On Friday I got hit by a car while on my bike. It was a very minor collision and I had enough time to jump off of the bike and land on my feet. The man's car was fine but my front wheel was wrecked. The drier was convinced that he was responsible and I wasn't going to argue with him; he ended up giving me a hundred dollars in cash and a handshake. I used the money to purchase a 30 dollar wheel, so I ended up with a new wheel and 70 bucks.

Since I have to be out of my current apartment in a week I have started packing my stuff. I hate packing. The room looks torn apart, I don't feel like anything has been accomplished, and I wonder where I acquired so much crap that I don't want or need.

Applying for jobs is stressful, and it doesn't help that the few hours of free time I have in a day are also occupied trying to go for runs and pack as well.

Whenever I try to explain why I have my tattoos and piercings to other people I am not usually able to come up with a reason that satisfies them. I know why I have them but I wish I could explain my reasons to other people as well.

I was out running Tuesday afternoon down by the Commons. It was pretty warm out so I had taken my shirt off and I noticed a lot of people looking at my tattoo as I ran by I love the way my tattoo looks, both as a piece of art and as a part of my arm, and I love showing it off. It occurred to me then that I had been spending a lot of time this summer without a shirt on; almost any time I go climbing or running I do it without my shirt. This is a total 180 from my usual behavior. Last summer, when everyone would climb shirtless or I would go running with Mike I would refuse to take off my shirt because I was self conscious about how skinny and pale I was. I am not currently and less skinny or pale but I can't seem to keep my shirt on this summer and I know that the reason is because of my new tattoo.

I don't think I could have asked for a more crystal clear example of why I have my tattoos and piercings; they make me more comfortable and proud of my body.

I ran seven miles today. I haven't run that much since high school.

On Sunday I went up to Rumney, New Hampshire and spent the day climbing with Tim, Alex, and Ryan. This is really only my second time climbing outside (I am not counting the afternoons at Hammond Pond and Quincy) and I was really excited to get out with some of the most skilled climbers I know. I can't really decide if I am dissapointed in the weekend or not.

I almost sent what Tim described as a difficult 5.9 on lead (I fell once), I top roped another 5.9 (not cleanly), got my ass kicked on the second half of a 5.10d on lead (and didn't make the top), and couldn't get through the crux on a final 5.9 on lead. All of those climbs were above my previous outdoor marks (I had previously lead two 5.8's), and I was amazed that I made it up through three clips cleanly on the 10d, but I was still frustrated that I didn't send a single climb all day. I was also frustrated that the hardest thing I tried to climb was a 10d while everyone in my group was attempting stiff 11's and things upwards of 12d.

I realize that I haven't been climbing even two years at this point (less if you factor in my ACL recovery time) and that everyone I was with has been climbing for at least six years. I also realize that I am coming back from an injury and I am not at the place physically where I want to be. Even telling myself all of that though, I still can't figure out if I am disapointed or wildly happy with my performance.

I can't sleep anymore. When I try to go to bed I lay awake. It is too hot or too cold or I am not tired, but for whatever reason I don't fall asleep. When I do fall asleep I can't stay that way for more than six hours at a time. Saturday night I was out drinking and dancing until 3am; I woke up at 9am and could not fall back asleep. It happened again this morning, and now it's 2am and I've been in bed for an hour and I can't go to sleep.

I spent an hour and a half tonight on a 10.5 mile bike ride around Boston in the rain. I went to the Reflecting Pool (which had no water in it), Government Center, the park in Post Office Square, and I rode home on the MIT side of the river. The rain made it cool outside and all the water on the roads made it perfect for skidding. I was feeling really antsy in my room and when my residents started making a lot of noise I figured it was time to get out of the building.

Lately I've been feeling more alone than I have in a while. I don't feel like I have a very long list of people to call when I want to hang out, and it seems like the list of people who will call me is even smaller. It doesn't help that summer ultimate is starting and that many of my friends are moving away. Maybe I'm just not used to having this much free time on my hands after student teaching, and maybe it is just a weird time for everyone; I hope it gets better as the summer gets going.

Last week I sat through the second session of my tattoo. This one was a lot less painful at times and more painful at others. Chris does some pretty awesome work though and the whole thing looks a lot larger and more like a finished piece than it did before.

The outline of my koi is healing up nicely. The lines aren't raised anymore and most of the dead skin / scabs have come off in the shower or while I'm sleeping. I am starting to get used to seeing a giant fish on my shouler when I wake up in the morning or when I get out of the shower. The more I get used to it the more I love having it on my arm. I am really happy that I decided to go big on this tattoo, it looks so much more impressive and exciting than a smaller one would look. I still need to go back to schedule another appointment for the shading and coloring.

Tomorrow night Laura and I are going to attempt to make sushi unsupervised. Usually I call Heather and she comes over and directs the cooking, but we're bored and under a bit of a time cruch, so we decided to tackle it outselves. Hopefully it works out because I could potentially have sushi for lunch at school which would be delicious.

Speaking of school, I am done in less than two weeks. A week from Friday is my last day (I'm hoping to celebrate by getting more of my tattoo done) and I really couldn't be more excited. I turn in my last paper for my last class tomorrow and after that I have eight days of student teaching left before the summer. There is still that damn class I have to take over the summer but really I think I'm done in nine days.

I had the past week off of student teaching and Laura and I spent most of it being rather sick. Aside from that, it was a pretty nice vacation.

The first Sunday I went to MetroRock to see where my climbing is right now. I climbed several V2's and 5.10b's without much trouble, which was exciting because I'm very quickly getting back to the level I was at before I tore my ACL.

A few days ago I took the derailers off of Laura's bike and turned it into a single speed. I was pretty surprised I could do it, since I've never dealt with any of those parts of a bicycle. She likes it and we took a really relaxing and fun ride yesterday. We were damn cute it I do say so myself.

Today I finally went and got my koi tattoo. The artist's name is Chris and he works at Good Faith Tattoos in Brookline. I was a bit put off when I got to the shop because he had drawn it really big, but after he scaled it down a bit and put it up to my shoulder it looked awesome. Once the fish itself was on my shoulder he started to freehand the finger waves right onto my chest and back. Seeing how calm (and skilled) he was while doing that really put me at ease. The outline took an hour to do and in a few weeks he'll start the shading and color.

A few days ago I recieved and e-mail telling me that I had passed my MTELs (the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure). Today in the mail I recieved my official notices about my scores. Since I passed they didn't tell me my exact scores but they did break down each test (Math and Reading) into sections and give me information about each of those. The sections were scored by saying that I had given correct answers on "most or all items", "many of the items", "some of the items", or "few or no items". Four of the math sections (out of six) were "most or all", as were seven (out of ten) of the reading sections. The other five were "many", which I take to mean I did a damn good job.

This is interesting to me because today I realized that I'm skating on thin ice a lot of the time with my students. Especially with the Algebra II kids, but also sometimes with the Algebra I kids, I realize that I don't really know the math as well as I should. They will ask questions on the homework or while I'm lecturing that stump me and usually one of two things happen. I can either make up an answer that I realize is correct as I make it up, or I will realize that I really have no good answer and make something up that isn't incorrect, but doesn't really answer the question either. I think I've managed to do well so far but I find it odd that my test scores say I am quite qualified to teach math while my math skills seem to suggest otherwise.

I think I am done with being a student teacher. At this point, I've been there for 6 weeks (I think) and I feel as though I've taken everything I can from the experience. The kids don't really respect me and while sometimes they sit and listen and learn, often they don't and it is very frustrating spending so much of my own time and energy planning lessons and teaching when I'm getting so little out of it. I really do think that I want to be a teacher, but I am finished with the whole student teaching thing. I mentioned this to Jessica on Thursday and I think she took it the wrong way (as in, I wasn't enjoying anything and that it was somehow a reflection of her), which made me feel pretty bad. I tried to explain what I meant but I don't know that she fully understood what I meant.

I had Friday off from teaching so I took the opportunity to go out to some bars on Thursday night. Alex and I wandered around Allston and Brookline drinking until around 2:30 in the morning. I haven't had that much to drink in several monthes; it felt really good to just let go completely and not worry about the next morning. Friday night I saw Grindhouse with Laura, Steve, Spoony, and Drew. I thought the whole experience was a lot of fun. I always enjoy Tarantino's movies, and I certainly enjoyed this one, but it is probably my least favorite. After watching Robert Rodriguez's movie about the zombies, Tarantino's movie just seemed to drag on for me.

Last night I watched UFC 69 at Alex's apartment. Some of the fights were entertaining, some were boring, and others were so unexpected that I'm still not sure if I enjoyed them or not. The highlight of the evening though, was playing Guitar Hero. I had never played before and it was a damn lot of fun.


A week from tomorrow is Marathon Monday which is the best day of the year, in my opinion. I also have that entire week off from school (their spring break) so the whole week is going to be marvelous.

This past Thursday was probably the best day teaching that I've had so far. Since it was MCAS week I had my A block kids for half an hour right away and then for two hours straight later in the day. They were very attentive for the short block and I got through an entire lesson quickly and efficiently. I was pretty nervous about the two hour long block, but they all did their work relatively quietly and when they were done, managed to amuse themselves in ways that weren't loud or obnoxious. This was also the first day I attempted a full lesson with my new honors class and it went phenomenally well. Teaching them is so easy; they ask intelligent questions that drive my lessons and even if they aren't motivated to learn math for math's sake, they're at least motivated to learn for their grade.

Laura and I went out to dinner at Addis Red Sea on Saturday night to celebrate our being together for 9 monthes. That's a damn long time. Her parents are coming up this coming weekend and I'm a little nervous. I've only spent a little bit of time with them and I don't feel as confident being around them as I'd like. I guess the only way to make that better is to spend more time with them, but it doesn't make me any less nervous about it.

I went to Shaw's this morning and brought along the bucket of change I've been collecting for several years. It totaled out to 35 dollars, which I used to purchase my groceries. I think it is important to note that there were no quarters in the bucket (they get used for laundry), so that was 35 dollars in pennies, nickels, and dimes.

My St. Patty's Day weekend turned out to be pretty entertaining. Meg and Tom were supposed to come visit but the snow storm detered them from driving from Jersey to Boston. I ended up hanging out with Coco on Friday night and taking an awesome bike ride in the blizzard. Saturday afternoon saw me at Sunset drinking green beer with Steve and Drew and then watching 300 and cooking dinner with Coco. I had heard a lot of negative things about 300, specifically about the dialouge, but I loved every second of it (the dialouge was essentially spoken comic book speech bubbles, which tend to be overly dramatic, but I love comics so I can see why it didn't bother me). We then went to a bar with some people and finished the evening drinking whiskey sours.

Laura came back to Boston today (Sunday) which was very exciting. We spent most of the day together cooking and napping and catching up on the past week. I hadn't realized how much I missed her until I saw her this morning. I am really happy she's back.

I'm trying to stay positive and motivated about this whole student teaching thing. My lesson plans for tomorrow are pretty thin; I'm planning on showing up and winging it. Coco and I were talking about our classrooms this weekend and she made a comment that really put the whole thing into perspective for me. She said that usually her kids are willing to play along and pretend that she's really the teacher, even though everyone in the classroom knows she's a student teacher, but sometimes they don't feel like playing along and she really has no authority or clout to get them to do what she wants when that happens. I had never thought about it that way before, but I can absolutley see how it applies to my kids. Laura told me to just stick it out for another two monthes and then it would be over, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do.

Today was a phenomenal day in school. I saw the C2 kids twice today and both times they were very well behaved. The took their quiz (and didn't to terribly) and managed to stay quiet for almost all of A block, and they seemed to enjoy my graphing calculator lesson during D block. That happened to be the block I was being observed, so I'm glad I picked a good lesson. My C1 class was actually way crazier today than I've ever seen them, but I think I handled it very well. I thought I was able to keep them relatively on task and I think most of them understood the lesson.

Despite that, I find myself somewhat unhappy with the whole situation. I am most upset by how restricted my schedule has become. I am a person who values my free time and to have it so suddenly and massively restricted it unsettling to say the least. A huge part of my day is taken up being at school. Another large chunk is devoted to lesson planning for the next day, something that is becoming more and more tedious for me to do well. My evenings are taken up with class and work, and I go to bed early because I have to wake up early. My time with Laura is significantly less than it was last semeseter, and the time I do get to spend with her is not nearly the amount she deserves. It seems like a huge sacrifice to make for a bunch of bratty, ungrateful kids when I'm not being paid.

I also feel generally unfulfilled with my classes right now. I don't do any of the readings and the papers I turn in are a joke. I skipped my first class ever in my now five years of college last night because I couldn't justify why I wasn't doing something useful with my time instead of listening to an old man ramble about irrelevant and useless things (this doesn't could the five or six classes I have skipped for concerts or climbing, which I consider valid reasons).

All in all, I feel like my life has taken a radical shift and I am not at all sure I like where it is going.

I've spent this past week waking up at 6:00am and heading on over to Waltham High School. I took over Jessica's mainstream Algebra 1 class and my experiences thus far have been mixed. The class is made up of almost 30 kids who are all best friends and come to my math class right after lunch. They are all good kids but in general the class is a loud and rowdy place.

On Monday I taught them the last section in Chapter 6, which was about graphing systems of linear inequalities. When I was up there speaking to them they were pretty quiet and attentive, but as soon as I left them to their own devices to do a problem or if I took too long collecting my own thoughts they quickly got out of control and I was unable to bring them back down. Twice Jessica had to raise her voice to gain control of the class and while I was grateful that she helped me out I was a bit let down by my inability to control them myself. Despite my misgivings, Jessica was very supportive and told me that it was a very difficult thing to control any group of 30 freshmen, and especially this group.

Tuesday I saw them twice and I felt much better about everything. My first lesson was a review of the second half of the chapter. They worked fairly quietly on the problems I gave them and while they weren't incredibly responsive to my questions, they weren't out of control either. The quiz went pretty well, with the average being something above 50% and below 75%.

Yesterday was the highlight of the week. After quickly going over the quiz (with excellent class participation) I gave everyone a graphing claculator and taught them how to solve systems with it. They really enjoyed working with the calculators and several of them have asked me to do more lessons with them. Hopefully the material they're going to learn will present me with the opportunity to do so.

Today's lesson was a bit ambitious on my part. It didn't exactly fail but it wasn't nearly as successful as I had hoped it would be. The major problems were a lack of clarity on my part as to what I wanted them doing and the lesson's inherent downtime (a dangerous thing in this class). I did learn some things about what I can and can't do in the class though, and I already feel lightyears more confident in front of the class than I did on Monday.

In a few hours I am going to wake up and go to the hospital to have a second ACL reconstructed. I don't really find myself nervous about the surgery itself, and I already know that I can handle the physical and mental challenges associated with all of the physical therapy. At this point I am just really just so unexcited at the prospect of having to do the whole damn thing over again. After my first surgery and subsequent recovery I was so convinved that I would never have to go through all of that again. I just felt like something that I would only ever have to deal with once and now that I have to face it again I don't feel the same anger and passion I felt the first time, I just feel like it is another obstacle that I am going to deal with.

On Thursday morning I ventured out to Waltham to meet my cooperating teacher for next semester. She was very cool and I think I am really going to enjoy learning from and working with her. She teachers three different levels of algebra (remedial, college prep, and honors) as well as a pre calc course. I will most likely end up teaching all three of the algebra courses and maybe a few lessons in the pre calc course as well. Since one of the classes has 30 kids in it I will be taking 15 of them into another classroom and teaching them while she teachers the other 15 in her classroom. This is a huge opportunity for me and while I am really excited about it I am also terrified. I have never had such a large amount of responsibility before, especially for a bunch of other people. I am also worried about how effective I can be with a huge knee brace on and a limp.

I met with Dr. Foster this morning to talk about my surgery. He was very happy with the condition of my knee and was able to answer my questions easily. A few nights ago I had a nightmare relating to this surgery. I haven't had a nightmare in something like 15 years, but for some reason this upcoming date with modern medicine has upset my subconcious. I can't say that I'm excited to go through six monthes of intense rehab while student teaching, but I'm also not prepared to say that I am scared of it. I have already been through it and while I know it is going to be difficult I am aware that it is more than doable. Stupid nightmares.

These past two weeks have been very trying for me academicly. Last week I had a Modern Algebra exam and a Research exam. Today I had a Chaos exam and tomorrow I have a Stat exam. I did pretty well on the two last week, I don't think the Chaos exam went as badly as I had envisioned it, and I am pretty confident in my ability to deal with the Stat exam. However, all of this fun testing has left me with little time to complete any other assignments, including the 15 page paper that I have due on Monday. I also have at least two other assignments due on Monday, which means that this weekend is going to be jam packed with projects.

Spoony and I decided that we're going to start playing Warhammer again. I asked my dad to mail me up all of my old Space Marines and rule books. I also asked for the new rule books for Christmas so I can learn the rules the way they're supposed to be. My plan is to play a bit with the Marines, figure out the game again, and then start a Tau army. I already have a few ideas, and my freelance work at Orientation this week (around 15 hours at 15.00 an hour) will hopefully pay for the bulk of the miniatures, since I am a bit short on cash right now.

I have been doing a lot of bouldering lately. I told myself I wouldn't climb hard until my knee was fixed but for personal sanity reasons I have not been doing that. I was very confidently climbing V2's at Metro tonight and I was able to send some V3's and work V4's. It is weird that I am doing some of my best climbing without a fully functioning left knee. I think I would be climbing a lot harder right now if I wasn't constantly terrified of falling and ruining my knee.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and that means that this semester is nearly over. Right now I'm staring down the barrel of a 15 page paper but after that I am mostly home free (excluding finals). I think I am ready for this semester to be done with, although I'm not looking forward to the surgery that comes after it. There is also my student teaching next semester, which provides a whole host of terrifying possibilities even before I factor in the joys of knee rehab.

Due to a collection of reasons I have scrapped the koi fish tattoo idea for the time being. There were too many things not happening the way I wanted them to and I just didn't feel comfortable doing it right now. I may come back to it at some point after surgery, but that is something I'll think about later.

My knee surgery was confirmed for December 18th at 8:30 in the morning. That is balls early, but, as someone pointed out, it makes the not eating or drinking part really easy. This means that I should be 100% good to go sometime between May and June, provided that no complications arise.

Sadly, I am pretty sure that my tattoo idea is not going to work out. The second artist I e-mailed has yet to e-mail me back and at this point, I don't know that there is enough time for me to find another artist and get the tattoo done before my surgery. This is somewhat upsetting because I had been getting more and more excited about this as the process progressed.

I have been doing a lot of low level climbing but I think I am hurting my knee. I am very reluctant to stop however because I think I would go insane if I didn't have something to do with my energy. I can already feel that I'm weaker and it is very obvious to me that I am climbing several levels below my peak.

Chris O'Donnell e-mailed me back today saying that he was unable to do my tattoo because he is booked until late next year. He did suggest that I contact another artist in the shop, so I went ahead and sent Mike Rubendall essentially the same e-mail I sent to Chris. I feel a bit silly, but when I got the negative e-mail I suddently felt a bit uneasy about the whole idea. I think I had built up the scenario to include Chris so that when I found out it wouldn't the whole thing suddenly felt a bit off. I looked at a lot of Mark's work and he seems very capable so hopefully my aprehension will pass.

Laura and I went to see High Fidelity the musical tonight. I really didn't like it. High Fidelity (the movie) holds a very special place in my heart and since the musical was not like the movie I really couldn't get into it. The whole thing was bright and exciting, even when the topics were love lost and death. I also couldn't stand it when simple dialouge had to be turned into a song. I realize that these are exactly what musicals are, but I had a really difficult time trying to not think of the movie every three seconds.

I spent no time this weekend, and really no time last week either, doing work. My literature review is non-existant and I have two large midterms coming up, in addition to the general load of problem sets and reading that I have. I know that all of the math (even the stat) work will get done in a timely manner, and I know that I will spend ample time studying for my chaos exam. I am a lot less confident in the quality of work and the time spent on anything that is due for my research methods class. My complete lack of interest in that class coupled with my diminished personal drive for a high GPA add up to me aiming for a gentleman C and a big fuck you to SED for making me was several thousand dollars in student loans for something that will never be of any use to me.

I went to see my doctor (Dr. Foster) yesterday morning. He confirmed everything that I already knew, namely that my ACL was totally ruptured and that I would need reconstructive surgery. He did have some good news for me though. My meniscus was intact and my range of motion and strength were good. He asked me to try and do some strengthening work before surgery and to make sure that my range of motion stayed full so that I maintain my good state right up until surgery. CJ and I have agreeded to try and have me do some rehab about three times a week for now and see where that takes me.

The day that I want to have surgery is Monday, December 18th. However, I found out yesterday that I have one final on Monday and two finals on Wednesday of that week. I spoke with two of the professors and they were more than willing to move their finals for me, and I hope to speak to the third one today. Failing that, Dr. Foster has agreeded to do the surgery that Friday (the 22nd), but I would rather the extra few days of rehab.

I have been doing a lot of research regarding my tattoo idea. I spent a lot of time looking at other tattoos of koi trying to get an idea of what I wanted. I have some general concepts that I want to be sure are there (and some that I want to make sure aren't). I want the koi to look like it is swimming up my leg, as opposed to just existing there. I also want to make sure that the koi doesn't look like a cartoon. Many of the images I looked at had a cartoonish feel to them and I am really not interested in having a cartoon fish on my leg. While I do like the look of the water that many tattoos have, I don't think that I want a lot of it. I want the focus of the tattoo to be the fish, not the copious amounts of cool looking water around it. I also want some maple leaves to be incorporated into the picture. I have yet to decide if I want color or black and gray, but I am leaning towards color.

As for the structure of the tattoo, I have two different ideas. One is to have one large koi on my calf swimming up my leg. I like this idea because the single koi clearly represents me, but I am not sure about this because one koi would be huge and would dominate at least one full side of my leg. My other idea is to have three smaller koi swimming together up my leg. I feel that since the koi are smaller there will be less space on my leg taken up by the tattoo and it won't look so dominating. I am currently leaning towards the second idea.

I am having some difficulty locating an artist in Boston who speicalizes in Japanese work. Most likely I will have to go somewhere else to get it done, probably New York. This doesn't really bother me except that I don't know how I would communicate my ideas to the artist ahead of time so that he has time to make the sketch. I will probably have to e-mail some people and see what they say they can do for me.

Yesterday a freshman girl at BU was struck by a car and died. She was crossing Memorial Drive (she was living in the Hyatt) at night when the car hit her; she died yesterday morning. It feels really weird to think about people my age dying. I hope her family and friends are doing alright.

On Sept. 10th, I tore my left ACL playing ultimate. This is the second ACL I've torn (the right one went during the summer of 2004) and it means another 2 monthes of non-activity followed by 5 to 8 monthes of intensive physical therapy and rehab. Initially I was very angry, both at myself and at ultimate, because I thought I was done with this nonsense. But after a day of being pissed off and depressed I decided to focus on getting myself back into shape as quickly as possible. I've been working with CJ and Jen at PT trying to maintain my range of motion, and I meet with Dr. Foster on Wednesday to talk about when surgery will be. I've also been trying to stay busy to keep my mind off of it.

The last time I tore my ACL and before I had the reconstruction, I got a tattoo to help me through the ordeal. It was the numbers 4:59 and it represents a mile run in under 5 minutes. This was significant to me because as a runner, I use that as a benchmark to know when I am in shape. It also reminded me that during my long monthes of rehab that I was working for a larger goal (partially that of running again, but mostly just the ability to be active again). The tattoo was a huge motivator for me every day when I saw it, and it worked. I rehabed myself back into shape (despite a second surgery postponing my time table) and eventually ran a 4:53 mile on the indoor track at BU.

While this tattoo still has quite a bit of significance to me every day, I feel as though it is strongly associated with my first ACL surgery. The message it conveys to me still applies, but for whatever reason I don't feel that it connects to this new surgery. To that end, I have started planning a second tattoo for this second foray into knee reconstruction. I have been thinking about getting a koi fish on my right calf. The following was taken from a blog about a koi tattoo and describes the symbolism that surrounds koi:

"The Japanese consider it the most spirited of fish, so full of energy and power that it can fight its way up swift-running streams and cascades. Because of its strength and determination to overcome all obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals. The carp is an appropriate symbol to encourage the overcoming of life's difficulties leading to consequent success."

I feel as though the koi is a perfect representation of me; I will be fighting my way through intense and painful physical therapy to eventually reach my goal of being active again. I hope that having a koi tattooed on my body will remind me to have the strength and determination to go to physical therapy every day and work hard to bring my knee back to being functional.

Just like I did last time, I plan to surround myself with images of the tattoo (or at least images of my idea for the tattoo) before I get it done. I realize that I like tattoos quite a bit and I don't want to make the mistake of getting something that I would regret. I also need to start researching artists to make sure I don't get a shitty tattoo.