The Largest Red

So I looked up "art and ethics" and found the above image which I thought looked pretty cool. Back after the two week hiatus for another post where I will mainly be giving some updates since not many changes have taken place yet. Personal Updates For this semester I am enrolled in just two classes, one is an introductory Art/Architecture class which is definitely different than anything that I have ever taken before, and the other is a Business Ethics course. I am definitely more excited about the Business Ethics course as we are covering a range of interesting topics with an impressive lineup of guest lecturers. Both of these classes have a relatively light workload especially relative to some of the classes that I have taken previously. This is intentional as I will also have to write my entire thesis over the next few months.  Speaking of my thesis, I have not really gotten much work done yet, although I have a topic and some data. I am not sure exactly what my question wi...

I decided last week that nothing too interesting happened that would necessitate me making a post, so I figured I would condense the past two weeks into a single post. Don't ask me why I chose this as the image for the post, I had a few ideas, and then one search yielded this image, and I went for it. Felt right. Personal Updates Regarding my weight loss, I have consistently been below 260 for the past two weeks or so, with this morning actually being my lightest weigh-in, now below 255. I do not really have a goal in mind for a number to hit, but I definitely have more of a runway than I thought. I am still going to try to workout consistently and watch what I am eating, but I will not pressure myself to do anything excessive to maintain my weight. My thought process is that eventually, I will hit an equilibrium where my new eating and lifting habits allow me to maintain a certain weight. I lost about 15 pounds while home for the latter half of December and the first half of Janua...

First full week of the new year, and it is off to a pretty good start. This is the first year that I have no football obligations nor any finals to worry about over break. Personal Updates The biggest focus that I have had while at home has been on losing weight. Now that I am officially done with football, I saw no reason to be 300 lbs, and have continued to lose weight. The day of this post, Sunday, January 9th is actually the first day that my morning weigh-in read below 260 since I started this weight loss journey. I have about another week or so at home before I return to school, and I am right on track with my goals. My goal in coming home was to get down below 260 before coming back since I thought the 250-260 range would be where I ended up settling down. Now that I am actually here, I still feel that I still have a ways to go as far as body recomposition even though I am down over 50 lbs from where I started the season at. I definitely have more of a runway than I thought, but...

As we close out 2021 and head into the new year, I think that it will be important and interesting to see how this past year has gone, where I am at right now, and where I hope to be moving forward. I will separate this post into a few different categories, a bit different than normal, to make sure that I cover the various aspects of my life (in no particular order). Physical Fitness I started this past year still trying to gain weight going into my senior year of football. I was probably around 280-285 or so, with a goal of getting to 295+ by the start of the season, only putting on good weight. Last year around this time I sustained two simultaneous injuries of my chest and hip that prevented me from making a lot of the gains that I was hoping to make and threw me off the course of pursuing playing football at the next level. That being said, I think I went into my final season in the best, or at least close to the best, shape of my life. My body composition was definitely much bette...

I am back home for winter break after wrapping up finals. A bit strange to have one more semester left of college, but I feel that it is time to move to the next stage of my life.  Personal Updates Now that I am back home, my life is really consisting of exercise and dieting while I am trying to lose weight, and then trying to divide up my remaining free time into the job hunt/thesis/reading/spending time with friends. I do not yet have grade updates from all of my classes, so a full update will likely be in next week's post. I do know that I got an A in one class and a P in another, and I am not worried about doing poorly in the two remaining classes, I know I ended up in the B range, but it will depend on how the curves shake out. This spring I will only be taking two courses, and then will likely need to spend the bulk of my time working on my thesis. I have hopes to not push it to the deadline, but as the days and weeks go by it is hard to sit down and get meaningful productive...

It has been a while since my last post on here, the past several weeks have been a bit hectic and I have not taken the time out to update this blog, so with that, this post will be a bit longer than normal to summarize the past month or so. Personal Updates For my personal updates, I think it will be best to divide them into different sections as the past few weeks have covered a lot of ground in my life and I do not want to miss anything important. Football Football-wise, we finished up our season against Penn and won by a pretty decent margin. This allowed us to secure a piece of the Ivy League title, shared with Dartmouth who also had one loss this season. With us beating both Harvard and Yale this year, we also had a bonfire the Sunday after the Penn game which was a great celebration that friends and family were able to enjoy. Coming to the end of my season meant that I had a decision to make as far as where I am going from here. I took a week or two to think about it but ultimate...

This week we beat Yale as our last home game of the year, and my last time playing at Princeton's stadium for my life. Prior to the game we were tied for number one in the league, and after the win we have maintained our top position in the league, still tied with Dartmouth. With one week left, either one or both of us will be league champions. Personal Updates I try not to look back at prior posts before typing a new one, but from memory I believe I said one of my goals for this week's game against Yale as getting one of the top offensive performers awards. I actually was able to share in the week's offensive game ball which was a huge accomplishment and defnitely something to be proud of. I have not yet received the famed bucket hat, but that will likely come on Tuesday. I was pretty happy with my performance overall, but as always, there were things I definitely could have done better with. We have one game left this season against Penn next Saturday and then I am done b...

This past week was our first loss of the season against Dartmouth moving us to 7-1. With the current standings in the league, this still gives us a chance to share in the Ivy League title as long as we win out in our final two games against Yale and Penn. Personal Updates I do not have all that much to update on this week since it was more of a dead week of the semester. I have a few assignments and more interesting events next week and in the weeks to come as my life will continue to change. I think I definitely played a pretty decent game against Dartmouth, but as a team, we really could not get anything going until the second quarter, and by that point, we were sort of fighting from behind the whole time. I have continued to develop and improve my game week to week, and I am excited for the challenge of this next week since the stakes are so high. It will be our senior day and the final time that I play a game in Princeton stadium so I am hoping to go out on a high note. I will do m...

This week we went up to Cornell and faced the Big Red which, if you infer from the name of this blog, is also my nickname. We won the game improving to 7-0. Personal Updates I went into this game pretty confident because last year I felt that Cornell was the best game I played, and probably to this day it is still my best full college football game. I had a really good first half this past week and then had several plays in the second half that I wish I could have back, including one play that was especially bad. Whether I like it or not this is part of the game, and when I am playing 80 or so snaps per game, to have a few not go my way is to be expected. Usually, with football, it is rare for all 11 players to execute a play perfectly because there are so many variables involved in each play that usually all happen in a span of several seconds. However, oftentimes good enough will suffice because slowing someone down by a second can not be that different than a perfect block. Then the...

This past week's game was definitely one for the history books. We ended up winning against Harvard in 5 overtimes. Personal Updates This past week was our break week following midterms week which I think was definitely helpful as we went to face one of our toughest opponents yet. I went into the week hoping to get ahead on some of my class work/readings and also make a dent in my thesis, but I was dealing with a virus that is going around campus and prioritized revocering before my game on Saturday instead. Given the ultimate outcome of the game, I think that this tradeoff was worth it. I was definitely fortunate that I happened to start feeling under the weather during a break week versus during classes or during midterms. Speaking of midterms, I also received my grades back this week. Overall I did decently well, and especially in the class that I was most worried about I ended up only missing the average by a few points. This was a sigh of relief as leaving the test I felt pret...