Rodney Falberg

My hobbies include writing poetry, fantasy MMA, and studying history, especially relating to classical antiquity and warfare.
Writing poetry only became a hobby of mine a little over a year ago. Before the time, I was dating someone I cared about deeply, and just in passing asked them what creative writing class I should take the upcoming semester, and she recommended I take "Introduction to Writing Poetry". It was just one month before the new semester started that she called me and ended our relationship. I sank into a depression and stressed everyday over how I was going to win her back. As I began my creative writing class, I used poetry as a means of trying to make sense of what happened and as a means of trying to revive my past relationship, such as my poem "Second Chance". Over time, I began to use poetry to voice my internal personal struggles, such as "Lost Will", and eventually found myself writing poetry as means of not just coping but of expressing my personal feelings such as finding myself, such as my poem "Am I" which won a poetry contest, and my hopes for the future, such as "Love Project". I compose poetry also as a means of expressing my love for my current girlfriend, such as my poem "Tahira".
In my spare time I love to do fantasy MMA, sort of like fantasy football except for mixed martial arts. Although I don't personally train in MMA, I am very much a fan of the combat sport. I'll order pay per views for international MMA organizations like ROAD FC in South Korea even if it's 3am my time, which are much more inexpensive than UFC pay per views, and spend hours watching and reviewing MMA fighter statistics and highlights. I have even created my own fantasy MMA organization with it's own fantasy MMA tournaments where I have done hundreds of hours on research on finding fighters from all across the globe, matching them against other fighters based on their experience and styles, and researching cities and arena's across the world where these fights could have taken place. This has been a hobby that I've been doing for years.
Since I was a young boy I had this fascination of military history and the history of long gone empires. As a young man I would watch on the History Channel all the specials over the great decisive battles of the ancient world like Guagamela, Carrhae, and Cannae, or the brilliant military commanders, like Robert E. Lee, freedom fighters, like Spartacus and Boudica. While I don't watch television much, I do find on youtube.com many documentaries and specials on ancient warfare and history. I also enjoy reading a publication Pen and Sword from the UK, who publish books on military history throughout history, and am currently reading "The Wars of the Maccabees" by John Grainger, an enlightening and intriguing read with a unique historical perspective on that revolt.d