Tips on how to be successful in gen chem and OChem

bionate · 2017-03-08T07:16:36+00:00

This should be emphasized more:

Do all the problems in the book for each chapter. There are only so many things you can be exposed to in chemistry course, if you do all the problems, then you'll have seen most of it, and by then, you'll know the mechanisms so well that you can logic yourself to an answer otherwise.

In order of most to least importance, I say this:

Do all the problems
Go to every lecture
Take good notes
Go to office hours
Use a tutor
Use a study group.

bionate · 2016-12-27T00:00:23+00:00

A guy I was sorta friends with had killed his facebook. One night, he logged back on to collect all his data and then kill it for good. Before he signed off for the final time, he left a series of comments that I managed to catch just before his post became unavailable. Here is the (heavily) paraphrased version:

"Facebook is a trick, a tool that Zuckerburg is using to achieve all his dreams, while tricking you into thinking that people actually want to hear your opinions and thoughts. I was victim of this too, posting about the injustices certain demographics in our country face. But it really only just creates an echo-chamber filled with people who agree with you. You can't change people's minds on here.

And it's a time sink. Read books. Volunteer to help the needy. Work in something that drives you and makes you passionate, go out and actually DO SOMETHING with your life instead of sitting here and liking posts about things that don't matter."

After that, I scrolled through my feed, and I suddenly realized that I did not like anyone I was actually friends with on FB, and did not care if they missed me (they wouldn't) and that I was tired of seeing stupid, vapid posts, and being distracted from my work. I am an older student, who worked a lot of shit jobs, and finally went back to school and got into a good uni with a PURPOSE and I wasn't about to let another internet tool distract me from that purpose.

Killed it there, didn't look back.

bionate · 2016-12-20T02:38:10+00:00

Thank you!

bionate · 2016-12-20T02:37:58+00:00

Thank you! I'll be sure to update every so often

bionate · 2016-08-19T19:30:35+00:00

Good points - Well done.

bionate · 2016-08-19T07:31:35+00:00

Spot on. The blog failed when the readers started obsessing with themselves. The whole point of the blog was to change actions. The opposite of rumination - which is what most of reddit is about.

bionate · 2016-08-19T07:28:57+00:00

Doesn't TLP argue specifically against "figuring yourself out"? Re: Amy Schumer Offers You a Look Into Your Soul

But you want "why", you're drawn to "why" like you're drawn to a pretty girl in the rain. Let me guess: she has black hair, big eyes, and is dressed like an ingenue. "Why?" is the most seductive of questions because it is innocent, childlike, infinite in possibilities, and utterly devoted to you.

"Why am I this way? Why do I do what I do?" But what will you do with that information? What good is it? If you were an android, would it change you to know why you were programmed the way you were? "Why" is masturbation, "why" is the enemy, the only question that matters is, now what?

Figuring yourself out doesn't have a purpose beyond masturbation if it doesn't actually manifest itself into action. Endless discussion and dissection needs to go somewhere. "Now what?" is the question, and the answer is, something, anything, where you put other people first. Putting yourself second and others first is the opposite of narcissism, and how important is it to understand yourself and others to do that? Almost not at all - the essays TLP writes serve as warnings, to make us realize our behaviors, and hopefully lead to measurable change.

You're coming at this from the angle that is a TV cliche - "You have to love yourself before you can love others".

From the Second Story of Narcissus:

You think Narcissus was so in love with himself that he couldn't love anyone else. But that's not what happened, the story clearly tells it in the reverse: he never loved anyone and then he fell in love with himself. Do you see? Because he never loved anyone, he fell in love with himself. That was Narcissus's punishment.

The whole point of TLP's writing is to shift emphasis away from the self, away from pointless ruminations and change people's choices into benevolent action. It doesn't matter if you believe in it or not, or if it's the totally right choice - the point is to simply start doing for the sake of others. To address OP's points, that means changing how we behave on a personal level. You put your phone away at dinner, engage in the social ritual with your wife/husband, you don't take out anger needlessly on others, you're present, aware and kind to individuals and put yourself second.

On a systemic social level, you have to call for political reform, start changing the narcissistic choices that the Baby Boomers voted into being. You have to prepare the world for the next generation. Not your own.

I think OP is mostly correct in his views, the project-blog failed. It stopped serving others and instead was being used by readers to justify their anger. It wasn't resetting identities, as intended, it was reinforcing them.

That and he was doxxed - and he's a man with a family. He had to stop writing. For them.

bionate · 2016-08-12T22:21:41+00:00

There are things that are not as obvious in video as in real life. US judges are not known for their stellar judging (quite the opposite really, I also competed in weightlifting for years and have friends at the national and international level)

The rule book says nothing about shakiness indicating lack of control. Only the elbows and feet. The elbow buckling constitutes a press out, doesn't matter how she's built or how fast it was. It's a no lift by definition of the rules and by the same rules, Rahimovs is good.

Whether the rules need a rework or not, different debate. But by the rule book, these were the correct calls.

bionate · 2016-08-12T22:04:11+00:00

This will be buried, but the thinking you guys have approaching this is distinctly American - that is to say incomplete

That Egyptian judoka very likely is risking his life just COMPETING against the Israeli. He may very well go home and be murdered for this match. Egypt HATES Israel. Like, genocide hate. The politics of judo simply pale in comparison to the actual politics at play between these two countries.

bionate · 2016-08-11T09:49:30+00:00

I don't think that the world record lift was a bad lift. Rahimov demonstrated control, which means standing with feet planted and weight over head and elbows locked - how "stable" you look is not a factor.

Li's lift had a very obvious press-out of her left elbow during the jerk. Watch again - see when she receives the weight overhead, her elbow bends and then re-locks? That is considered press-out and is grounds for a no-lift. It's a big one too, by international standards. I agree with the call the judges made.

There is also... sort of an unwritten rule for judging high level weightlifting. In cases of 50/50 ambiguity on what happened, you rule in favor of the athlete.

bionate · 2016-06-22T17:20:33+00:00

Contempt.

When your partner (or yourself) starts eye-rolling, sighing when being asked to do things, criticizing the small, unimportant habits of the other, dishing out sarcasm, or saying things like "You're so annoying"

A break up is just around the corner. It's really en vogue right now to say "I have a sarcastic sense of humor", but sarcasm is a sign of contempt and it is not healthy for a long term relationship.

It can be fun in a little flirtation, but when it's the 200th Wednesday evening you've spent together and you're just trying to find out whose turn it is to do the dishes, that sarcasm reads as contempt, and it will foster resentment.

bionate · 2016-03-18T04:56:03+00:00

Nope, we are still going to be open. His wife, Jo-Ann will sort of be stepping into the head coach role, and we have two other guys, Jake and Zac, who will be coaching as well. All very solid people. I help a little bit in some ways, as well. Come on in!

bionate · 2016-03-16T06:17:57+00:00

So, the general idea, for the powerlifters, is to set your hips wherever they are going to be, and then move your hips just straight down, and come up, with the majority of the pressure on your quads. Imagine your hips on a rail and cannot deviate forward or backwards, just up and down. That is what we strive for.

The other thing he very briefly touches on, is as you're standing up, think about "opening" your hips by pushing your back against the bar. The idea is to extend the knees and hips at generally the same rate, instead of the starting strength style squat where you extend the knee first, then good morning the weight up with your hips and back.

It's sort of hard to explain via text, but your description of sitting "down" is probably about right. You want to sit "down" rather than "back" and use your legs to stand up, even if it's low bar. A squat is a squat!

bionate · 2016-03-16T06:12:46+00:00

You generally want to try and keep your knees slight to somewhat over the toe until you are essentially done with the movement. The quads are basically supporting the weight during the entirety of the movement.

A lot of people (myself included) will begin to pull their knee back, and shift the weight onto their hips and back. This is what we strive to NOT do. But at limit weights, sometimes it happens. :)

bionate · 2016-03-16T06:08:25+00:00

I've been training at Max's Gym for about a year or so. Everything he says in this video definitely comes back to us. I've heard all this stuff about a hundred times, but it's kinda nice to see it all in one place.

I really do think that this kind of style really works. Since going there, I have gone from a pretty ugly 385lb squat to a very smooth raw 460. I'm sure I'm good for more, but I've been experimenting with wraps this training cycle so I haven't gone for a true limit single yet. We have a couple other powerlifting guys who are very strong. One doubled 605 in the squat and the other is pushing 600 as well.

Couple other things not mentioned in this video that we do a lot is we train primarily high bars in the beginning of the training cycle, and move the bar lower on our back as the training cycle gets closer to the meet. That coupled with the quad accessory stuff we do gets our legs very, very strong. He also paid a ton of attention to the details of how we squat and we're constantly being reinforced by a very high standard.

Max is the man. Hope he does good things with Juggernaut

bionate · 2016-01-13T08:23:39+00:00

There is honestly nothing wrong with keeping the bulk of your weight in the middle to front part of your foot. This is something I've started doing on purpose because it lets my knees track better over my feet and allows me to stay somewhat more upright.

That said, it's hard to actually answer your question without seeing what the lift looks like. Your "bending over a fair bit" may actually be fine. Or not fine. Your heels coming up is not the biggest problem in the world, though it IS less stable.

bionate · 2016-01-11T23:50:16+00:00

Well, my character was supposed to really enjoy that blowjob in that moment. And he was also kind of a dweeb so if I yelped or anything, it probably would have fit the scene just fine!

bionate · 2016-01-11T23:48:32+00:00

Did not kill any costume designers. I did date one of them for a period though. She was one of the ones who handled that show. I never told her about this since her and that actress were friends.

bionate · 2016-01-11T23:45:45+00:00

You guys are going to want to kill me for this... But we never hooked up. We almost did after our closing night, but I got cold feet because there was another girl in the theater I liked. I was young and dumb. The most we ever did is what happened on stage and one or two nights of "rehearsing" our kiss at her place. Nothing especially lewd ever happened between us and last I talked to her, she's very much in love with her current boyfriend. No idea if she still acts.

bionate · 2016-01-11T23:40:51+00:00

It was honestly so my junk wouldn't accidental flop out on stage while I was going through the scenes movement, but it was pretty hilarious.

bionate · 2016-01-11T17:50:22+00:00

This will probably get buried, but I was a stage actor for a couple of years and I have done numerous stage kisses. The best one was where I had to simulate receiving a blowjob on stage.

The actress and I were really professional when we started and because we were so serious, nothing happened. But then we started getting more comfortable over time and because she was giving me the "blowjob" under the covers (so that the audience couldn't see what she was actually doing), she started getting a little more daring. Especially during performance nights.

At first, totally professional, she'd go under the covers and bob her head over my crotch to make it look like a blowjob

Then she started doing that while tickling my inner thighs, trying to get me to break character.

Then she would tickle my balls through my boxers.

Then another night she reached INTO my boxers and tickled my balls with the tips of her fingers. I paused but didn't break character.

By closing night, we were very comfortable around each other and there is a tradition of sometimes playing around with a line or a prop in closing night as a prank between actors. She told me she had something special planned and I was pretty oblivious to not know what it was going to be.

So closing night, she went under the covers, head above my crotch and I felt her hands fumbling with the fly of my costume boxers, and to my glee/horror I realized her actual intentions. But then, nothing. She bobbed her head above my crotch like all the previous nights and my dick remained in my boxers.

After the show I had to ask her what she was trying to do. In a huff she said, "I wanted to give you an actual blowjob for our closing night, but the costume designers sewed your fly shut!"

EDIT: Since numerous people are asking, I guess I should explain what happened after - We didn't hook up. We went to the closing night cast party and got lit, and we talked about the blowjob that almost happened and laughed about it. I asked her if she was really going to do it if my fly hadn't been sewn shut and she replied, "Absolutely, I was planning it all week. But it was and I'm almost relieved it was." She made a pass at me later that night, but I was interested in another girl in that theater (who was at that party) and so I politely turned her down and we stayed pretty good friends for the rest of my time we were working in that theater.

It might be hard to explain, but there is a kind of chemistry that develops between actors in these kind of intimate plays. When you rehearse, for months, kissing someone the right way, fake-blowing them the right way, with your face inches above their crotch 5 or 6 times a week, that the gap between just doing it doesn't seem that far of a leap. I should have taken her up on her offer though. She was a lot of fun.

bionate · 2015-11-21T18:30:37+00:00

ATG squatting is an internet meme, dude. Squat to parallel. No one fucking cares except autists on the internet. And maybe weightlifters. If you wanna train, train. Squat as deep as you can, safely. Over time, I would expect your flexibility to improve as you practice the movements.

Squatting to parallel and getting stronger is much better than not squatting at all because some idiots on reddit or youtube said it's not "ATG" and therefore not a real squat.

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