UltraCrepidate

• I got chawan mushi’s taste right, but still couldn’t get rid of the bubbles.What’s the secret? #
• Here’s a good documentary on the events of the banking crisis: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/breakingthebank/view/ #
• The goal of the sauce was never about overwhelming the pasta #
• A new camera with dual sensors came out. Real time HDR anyone? #
• On average, my company’s decisions lags 4 months behind my predicted date. Prolly because they act on actual data instead of projected data. #
• Found a renter for my extra room. Got paid. Increasing leverage. #
• AH! Fark. Didn’t miss the rally, but jumped on a less good train. #
• Came in to the office. Assaulted by 22 emails. #
• A few days cutoff from the net so I can get things done. Phone and emails (checked later) only please. #
• Glad that Kirk called. #
• In one day. Two months of my life disappeared. #
• I blinked when I lost 3k within an hour. #
• Webserver under heavy traffic. I hope it holds up long enough to spread the songs/joy. #
• Why oh why did you wake me at 6:30AM? #

I spent 18 years of my early life living with my parents and will need the rest of my life to break free of their influences. Amongst the people who has a sway in shaping who I am, I admit that my dad, with his rigid set of what is good and wrong for me, ranks #1 in influences on me.

Our relationship is getting better now, but from time to time, he still lapse back into his old ways and use that disapproving yet condescending tone on me over the phone. It’d always leave a bad taste on my mouth when I hang up feeling angry of the intrusion. The disrespect on my judgment and most importantly, the lack of support for a decision that I arrived at. It also explains why there’s such a big cultural difference between the races.

It wasn’t until I left home and started dating people from other culture did I understand that there is another type of parental love. Families where parents actually cared and asks about what the children wants instead of having an imaginary “future” shoved down the kids’s throat. I envy most of you and am appalled when I learned about how teenagers lash back. Too much of what dad cared about is saving face. To have an outstanding kid is the reason why Asian parents constantly pressure their kids to fit that image of a professional money making machine. It is shameful when your kids turn out bad and they seem to lose their standing within the family structure if they do.

Often, I’d try to bring up certain interesting people I meet and my dad would harrumph as usual before dismissing those people as the garbage of society or certain hobbies as a waste of time… but really, what on earth isn’t a waste of time in the end? There is no curiosity, no sense of exploration. Just the usual: “You better not do that, because I’ll look down on you.” Till this day, it still have limited effect on me for a short period of time. I’d just end up doing whatever he disapprove of anyway, but because I have to struggle against this long established habit, it leaves me more vulnerable compared to people who never had to.

I hated him when he opposed my first passion in dancing, threatening to cut all financial help for school. I showed him my way by working part time and paying my own bills until I started flunking classes due to lack of sleep and time. He cared more about my education than I did, which was the only reason I won the fight between us. That is probably when I realized that what he wanted me to grow up to be, is very boring. Was he jealous that I did what I wanted without constrain because he couldn’t do it when he was young? Was I threatening his illusion of absolute authority and control that he felt he needed to reassert his position? At one point in time, I realized that I have surpassed him in terms of the evolution of my spirit. Asians, I find, don’t spend much time on improving their spirituality.

Amongst the numerous negative traits passed down to me from our relationship, condescension is the one I am having the most trouble getting rid of. It’s something that I have to struggle in order to hold back. The control slips from time to time when I wasn’t checking and is especially obvious when I drink too much coffee.

Dad has probably realized some of what I wrote also. He is a more humble person now, perhaps through realizing his own mortality, he’s able to see what I see. I forgive him for what he did, but it still hurts. I only wish that I turned back in time so I can still change while I am not too set in my ways yet. I hope in doing so, dad can learn and transcend his own faults through watching me.

What home used to be

For the longest time I’ve asked myself: “Where is home?” And for about two third of my life I answered: “I don’t know.” It used to be a clear cut answer when I was small. When I only had one citizenship and lived in the same house in the same city for 10 years. My home town was Taipei and my home was a house there. My home country was Taiwan.

Where the line blurred

Then, things got blurry as I added citizenship after citizenship and moved around the world a bit. Moving between cities is a common event, provinces about once every 4 years. Countries… around once per decade. So you see my dilemma when I ask myself, where is home? I can’t really say that it’s the place that I stayed at the longest, not the country I was born in nor any description with “most” in anything.

My condo

Buying this condo, was an attempt at growing roots and to have something to call home, because I desperately wanted a sense of belonging. I don’t want to admit to myself that I only truly feel I belong when I am on the road, in stranger’s company. Perhaps, I prefer to be on the move because I liked the niceties of a newly formed relationship but dreaded the strain of hurting old friendships.  After all, strangers are nice to strangers and if they don’t like you, it doesn’t hurt as much because they don’t know you. I was afraid that I’d have to face the reality that I am not really good at making long term friends if I settled down. Or perhaps I find the same wanderlust in the heart’s of people who are on the road. A sense of carefree attitude that is unbounded by anything. We go where we want to and when we want to without following anyone else’s orders. Everyone is in a sense, the boss of their own lives. While in contrast, I have more bosses that have a say in what I do when I am tied down to a spot.

So I settled down to face my fear and made an attempt to do whatever I want with the place. My preference in life is reflected in the space that I occupy, especially so in the living room, where everything converges. My living room is not a living in the traditional sense where you get a TV and couches to sit in order to watch TV. Instead it has a more utilitarian function where everything is there to serve a non-entertainment related function.

I am a firm believer of less-is-more and have not bothered wasting time on TV for the majority of my life. The big empty spaces are so that I can practice and teach dance if I have to. There’s also the bowflex for muscle training and a projector for movies. The screen for the projector serves a second purpose for photography backdrops. The furnitures are as close to nature’s unchanged state as possible and are chosen due to their proximity to the ground for an informal and laid back environment. Things that are easilly moved around to make space for whatever occasion.

The Kitchen

I still haven’t invited many people  over yet, mainly because it is not finished. Nothing is fully furnished and nothing has been done to my taste except for the kitchen. The reason is very simple, my greed made me put all the cash in the stock market. Why the kitchen? I am a very big fan of good food as well as cooking them. So I am not going to skimp on kitchen appliances. Sadly, everything else suffered because of that.

The guest room

I’ve recently cleared out a guest room from what used to be my woodwork shop/ storage place. I figured that if I am tied down and can’t travel to my heart’s content, I might as well bring the travelers to me. I am offering this to international students or professionals who just moved to Canada as well as couch surfers if nobody is occupying it at the moment. Hopefully I will get to expand my horizons this way.

So that’s it, my little corner on earth, that I’d rather not expose, but glad I did. It has been too intimate a thing to reveal until recently, when I started having guests.

Let me start this post with the first song in their album to set the tone: Doo Wop Blues.

Nadia Bashalani

Nadia knew what she’s going to do with her life and so did everyone else who knew her.  At least, that’s the impression I got when we were all in high school. Like everything else, there are ups and downs in whatever path one decides to take. What counts is whether or not you get knocked out of the race during the down time.

Performing art is, from my point of view, one of the hardest to master because everything is live and there are no room to hide your mistakes. Mistakes will happen, whether or not the audience notices them is dependent on the performer’s personality. Watching Nadia on stage made me understand some of the questions I had when I was still performing and dancing. Also, probably the part I missed the most: your fans.

I am glad that she made it to this point. It gives me hope that I will be able to achieve the goals I set and inspires me to keep going. This is someone I knew, this is real.

The Tchotchkes

The band that’s playing is called the Tchotchkes. I am not really sure what their relationships are like, but from observation, it looked very harmonious. I like to watch the little interactions between its members. The questioning look to the guitarist, the reply as a nod and the confirmation back through some other form of signal. Synergies only possible when you’ve played together for a while.

And yes, the bass player’s braids are real hair.

Likes/Dislikes

Sound wise, I believe they are a band who sounds better in real life than on CD. The overall feelings I get from the song is that of optimism, a style that I haven’t delved in much and could come to like in time. They did have a few that suits my current mood: Invasion. It is a jazz type song which, along with film noir, makes up my current preference in entertainment. View from Below will be a good one for you swing kids to dance to. There were also 4 songs that is not on the CD. Two of which I really enjoyed and am anxiously waiting to be released. You can tell that they are branching out and experimenting with their style from these.

One thing about the live concert I didn’t enjoy is how loud the speakers are. Granted, I was in the front row so it stands to reason that my ears were ringing when I got out of the place. That isn’t what I am trying to get at. I believe some of the feeds were amplified too much that the speakers reached saturation at numerous points. I would’ve preferred if the guitars were tuned down a bit so it is easier to make out the durms, and the other instruments + chorus. Then again, that’s just my own personal preference.

Songs

Drifter Beside You

End of My Time

Invasion

Swinging

The City

The Indecision

Two Sides Denied

View From Below

Waterfall Serenade

Photography

I’ve been able to get all the shots I wanted thanks to my previous experiences shooting dancesport competition. It made me feel good that I am improving in night photography, the area that I am most interested in. Compared to fast moving dancers, capturing musicians performing on stage seems like a piece of cake. Sure, I still get blurry images from time to time, but I only have about 1/3 of the images that are blurry compared to my first time where only 1/500 is good enough to be used. As I progress in my knowledge, I have more time to enjoy the actual show and the singing instead of trying to capture the shots by luck.

The editing wasn’t quite as obvious. I have never investigated what style is good for concerts so I just opted to make it crisp and clear while showing a color tone that’s closest to the lightings that night. Everything turned out the way I wanted it to. I am just ignorant of what’s a better way to present them.

Contacts

If you enjoys her music and would like to find out what’s going on next, you can contact her at nadiabashalani@hotmail.com at the moment, I am not sure how you can get her CD beside going to her live conert. I guess stay tuned to find out.

Here’s the mySpace profile page which isn’t obvious: http://www.myspace.com/nadiastchotchkes

• Upgraded my speakres, now I can hear the higher frequencies. Looks like the capacitors for hi-freq wears out faster. #
• Why is it that CDs sound muffled? As if the high frequencies aren’t there? #
• @Gnorb Do you think I am doing a good job at painting myself as a failure in finances? The truth please. #
• just got back from Nadia’s concert. #
• Nap after coming back from Mark’s. I’ll never understand babies until I have one of my own I believe. #
• @uncoveredrivers Not sure about that one. #
• Cdn banks are increasing their LOC rates across the board. #
• I got butter!!! Costs is two times your supermarket price though. Can’t wait to try it on my sourdough bread. #
• @hypatiadotca my my, passive aggressive. That’s almost asian. #
• @Gnorb I guess me broadcasting only the negative result has the negative consequence of painting the wrong picture. #
• How do you tell someone that you want to help out with their finances? It’s almost like an insult. #
• Per meal sushi make time: 7 minutes. #
• Sushi ingredient prep time = 30 minutes #
• SWEET!!! Found an awesome company with a P/E of only 5!!! #
• SkypeIn is not available for Canada. Are we in the stone age or something? #
• Anyone know why I am seeing a green tint over some people’s portrait? #
• Me vs home made butter round 2 #
• @mtk only doable in Nigeria. #
• A new fetish. Film noir #
• Writing user documentation. I am going to do it the right way. #
• Met with the banker. Let’s see how much money they’d be willing to give me. #
• Will probably need a house sitter in 2010. #
• Fark. Why is my bday the day right after quad witching. It ensures that I will be in a bad mood. #
• @uncoveredrivers They are all milk at different stages of spoilness. #
• Mr. Market fucked with my mind today. #
• Over scheduled myself and ended up with 2 appointments with 2 different ppl afterwork today. Hope my mood doesn’t affect the transaction. #
• Losing about $2k/day. Should be down $10k by the end of this week. Quad witching week is always this scary. #
• Failed my first try at making butter. #
• Raising funds is the most time consuming part of investing. #
• Down 2K today. Ouch. #
• @hypatiadotca Ah, I see. The interest is on the loaner’s side in the form of inflation. Do the middlemen charge interest? #
• @hypatiadotca Most of the borrowers are woman. Is it because “Woman – media induced shopping impulses= low loan default?” #
• @hypatiadotca That is amazing. Any articles on the theory why they perform better? If anything, they should behave like subprime loans. #
• Brutal day. Down $2k. #
• @hypatiadotca That’s why it’s so scary. The loan default rates should be higher than that. in reply to hypatiadotca #
• @fredngo Yes infest. A bad loan ripples. #
• My bullshit sensor went off when I looked through kiva and everyone has a 0 to 0.05% delinquency rate. The world is not THAT perfect. #
• Trying to convince people to give me their hard earned money so I can infest in the stock market. #

Einstein said that one of the greatest mathematical discoveries of all time is the compound interest, I agree plenty. But did you notice that he said mathematical discoveries and not financial discoveries? That is because the greatest financial discoveries of all time is debt! I will refer to debt from now with a more common jargon uttered by the financial types as leverage. Debt has so much negative intonation that comes with it.

Leverage, when used wisely to invest, is the shortest path to success. The application of debt has to be based on your income stream, the theory of which I will leave to another day. Suffice to say that at certain point of debt load with certain interest, you will not be able to pay down the principle at all. That breaking point has to be established before you try anything wild. My advice is to start small, but I want to move on and jump straight to over leverage.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser and I DO NOT recommend taking any of the statements below seriously. YOU WILL BE RUINED if you try it.

100% leverage

I want to theoretically go over a certain death way of managing your investment. A way to gamble it all and have a do or die moment in your life. Through all this running around and raising funds, I’ve become increasingly aware of just how easy it is to get money. As long as you have a job, you can usually leverage up to 100% of your annual income. Let’s take $50,000 as an average because it is a easy and rounded number to use. The first step to start a personal hedge fund with excessive leverage is to go to your bank and get a line of credit. While at the same time, send out application to several credit cards with locked in cash advance interest period (at around 2%). The reason why you want to do this is so that they all perform a credit check on you while your profile is still on the most pristine of all conditions. Once you got approved, your risk profile increases and each subsequent request for credit score will net you less money.

So in the event you are able to do this well, you will get: $50,000. Add that to all your income, assuming that you are leeching off your parents still and you get $100,000 in a year. Now, you will want  to do this fund raising potentially during an economic crisis so that the interest rate is low and easy to pay off. I find it still tolerable at around 5%, but 6% is a bit too much. Health care professional gets a rate at prime (I recommend becoming a chiropractor or pediatrician. Easy to get into and same benefit). Engineers and financial pros gets prime + 1. Now that you have done this, you are at 100% leverage.

400% leverage

The next step is a easy part. The brokerage are usually disconnected from banks and gives you a certain amount of leverage if you request for a margin account. They then adjust the amount based on how successful you are at trading, but suffice to say that they give you double your equity to begin with. So once you deposited your $100,000, you get $200,000 of buying power. I personally recommend skipping this step. Margins are the wild card in investing since you lose all control when your broker does a margin call on you and force sell your stocks. Compounding the pain.

1200% leverage

There are funds out there that moves at 3x the movements of a given sector. Buy these ETF and you immediately triple the previous leverage. You increased your potential money power to $600,000

12000% leverage

With options on these type of funds, you enter into a different realm. I used a simple formula of 10x whatever purchasing power you have. Real options give you more leverage than that, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s just use 10x . So now you have $6 million of purchasing power on your hand.

1% movement

Now here’s the kicker. Remember that your real capital is only $50,000? Well, guess what? It still is. A 1% move up will double your money, but at the same time, a 1% move down will deplete all your cash reserve. With every 1% decline, you lose 2 year of your life at paying back the debt. So you can potentially only sustain a 30% decline before your whole life is meaningless. That’s not even including the interest payments. The S&P suffered a 50% decline since its peak, now do you understand why certain individuals feel the need to kill themselves?

DISCLAIMER: All this is theoretical and has not been attempted. Individually yes, but not as whole process. I DO recommend using this if you are an idiot or wish to ruin yourself.

I still remember what it feels like to be an extrovert. Coffee mixed with alcohool usually brings that part of me out in the open. I remember thinking to myself in one of these outings that :”How slick and smooth talking I am!” I am so sure of everything and lived only in the moment, never thinking about consequences or what the future will bring. I thrived with each connection and was high on fun all the time. Since then, I’ve been asking myself why I can’t achieve this without any substance abuse?

That leads me to the question that rests on my mind right now. The answer of which has no clear cut winner, probably because I am so detached from my feelings in a normal setting. There are a few things that I’ve been passionate about in my life. Dance, Engineering, Gaming, Finances, Travelling etc. Just like exes, I loved them passionately at certain moments, but in retrospect,  each love is different. None of which says that this is the one and proceeds to overwhelm my senses completely.

The problem, I find,  lies in the fact that none of them has an absolute end goal. I had one, but I achieved it and ended up just going after the next level, and the next, and the next without end in sight. I stop because I can’t see myself married to the passion for the rest of my life. I stop and I move on. So now that I’ve had “an interesting life” according to a few people, I can look back and see, which ones I’d marry for life and which ones I won’t. Now that I am more mature, I am not afraid of admitting the reasons I got into these passions in the first place. First step towards the acceptance of self.

I decided to write this as I reflect them because I believe I over edit some of the more emotional posts. That is not me, I can only be great with words if I am allowed to speak in all 3 languages at the same time. So forgive me for any clunkiness you read.

Dancing is pretty obvious. It’s for serving woman. It’s nice, but a wrong reason to be passionate about something. 99% of the man starts wanting to dance to bed woman and 1% are born into a champion dancer’s womb. After all, that is why dancing is there. Somewhere along the line, I found other reasons to go on and get better. In the end, it can be summed up to wanting to please any woman in my arms. I have achieved that goal long ago and gone way beyond that.

Engineering was just because it was the hardest. Also a bit of goading by my dad who is actuely aware of my competitive nature. By implying and hinting about how difficult and sought after this domain is, he managed to sway me into that direction. I remember that one of my choices of program was an visual art degree when I applied for university. Don’t get me wrong, I got a lot out of this. I can fix anything with a copper wire in it, but I am never passionate about it. Now that I have tamed my competitive nature, it is no longer of important value in my eyes.

Gaming never got serious until I immigrated to New Zeland and then Canada. It is a sort of replacement for friends after I experienced a sudden vacuum in my surroundings. The loneliness compounded my addiction until it became one with my life. I still play it from time to time, but it cannot fulfill me anymore. Real life has gotten very interesting. A game, it seems, is just a dumbed down version of little parts of real life. If you want to show your 1337 skills, do it in real life since it has the “NIGHTMARE” seetings selected. I do however want to improve gamer’s life by making games integrate into social life. I know the addiction, I feel bad for people who are in it and I want to help their lives while keeping the fun of games intact.

Traveling and Finances go hand in hand. I had never knew why I suddenly want to become a millionaire 3 years ago until I realize that I can sustain myself without working. I asked myself what is the first thing I’d do when this is a solid fact instead of a 80% possibility, the answer came back pretty obvious. I’d travel. Getting past $2 million is of no interest to me since you can live off the interest indefinitely with $1 million. (less if you are in a 3rd world country). A fellow backpacker who’s been traveling for 30 years taught me this.

So with this finally figured out. I know what I love now and I have a purpose.

• You need ppl with the same interest so you can feed off of each other’s enthusiasm. #
• Half way done with my game. Started looking for graphic artist and sound artists. #
• @uncoveredrivers I guess I missed my chance to pick your brain on how to hitchike. #
• Why did everyone just called me all at the same time? #
• Ran for 2.4 km on my toes. #
• Sweet bed. I miss you. #
• Had a beer with Camilo. #
• Waiting for the person to pick up my eeepc for $100 #
• Maneuvering to increase my hedge again in preparation for July. #
• Colleague asked about the oil commodity trade. Me “Get out before September. The current demand is artificial” #
• I love working late into the deep night. The bitch is waking up in the morning. #
• Ginormous jump today. #
• So busy. #
• @mtk how about stock trading and web surfing? #
• @mtk so? Pre or Iphone? #
• Poor Kenny. I wish you luck tomorrow at the grilling. #
• Today’s a record. 45 emails and stopped answering my phone after the15th phone call. #
• LOL this reached the top of digg: http://bit.ly/19g4Nv
  watch 50% of the population turn jerk #
• I should really start charging $10 everytime someone at work asks me to translate Chinese. #
• Wow. Everyone in the military is building Linux systems. #
• Planning for 3 weeks off instead of 2 in September to hitchhike. #
• I asked myself whether or not I am ready to take up the mantle + responsibilities and be tied up for the next 40 years. I said no.. almost #
• Going to get an Iphone 3G come July 16 #
• There goes my free Flickr Pro account. And the only reason left for me to stick with Rogers. #
• @mtk That’s hardcore. Was the money worth it? #
• Woke up at 6:30am for Montreal tech entrepreneur’s breakfast.. Now I am yawning at work. #
• @equivocality if it’s a venture. I want in. #
• @fredngo Let me guess. Out of battery. in reply to fredngo #
• It’s happening again!!! Booked solid for conference calls from 9 to 5. #
• DO NOT SHORT financials this week. #
• @mtk not thieving. More like pure frustration. #
• Doing business with Chinese men is most frustrating. #
• Recording 1080P @ 60fps lossless video for forensics. Bottleneck is the HDD. Maybe a flash drive will do. #

• Going to a garden planting party. If you can call that a party. #
• @mtk try UP #
• Reading the transactions of a factory. Trying to decipher accounting jargon to understand the real sales figure and inventory levels. #
• Managed to run 1.6km on my toes. Doubled the distance. #
• Renting out my spare room http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/apa/1209490127.html #
• Renting out my spare room https://post.craigslist.org/mon/H/apa/none/x/wAzp1amG6XFb01fL/yc7bi $400 #
• Cost of ingredients for sushi = $10. Meals prepared = 5. Cost per meal = $2. Switching all meals to sushi. #
• @somerled the Macarena is the best samba dance song ever. #
• Friday afternoon and no news. I guess I failed again. #
• I am going to learn Haskell. Don’t want to turn into a C dinosaur. #
• I teared up a few times in some of the b5 scenes. #
• Finished watching Babylon 5. Favorite character: Ambassador Mollari. #
• Maybe I should check my account and see if I have crossed that line. #
• Took 10 years, but the computer I’ve always wanted is here: http://bit.ly/JkmQa #
• Having a day of mourning today for Tianmen square. #
• @hypatiadotca how can you be in PC security and not know how to program? I thought hackers are all 1337 coders. #
• @hypatiadotca Agree. I am seeing the first signs of pickup. Have to wait a few weeks to see if it continues. #
• Hmmm, why am I so busy? Is the economy picking up? #
• Microsoft is going to win the console war with Project Natal. #
• Our Linux software release deadline is creeping up. I am knee deep in problems. #
• Down about $1k today. Looks like a very slow day. #
• Done with trainings for now. #
• LOL. They are talking about cost cutting by removing the status LED on the PCB boards. #
• Business revelation: Most people with pretty face are only proactive when they are desperate. #
• Market is euphoric today. Can’t complain. #
• Waiting for something important is the most annoying part of life. #
• AMD’s 7 month tape out of their Istanbul chip is very impressive. I didn’t think anything below 1 year is possible. Poor engineers. #

The story began 8 years ago. I was living in the living room with 3 Chinese immigrants for $200 a month. My meager income was just enough to pay for the Internet connection to play Starcraft, pay for dance lessons and the rent. My parents have been bashing the Chinese ever since I was born so I was pretty hesitant when I decided to take up this living arrangement. Desperation usually pushes you to do something you would otherwise not do.

Living with them showed me that the Chinese people weren’t as bad as they were painted to be.  Chinese people makes friends out of anybody, that’s what I’ve learned. They are only misunderstood because of their language capabilities.

One of the legacies of this encounter is making sushi. One of my flat mate was a sushi chef and have transferred all his knowledge to me and this day, I have done the same.

As my skill improve, the type of modification I do to pictures are more subtle instead outer-worldly. Unlike the retouched pictures of models in magasins, my style is moving towards enhancing the everyday while maintaining the gritty feeling of life.

When the universe called me by my name, I have always answered its call without fear nor doubt. Hesitation is all but disappeared in my book of life; if only life is that simple. You see, what is vehemently frustrating about life is the fact that you can answer the calls to your heart’s content, but you are not always the chosen.

Yes, because when the universe spells out your name, or describes you in your entirety, there will be someone else with the exact same background and experience, vying to be the hero of the day. You often end up fighting a mirror of yourself in order to be the hero chosen to die for a cause. If you win, you get to die in glory. If you lose… well, you get to live, but forgotten.

My greatest rivals if life have always been someone similar to me. Similarity means we have the same goal and fight for the same limited resources. I have always known this subconsciously which is probably why, I always disliked men who are like me. Each conflict teaches me something about myself, allowing me to see who I am from the outside.

It feels as though I shouldn’t be going against myself, that I should be befriend those who are similar to me. Creating an army out of thin air. Alas I have no reached that state spiritually. So until then, I will fight and fall back with each failure in the hope that I will learn something in between battles. One day, losing will feel like winning, but until then, I will lick my wounds.