I am starting a new workout regiment. Although I can stand to lose some fat and gain some muscle, my main motivation for starting this is to strengthen my ability to dedicate myself to a task.

Several times now, while conversing with my parents about my future, they have said that I have CHANGED. "Hao, you were never so indecisive about things. In the past, when you set your mind on something, you didn't stop until you finished." Initially, like how I reacted to most statements from my parents, I outwardly consented while mentally dismissed the comment.

But recently, as I have become more self aware and reflective, I have realized that what they were right: I have become mr. wishywashy. Just take the topic of my career. I have switched back and forth between med school, graduate school, and business school so many times that I'm still amazed that my parents are putting up with me. 

I am not dedicating myself to anything; instead, I enjoy the initial interest, then after encountering some hardships, I jump ship. 

I have tried to start workout regiments in the past, but due to my lack of commitment, they all failed. I hope this will be different. I read a great article on motivation by a trainer who said that pain, not pleasure, motivated people.

For dieting, he was a fan of the Alpo diet. The idea is to tell a group of people that you will eat a can of Alpo dog food if you didn't accomplish a certain goal, such as losing 10 pounds in a month. So everytime you wanted to break the regiment, the pain of humiliation from wolfing down dog food will motivate you.

I will copy John Stone's (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/) motivation approach and post a daily picture of myself. This way, if I am neglicting to post or you don't notice a change in a month, feel free to give me shit about it.

The pictures will be in the gallery section.
   

Uncertainty. This four syllable word haunts my life. I am uncertain as to what I should do with my life. I am uncertain as to what kind of person I should be or become. I am uncertain as to what type of relationships I need to develope. I even uncertain as to why I feel uncertainty. But isn't uncertainty part of life? Without it, I would not be living.

Let's take career as an example. I know research. I did research at Duke, and now I'm doing cancer research in Boston. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes, I absolutely dread it. This feeling gets amplified when I look back on my life and feel an overwhelming amount of regret -- regret of stagnance, of not being courageous enough to step out of my comfort zone and explore. I wish I had taken more non science classes at Duke. I wish I had asked that half chinese half french girl out. I wish I had not joined a frat so I could have spent a semester gettting to know people as opposed to doing stupid ass kissing pledging shit. But I suppose we all have regrets and we must learn to keep our heads forward. But sometimes, somethings else happens. When I'm hating research, I also have the thought of perhaps I have not dug my nails deep into this shit yet. Maybe I hate it because I don't know enough and I need to hit the books and study harder. At what point do I say this is not for me and at what point do I convince myself to keep at it and see it as just another hump to the top? That is my uncertainty.

Every Thursday, my lab has a lab meeting from 8:30am to 10:00am. Usually, someone uses this 1.5 hours to make a presentation about his research. Today, the format was different. The time was divided amongst 6 people. In honor of this change, I decided to drink one cup of coffee per presenter. I usually drink two cups of coffee per day: One dose in the morning and another dose after lunch. I usually don't feel any of the effects commonly protrayed and exaggerated by people, so I was curious to see if drinking large quantities of coffee in a short time would be any different.

Throughout the presentation, I took my pulse and watched for any shaking of my hands. My pulse was normal and my hands were steady. After the presentation, I felt more lethargic than alert. The only noticeable effect has been frequent urination. I shall continue to monitor my progress. 

I will once again attempt to start a regular journal chronicling my simple life as an organism on earth. The activation energy for doing this is so fucken high, but I truly believe that this is a favorable reaction, I least for my life. I'm sure other people would not like it when they read the smack about them posted by me. For their sake, I will only use fake names. Wow, first entry, nice. Keep it up Hao.

Reognizing the slow demise of the company, several board members had the chutzpah to convoke for a defactor meeting, outlining an overbusy plan to change the company leadership from a scattered, to a holistic approach.