After the rejection from Piper Alderman, I've been making conscious efforts to work that dissapointment out of my head.  I'm not someone who meditates.  I know some people who do, such as [Paladin] most notably, but I think it's just not for me.  In all fairness, I suppose I haven't really tried all that hard at it more than a dozen times.  Maybe I should give it another go?

 

I am not someone who deals well with emptiness-- so if there is dissapointment in my life, somehow coming to terms with it or annuling the hurt it makes doesn't necessarily make things better for me.  The thing is, such an event takes up space in my mind and spirit-- and if I were to remove it or annul it, what would happen the moment that it was gone?  There's emptiness.

 

I suppose it's not so much that I can't get rid the symptoms of such an event.  It's more that I don't like the emptiness that follows after getting it over with.  The big question is "What's next?"

 

Looking at my own habits, I think what I do instead of annuling that event is to substitute it with something new.  I need to draw my attention on something else, and give myself purpose.

 

I think that's the worst thing about being dissapointed.  When you're dissapointed, it's a hard kick in the shin for your sense of purpose-- you suddenly feel immobile and unable to go further.  There are two elements to dissapointment-- there's the psycho-spirituatl element of it, and then there's the factual "reality" element of it.

 

The reality of most situations of dissaopintment is that we're never as old as we think, and it's never too late, and we always have more chances.  Basically: you can try again.

 

However, the psycho-spiritual element of it is a bit tougher to tweak, because of our pride.  We like to think that we get what we deserve, and, more importantly, we like to think that we deserve something just because we want it badly enough.  Truth is, good things and bad things happen to people all the time for dumb luck reasons, and that messes with our sense of entitlement.  If we can't trust our sense of deservingness, and if we can't trust the external world to reward our genuine efforts when we deserve something, we start to doubt the mechanics of the game and wonder if we can ever get anywhere.

 

Following dissapointment, that's exactly what happens: the reality of a situation probably hasn't changed, but our expectations on the psycho-spiritual level have taken a bad hit.

Whiel it is true that if we hadn't put so much expectation on something, we might not be dissapointed, what fun would a world be without a sense of real accomplishment, a real sense of satisfaction when we do get what we want?  It's a double edged sword-- it's the reason why we take so many things for granted.  The things we take for granted are the elements of life where they are simply a reality-- msot of us  have no sense of "deserving" a bed to sleep in, running water, or food on the table, because these are things that we don't need make any  psycho-spiritual investments in.  As such, we don't really care: that stuff just is.

 

So it seems rather inevitable that when we want things, and we're dissapointed, we might feel that we wish we didn't want it, because it would hurt less.    Is that what we're supposed to do though?

 

I wonder if that's exactly what leads to a dulling of the spirit that results in people realising, one day, that life is boring.

 

I always tell people that my way of dealing with any sort of negative emotions is to channel it into anger.  If you can get angry, you can move on to plotting new ways of doing things.  You can move on to getting even. Not necessarily with that particular stymied goal-- it could be something larger.  You can take it out on life and win something else just to spite it for ever daring to oppose you that other time.

 

Moments of dissapointment are good refresher courses for me.  Yes, it'd be great if I could just have "won" in the first place.  Havnig "lost," the best thing to do is to salvage as much from the situation as possible and learn from it; apply all that in the next fight.

 

I'm reminded of a scene from the old Mel Gibson movie, Payback.  At some point, he gets into a car, tells his passenger to buckle up-- and then puts in a mouthguard.  Then drives at full speed, and has a head on collision with another car on purpose.  Because that's what he needed to do.

 

Gibson criticisms aside, there's a parable in there somewhere.  I own like 3-4 mouthguards actually, and whenever I'm doing contact activities, I wear it.  A mouthguard prevents your upper and lower teeth from chipping eachother when you take a shot in the face, or when you grit too hard.  When you take an upwards blow in the chin, the mouthguard acts as a shock absorber, buffering some of the damage from slamming your brain against the inside walls of your skull. 

 

A lot of conviction in life can be analogised to putting on a mouth guard.  It means, simply, recognising that shit can go down.  You can play all your cards right but it might still not be enough.  In that case, you just need to do everything you can to prevent it from getting to your head.  You need to bite down, grit your teeth, and be ready to take a few to deal a few.

 

Putting a mouthguard in isn't just addressing the harshess of reality-- it also means that you've made a psycho-spiritual decision to accept that thigns are likely to deviate from plans.

So, that law firm internship I was going for didn't turn out. Bummer.

On a side note, the xanga app on android is total shit.

I started reading a manga called Shin Kotaru Makaritou, which is about a japanese Karate club that decides, one day, to switch to judo.  It's not the best manga out there (there's no character development) but, for who they are, the characters are funny and their interactions are funny.   It reminds me a lot of Ranma 1/2.  

I mostly started reading it because I wanted a more fun way of learning the names of japanese terms being thrown around in my judo class.  However, like with many other mangas that involve people learning legendary techniques and becoming stronger, I'm getting kind of hooked on this one.

 

I've also started playing Disgaea 4 on PS3, which I find is strange-- I've never played a Disgaea game before, although [Vittek] and [CM] both have.  My first impression was "It looks like Final Fantasy Tactics" which is true, but that's where the similarity ends. FFT had a much more 'strict' feel to it-- if you made certain mistakes, you could really ruin a stage.  Indeed, I actually stopped playing the FFT remake on PSP (although I'd previously beaten it on PSX, or was it PS2?) because it was once so hard that it was impossible for me to beat a certain stage that i was autosaved into, with no backup saves anywhere else-- gamebreaking, I know, and a stupid mistake to make.

 

Anyway, Disgaea might look a lot like FFT to me, but the battle system is a hella lot larger.  The voice acting is also incredible, and the scripting is hillarious (if you're in the mood for it).  The game also has so much depth to it, it's mind boggling.  I think I've been playing this game for like 10 hours now, and the game is still making me play tutorials for things that I haven't learned how to do yet.

 

---

 

CM is working on exam preparation right now, so I mostly stay around close by as "support staff."  We take turns during exam sessions, since hers and mine aren't at the same time.  That means that while she's in exam mode, I do the cooking, cleaning, groceries and errands, so that she can basically exist to study.  It's not a hard existence being a house-boyfriend, because aside from those things that I do do in that role, I'm basically playing videogames, reading, or going to judo.  But hey, that's what summer vacation is for, right?  I would probably go to judo 5 times a week if I could, but honestly, my body can't take more than twice per week.

 

 

---

 

This state of doing whatever I want won't last forever-- pretty soon, I'll be starting my new job for the Germans once a week.  And hopefully, I'll get a positive result from that clerkship with the mid tier firm, because that'll take all the stress off the rest of my degree by removing the hunt for a grad job.  I think I'm getting better and not getting my hopes up.

When I went out 8 applications last semester and only got 1 bite, it was a crushing blow to me.  I think, however, that because I got that 1 bite, I somehow conjured up this idea in my head that I deserved to get that job more than anyone else-- when in reality, my situation has nothing to do with my entitlement.

 

So I've been working on refining my expectations in life.  Perhaps, this more accurately doesn't mean that I don't hope for the best-- it's just that I prepare to keep trying new angles, on the assumption that I haven't yet won.  It's not so much that I'm working on backup plans (more applications) constantly.  I'm of the opinion that I'm qualified for these positions I'm applying for-- hella more qualified than a lot of the others apply and getting in.  So what's holding me back? Sometimes, it's plain dumb luck.  And the basic moral of the story is that I can't be faulted for not having great luck like some people.

 

As such, the simple solution is not to get into a mindset of "backup plans" or "plan N."  That makes me feel like I'm constantly losing, or settling.

 

I've found that, rather, the better theme to follow is overkill.  Just throw fire and forget missiles, salvo after salvo, with the intention of winning everything without actually checking to see what targets you've actually tagged-- because in the end, if you scorch the earth, it's all your mark!

 

I just got back a huge ass  document I'd been working on for a reasearch project.  The edits were done by an organisation I work for, and we mostly do the work via email. 

 

The edits are pretty good and will help me a lot.  But somehow, they must be using Microsoft Office 97 or some other strange version or something-- they edited the document with track changes (which worked fine) but somehow, the copy they sent back stripped ALL the header formatting.  The result-- the entire document is now unindexed (no more headings and subheadings), and the table of contents is totally fubared.

 

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Halo 4 just came out, but my XBox 360 is still in Montreal.  Being in Sydney, that means that my XBox could not be geographically any further away.

Halo's always had a special place in my heart.  Aside from Duke Nukem 3d, the original Halo was the one where I enjoyed the most competitive success.  I played and beat Red Faction: Armageddon recently, which is a relatively new game.  However, I find that at the end of the day, gameplay wise, it is just a much nicer looking version of the original Halo, with a few ideas stiched in from Gears of War 2. 

 

---

 

I think that in life, once you've done a few really great or memorable things, these things become your benchmarks by which everything else is compared.  Well, I guess it doesn't need to be great or memorable-- it just needs to be involving enough to really alter the mechanics of your thought process.  It has to be something that you need to get your brain into.

 

Your  past experiences become the vocabulary by which you describe the world.  The more engaging a particular subset of experiences, the more likely it is that your method of communicating to others is going to make use of that vocabulary and those benchmarks.

 

That's why, even when classmates and I from law school go out after exams and try to talk about anything except law, it's naturally impossible to a certain degree-- even if we try to avoid talking about classes, we inevitably refer to it in discussing the news, and we joke about it instinctively.  [CM] has the same experience with med students.

 

It's only natural I guess.

 

---

 

The thing is, I have a sneaky suspicion that human interaction and the quality of our relationships is based on the things we have in common.  At the very least, if it's not the things we have in common, it is the understanding of the attributes of experience that allow us to appreciate difference.  For example: maybe one person is into break dancing, and another is into tap dancing.  They're very different uses of the human body, so these two people might not get along based on the connectivity of those two interests alone.  However, if the two people are willing to trace back along the branches to the common human roots in body mechanics, training, rhythm, etc, then perhaps the fact that the end results are the same can still be drawn to a simlarity somewhere along the line?

 

I was talking to CM about this a couple of weeks ago.  We were talking about the elections in US.  We're not American, but as Canadians, it was still a significant issue for us because so much of American culture inevitably dictates the direction of Canadian culture as well.  Part of our discussion had to do with religion, and I was telling her how, despite my Catholic upbringing, if there was ever a religion I subscribed to, it'd probably be something more like some form of modified Taoism.

 

But really, what religion you have ultimately comes down to the basic principles that you believe are the best vocabulary for describing the world.

 

For me, the basic principles of Taoism are fluidity, and simply being.  In case you didn't know, the basic premise of a yin yang sign is like a Star Ware parable-- there's the Light Side of the Force, and the Dark Side of the Force.  However, neither side exists without the other-- there is a fluid transition between the white and the black, which is represented by the shape of the two elements "chasing" one another infinitely, kind of like an ourobouros.  In that way, Star Wars represents the conflict of the Jedi and the Sith as really the problems with extremes-- and the real stories are about the people struggling to find some sort of balance in their lives.  The fact that you can never be pure in one way or the other is represented in the yinyang sign's dot of the opposite colour within the main.  It means that no matter how great a source of light or darkness, there are necessarily elements of the opopsite within you.

 

To me, the biggest principal of the Taoism that most people overlook is where on that symbol you fit.  It's not that you should be identifying with either the white piece or the black piece-- in reality, you are the whole symbol.  You're both at once, in a swirling, constant flux.  Separation and dissonance of your elements is what causes existential problems.

 

---

 

 

As a bit of a tangent, that belief is important in terms of maintaining a proper "work-life-balance."   I've been throwing that term around a lot lately because it's one of those things that comes up in interviews a lot it seems, and I just two interviews in the last two weeks for law firms.  One of them is for a German law firm, where I got the job as to be office bitch ("junior paralegal"), and the other one is for a mid tier commercial law firm clerkship (which is the important one, because this will lead to a graduate job) which I get the results for on monday or tuesday.  

 

Anyway, as I was saying-- it's important because if you try and separate yourself from yourself for the wrong reasons, you'll get all these bad feelings that will ultimately result in you not being able to get anywhere in life that will satisfy you.  it's hard to explain, but put it this way-- certain feelings like guilt, worry, and low self esteem-- these, from personal experience, are more than often due somewhere to a conflict in internal vocabulary.  Somewhere along the line, you've experienced something that has profoundly affected the way that you frame the world-- and it has been framed in a way which cannot be integrated with the world around you.

 

Traumatic experiences usually do that.

 

Until you can find a way to find some common ground between that you and the world around you, you'll be like a broken yin-yang.  The dissonance will never allow it to spin like a proper circle.  And, looking at the pieces as separate parts, you'd be missing the whole point anyways-- you'd be so concerned with the definition of this or that that you'd miss that you're you're an integral part of everything else, and everything else is a part of you-- you'd miss the concept of connection that makes the human experience what it is.

 

---

 

 

So, as far as "fixing" broken people go, I'm not saying this to look down on anyone.  I've been broken many times, and I've had to put the pieces back together.  And everytime it happens it's a pain in the ass-- but it's an important catharsis that we routinely have to go through so that there isn't too much calcification of the mechanisms that power our experiences.

 

The fixing is really about reconnecting the isolated pieces.

 

There are a few ways of doing that, as I mentioned.  You can find ways by which the vocabulary of that disconnected piece can connect to another person who has the same experience.  Or you can find ways to connect it to another piece of yourself.

 

The intrinsic problem is that whether or not we want to admit it, some of these isolated pieces are our pride.  I say pride because it's shockingly misused here-- pride could just be stubbornness, but it could also be something sacred.  I did say that the experiences that define our perspective are the most engaging ones, right?  That means that, for better or worse, the traumatic things that are the 'problem pieces' stay isolated and special because by design, we want to protect the core bits that define us, for fear of losing that which makes us unique.

 

But if we can only let that go, then we'll connect with the whole world so much better.

 

Exams have come and gone and slowly, I'm reacclimatising myself to a normal, balanced pace of life.

 

Whenever exams come up, I fall out of my routine a bit-- I'm in battle mode. I don't sleep properly, and as a result, I can't spare much energy for exercise. I tend to eat a bit worse as well, just because I get cravings for junk food, kind of as small rewards for all the hard work I put into school. Especially after classes are over (and there's a week or two where I don't have to school, because exams usually have a bit of a study break before them) and no longer have to commute (by bike), then my whole routine falls out of whack. Without the daily 20km commute, I'm suddenly the equivalent of a couch potato.

 

Usually, by the time I finish exams, I'm almost 5 kilograms (almost ten pounds) heavier than two weeks before.

 

Well, now that I'm done with exams, I'm on the slinghost-- I'm done classes, so I have nothing to take up my day. In short order, I caught up on gaming. I actually finished Demon Souls (the “world's hardest game”) during the exam period. The day after exams I started playing Red Faction: Armageddon, and the day after that, I finished that game. I'm rather glad I bought them used for 10 bucks a pop, because I'd feel like I'd been ripped off if I paid the full 60+ for something that only lasted me a day and a half.

 

I've started going back to judo again.

 

The truth is, I have no talent for this stuff whatsoever, and I'm really beginning to wonder if I'll ever be good at this. A sense of balance has never been one of my fortes. Even in kickboxing and taekwondo, I was never the one who was great at spinning kicks or whatever aerial attacks. In badminton, my old style of fast-twitch counters worked for me, but by technical analysis, it was a compensation for lack of good balance with quickness, at the expense of efficiency.

 

Right now, this is the situation I'm in in judo. I'm a white belt-- which is something that hasn't happened to me in a long time. It's different from starting at law school even, for one main reason-- all of my classmates are beginners with me. I am learning with them, and we can make the same mistakes together.  In judo, I'm surrounded and often paired up against people who have years more experience than me.  At times, the experience gap is more than a decade or two.

 

I had long forgotten what it is like to be a rank beginner in something, not just in name, but in the reality of the activity itself. Of the white belts in the class with me, one of them has been doing judo for over a year and just hasn't had the time to be certified. Another may be of roughly the same experience level as me, but he outweighs me by about 10 kilograms.

 

There is one thing that I have, which I think matches or exceeds that of my peers-- it's the willingness to take a beating, and keep getting up. It's not just a Rocky Balboa cliche-- in the end, I think that the willingness to endure hardship in pursuit of learning something new about yourself is one of the lasting things that I take from martial arts.

 

I'm sitting around typing this blog and I've got some damage to me-- large bruises the size of tennis balls on my right leg from people trying to sweep me. They don't hurt, I think I'm used to this kind of thing-- however, the impact is different. In kickboxing, normally I'd be light on a deffending leg so that I can absorb an impact. When there is a shin to shin clash in a striking sport, the shins almost inadvertantly glance off eachother to diffuse some of the impact, because of the angles and the flex of the knees. However, in judo, a lot of the sweeping seems to be specifically attacking the leg that I have my weight on-- thus, my foot is usually well planted on the floor, and my shin can't escape or deflect any of the damage. The result of some sweeps is as if someone had used a shin kick on you, but you didn't lift your foot off the ground to absorb some of the impact.

 

That's a small detail that doesn't really bother me-- I just mention it because I never really thought about noticing the planting of a foot before. I mean, I've used leg kicks in the past-- however, I don't usually go for the shins. Usually I'll go for a thigh. I find it fascinating how a different martial art makes use of a leg technique that is so similar, yet so different.

 

On the whole, what was I talking about? Oh right: I'm not very good at judo. I guess I shouldn't expect to be, because I've never done it before-- but somehow, I feel that because of my history in other fighting styles, I guess I just figured I'd have more talent for it.

 

I find that I am faring a bit better on the ground, but I'm still pretty bad at that. The other white belts and yellow belts can't tap me out if it's pure groundwork. However, the greens and oranges are really good with positioning, which is something that I was never great at when I was a mixed fighter.

 

The difference between mixed ground fighting and judo ground fighting is quite interesting.

 

In mixed, the main difference is that on the ground, there's always the threat of punching. It's the technique that made the Ultimate Fighting Championship so infamous when it first came out, because everyone was totally caught off guard by the brutality of it.

 

As a mixed fighter, I've always been someone who relied on strong roundhouses and jabs to deal damage. I learned enough grappling to be able to fight from a clinch with knees and elbows, and enough grappling to prevent getting tapped out on the ground long enough to make my space to go back to striking.

 

Judo is quite different.

 

For example-- if I'm in a dominant position in a mixed fight on the ground, it's almost certain that I'll go for ground and pound right away. If I have mount, and my opponent's hands get too passive in their guard, then I'll take one of those hands, and arm bar the shit out of it, or something.

 

In judo-- now what the heck am I supposed to do when someone goes on their stomach in the fetal position, covering their ears in a 'turtle position'? In MMA, if you do that, that's when you get the crap beaten out of you. In judo, I see my partner in front of me doing that, and I think to myself... “uh... so if I can't use hammerfists, what am I supposed to do now?”

 

Similarly, when I'm in mount, and if they're not offering their hands up as a byproduct of deffending ground and pounds, but rather, they're actively trying to tie up my hands... what am I supposed to do?

 

These are all questions that have contextual answers of course, but right now, I don't know any of these answers. I only have solutions from mixed, which don't match the rules of this game.

 

But like I said-- this is fair, and this is what I get. I think the decision to take up judo was a great one-- it is exactly what I was looking for. What I'm wondering though is whether or not I really wanted to find what I was after. I was after an activity where I could feel like the underdog again-- something where I would be learning from scratch. Where I could again feel the emotions of the activity, as something fresh.

Well, I feel it now. I feel myself being really enthused by the small victories I have. Before exams started, I paired up with an orange belt for randori-- he's probably at least 5 to 10 kilos lighter than me, but he was slamming the shit out of me for all 3 minutes of the sparring. This week? I went against him again, and he was STILL slamming the shit out of me, but he was having a noticiably hard time, and I almost managed to throw him twice. That kind of feeling? It's delicious.

 

On the other hand, I'm starting to feel some physical limitations. I have a hip problem and a left ankle problem. These are among other old injuries, but these two in particular are things which I'm noticing are quite bothersome during some of the techniques. I've known about these problems for years, but I've always been able to work around them and the limits on my motion with those two joints has never bothered me in any other situation, mostly because I'm a right-leg-dominant kicker. However, in judo, it's problematic, because I need to be flexible on both sides for rolls and breakfalls (I don't get to chose which way my opponent throws me). The limitations are also apparent when I try certain throws at certain angles, and I feel a sharp electric pain from the joint telling me that it is not happy. That kind of thing, it's the opposite of the deliciousness of progress: it's the bitterness of realisation of limitation.

 

This is, however, everything I wanted-- to get back in touch with myself.

 

At least for the moment, I'm maintaining my fighting spirit. I am still a hard-style fighter by nature, and my footwork is generally geared for linear forward attacks, or rotating out-fighter retreats. But this business of being constantly attached to my opponent, of changing the flow, of not being able to escape or hit and run-- it's all so new to me. When I succeed at a technique, I feel that I'm using 20 or 30 times the amount of power that I feel I should be using. When a technique is performed on me, I feel that I'm taking factors more damage than I should be as well. I just don't have the reflexive flexibility for this kind of movement... and I sure as hell don't have the experience to make me efficient. But I guess, I'm getting there slowly.

 

Until I get good at the techniques, I guess I'll just have to rely on high vitality and endurance stats for deffense, and use low efficiency, high STR requirement methods for the attacks.

From the profs:

 

Dear Property Students,

Could we please ask that students stop emailing us to ask questions about the exam.  We are being inundated by them. It is an exam. We cannot help you answer it.

More importantly, as always, you need to learn the skills that you will need in the work place. They include

a) knowing when to ask a question - because something serious and irremediable might happen if you do something wrong, and

b) knowing when to just get on with the task and use your own judgement; that is what you will be paid for as a lawyer. 

This is a situation b).  No one is going to go to jail; no one is going to lose money.  You have been given instructions, so just have a go at it, without asking for clarification.   

If you judge correctly, you will be rewarded with good marks; if you judge some things incorrectly, you may not do as well, but that is exactly what happens at work and it will be OK. No one gets everything correct at work.  There are no HDs.  You make mistakes and you learn.

But, as always, we are not trying to trick you or trip you up.  We will be assessing the substance of your work.

The game I'm currently playing (as a break from exam studies) is Demon's Souls, and as I mentioned, it's reputed to be the hardest game ever created.  Personally, I think Prinny: Can I be the Hero? is harder, but the difference is that Prinny was hard because of shitty controls and bad game design.  DS is... I don't know.  It's very rewarding when you actually get through stages, and the game is designed pretty well.  It's just... fucking hard.

 

It plays like a third person action-RPG.  Think of a cross between Mass Effect or Borderlands with  Arkham Asylum/City, minus guns, and set in a medieval fantasy world with knights, wizards and dragons.

 

To illustrate how hard the game is-- I just fought a boss and died, but I died so bad, it's like I went back in time.

 

In this game, like in other RPGs, you can "level up" and build your stats up so that your character is stronger, smarter, better at magic, etc.  The boss that I just fought, Old King Allant, has a special move where he literally sucks the level out of your character-- meaning, not only can he kill you (that's the least of your worries), if he catches you with his special attack, he actually makes you DROP experience levels! As in... yes, it took me half at least half an hour of  grinding to gain one level.  And in the span of 2 seconds because I couldn't dodge the special attack, I'm going to lose half a level.

 

I've lost 5 levels on this boss.  The first time, he did his special attack and I thought to myself... "Soul drained? What the hell does that mean?"  It's not often I can beat a boss in this game on the first try so I didn't think too much about it.  The second time I ran into him, he caught me with that attack 4 times.  After the first one, I noticed that my character was getting a bit sluggish-- and it was then that I realised that my character was acting encumbered!  I have a pretty specific balance of stats-- just enough so that my character is strong enough to wear all his armor while still being able to run.  So suddenly, the fact that I couldn't run, and that my dodges were getting really laboured-- it could only mean that somehow, my stamina stats had dropped.

 

To lighten the load, I took off a helmet and gloves.  This boss doesn't leave you along for more than a second or two so going through the menus to de-quip things is really not safe (the game hates humans so much, it doesn't even have a pause button).  So I take off the stuff, but now with reduced armor I'm just eating damage... he catches me with the special attack a few more times, and eventually, I die.

 

When I reload-- I find that I've lost a total of FIVE levels of EXP.  I mean.... PERMANENTLY.  This game is soooo unforgiving...

Basically, a boss fight that I laboured at for maybe 20 minutes cause me to lose the experience that took me something like a whole afternoon to gain.  THIS GAME IS ACTUALLY CANCELLING OUT PROGRESS IN MY LIFE.

 

"Finally, Part 5 will present a number of positive recommendations for reform which will alleviate the conflict issues in Australia’s guardianship system for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, and will ensure better care and protection of this vulnerable group in future."

 

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeh.

Blogging is one thing.  I don't use a spell checker when I blog, and  I don't even proof what I write before posting.  However, when I'm editing other peoples' work, especially submissions or discussion papers to government, there are rules and stylistic issues that people ought to observe.

A few of the most common mistakes:

• People often write:
• "It is obvious that..."
• "It is interesting to note that..."
• "It is clear that..."
• NO!  Stop that! If it's obvious, then stop being a prick and repeating the obvious.  If you're writing it, it's because it's not obvious, so cut out that kind of pretentious sentence-lengthening shit.
• Learn to use punctuation. Nobody wants to read a sentence that's got 100 words in it.
• First rule of punctuation: don't use commas (or even worse, "and") when a period and and a capital will do.  Yes, that means: shorter sentences!
• One idea per sentence please.
• If you really must put more than one idea per sentence, learn to use commas properly.  Better yet, learn to use colons and semi-colons.  Especially with really technical writing, semicolons will make the difference between someone understanding what they've read on the first try, and having to try 5 more times.  (By the 3rd time, they don't give a damn what you're writing about anymore.)
• Use an active voice.  "The allegations of the Minister were that..." is much better off as  "The Minister alleged..." because it cuts down words.  Cutting down words is one of the key goals in making writing understandable.  People who are receiving formal writing form you don't want you to be Virginia Woolf.
• You probably want to avoid exclamation marks.
• Who cares who you are and what your opinion is? Get your damn footnotes and references right!
• Don't be redundant.  True story: "Part 2 [...] will be specifically focusing..." srsly?  Because... there's a way to focus, without being specific? "Specifically dealing" is better, or reword the whole thing to "Part 2[...] will focus..." and BOOM.  You don't sound like a wordy asshole.
• Do not use the same buzzword in the same sentence.
• Try and avoid using the same buzzword in the same paragraph. It makes you sound like a nag.

• it's 2012, and Microsoft Word just froze on me and ate up 30 minutes of work, despite automatic saving set at 5 minute intervals.
• some asshole on a bike passed me at a light because he cut off a car, and then he occupied just enough space so that when we got to the hill, he slowed down, blocking me and 6 cars behind us.
• don't pass people if you're a fucking tortoise, asshat!
• learn to use your fucking GEARS, or otherwise, take some goddamn performance enhancing drugs before you leave in the morning so you can climb that goddamn hill!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrr