept running in my Wave Inspire 8 and noticing that my foot pain was lessening with each run.

As my pain continued to disappear, I became more confident about running in minimalist shoes and visited REI for a pair of Vibram EL-X, a new Five Finger model that I had read about online and that was advertised as the thinnest shoe produced by Vibram yet. The retail price was lower than that of all of Vibram's other offerings, and I was quickly impressed with just how much ground feel the shoe provided. I took the EL-X out for a spin and was pleasantly surprised to see that I could run 5.8 miles in them quite comfortably. Just a few days later, I bit the bullet and start running only in my EL-X. Although I immediately noticed that my pace was considerably slower, I found myself enjoying my runs more and decided that I don't care all that much about pace anyway. That same week, I ran my first 5K in minimalist footwear, and I was reasonably satisfied with my performance given the minimalist "handicap" to which I had subjected myself.

The last runs I ever did in my Wave Inspire 8 were a half marathon and a full marathon, since I wasn't confident enough that I could complete those distances in minimalist shoes. Those runs were a bit strange for me because I had become used to a forefoot / midfoot strike in my Vibrams, but running in that manner in those big, clunky shoes felt awkward. I ended up mostly heel-striking and keeping a slow pace, and I was glad to retire the Wave Inspire 8 once I finished. When I checked Strava, I found that I had covered 594 miles in my older pair and 395 in my newer pair (I had been alternating pairs to extend their longevity), which I figured wasn't too shabby given that the typical recommendation is to replace shoes after 300-500 miles. The retirement of my Wave Inspire 8 was a milestone moment for me because from that point onward, I wore my growing collection of Vibrams virtually exclusively, shunning ordinary shoes (and socks, for that matter).

The retired EL-X 

My EL-X served me well, but they too had to be retired after a large hole developed in the sole of the right shoe between my pinkie toe and its neighbor. Still, I was impressed that such a (seemingly) flimsy shoe was able to take 523 miles of (ab)use before finally falling apart. Not wanting to run in anything else, I hastily went to REI to procure a replacement, and I ended up opting for a size 43 because the 44 I had been wearing seemed a bit too roomy. I suspected that my feet had subtly shrunk because my KSO also felt loose, even though when I first bought them they were perfectly snug. In fact, I ended up giving my KSO an early retirement, gifting them to my mom's (now ex-) boyfriend after having run only 43 miles in them because I was concerned my foot would move around too much and develop blisters. I wasn't too sad to part with them, since I liked the EL-X a lot more anyway. I still have my size 43 Bikila, but I've only put 41 total miles on them as a result of my appreciation for the EL-X.

The newest addition to my Five Finger collection is the Vibram KSO Trek, which I snagged for a bargain-basement price thanks to Vibram's daft decision to discontinue this excellent shoe. I haven't run much in the KSO Trek thus far because I want to "save" them for occasions that truly require such a thick-soled shoe (by Five Finger standards). Counting last week's epic trail runs in West Virginia, I have only put 21 miles on the KSO Trek. Of course, I have another two pairs stockpiled, since I know that they will be increasingly hard to find due to their discontinued production. One of my backup pairs now serves me as a general-purpose walking shoe, and I love every kangaroo leather-cushioned step.

The view from the pristine beach

One "shoe" that I haven't mentioned thus far isn't really a shoe at all – yes, I have run some miles completely barefoot as well. On my one-year runniversary, I ran 10K barefoot on the concrete sidewalks of my usual route, earning myself only moderate discomfort in the process. Then, during my brief vacation in Bethany Beach, Delaware with my good friends from high school, I ran 8-ish miles on the sandy beach every day, bringing my total barefoot mileage to 67. I definitely plan on doing more barefoot runs in the future, but I doubt that I will ever go completely unshod – I like my Five Finger shoes too much for that. My new EL-X have 108 miles on them so far, and I will definitely keep running in them until they fall apart like my old pair. I will probably have to invest in a pair of Vibram Lontra for the winter, but I don't have to worry about that just yet.

--lbds137