Archives: March 2004
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Saturday was fun, even though Tom and Karen showed up a lot later than I expected. PreZ got his ice skating class in earlier that day.
Tea and chatter and soup and snacks. Yummy. And sometime later that evening we polished off most of the fruit salad I'd made that morning. PreZ and Tom also played some UT2004 against each other as well.
Sunday was a veg out day. We slept in because it was really late before we got to bed the night before, and as such our Sunday yoga class got canned... again. We haven't managed to do very well about getting in a weekend yoga class so far.
Sunday evening we watched Grave of the Fireflies, which was sad and incredibly moving, though it did have some uplifting moments, even if the general tenor wasn't very happy. Well worth watching at any rate. It's an anime movie about two children during the second world war in Japan as they struggle with the aftermath of firebombing attacks upon the nation.
Monday Kyokushin #5, which went okay. PreZ managed to injure his middle finger during sparring, so that's currently pretty bruised and swollen. I only got a tiny little scratch/cut across the top of my nose because I had miscalculated how hard my sparring partner was going to kick the pads and I hadn't braced adequately... resulting in me getting my face smacked by them. Here's hoping tomorrow's class is less eventful :)
@ 12:45 AM EST
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Today's yoga session was even more punishing than Wednesday's Kyokushin class. It was a lot hotter in class today, 109F and well over 50% humidity, which made it close to unbearable really. I managed to get through the first half of the class okay, which is standing poses, but I really had issues getting through the last 45 minutes of class, and had to sit out a few of the ground poses.
I didn't get dizzy during the class, but it was just kind of hard to breath and you just felt like you were overheating (which we probably were). PreZ also was having issues, as were other people in the class. A number of people left earlier, though I'm not sure if that was due to the fact it was hotter than usual. I know one person at least had to leave earlier anyway.
Had dinner at Applebees on the way back from class. It was good, but a lot of food. Came home and had a nice hot shower, washed my hair and curled up on the couch to watch Touching Evil with a hot cup of double bergamot earl grey tea. I'm currently nursing a headache, probably dehydration related, even though I drank plenty during and after the yoga class. I'm still imbibing plenty of fluids along with some Aleve to take the edge off the headache.
Tomorrow (Saturday) Tom and Karen are coming by sometime in the afternoon which should be good. At least going to bed early tonight (I'm knackered) will mean I'm up on time tomorrow which is good as I have a few residual things to clean up around the apartment, and some cooking/food prep/baking I also wanted to do... soup, fruit salad and cookies. Tom and PreZ will probably get in some UT2004 gaming as well... I'm sure Karen and I will hear the occasional snippets of stuff during game play... "die you glowing blue bitch" was the highpoint last time they were gaming together while we were talking in the living room. Ah, boys... :)
Thursday night I went and saw Dawn of the Dead with Kreestof while PreZ was out bowling. Kreestof wanted to see a movie, and I asked if we could see that one because PreZ generally isn't that big of a zombie/horror movie fan. It was a very cool and very effective zombie movie. Zombies that run like Olympic sprinters, that really ups the scare factor because that shuffling they do in a lot of movies doesn't make them seem so threatening, and still makes them fairly easy to get away from. Not so in this one. This movie was a remake of a late 70s cult classic, though I haven't seen the original to compare, but on its own merit I really enjoyed it. Now I need to see 28 Days Later, also a zombie movie, and also with zombies that can sprint after you. I have it, but I just haven't gotten around to watching it yet.
And now I think I'm going to curl up with Four and Twenty Blackbirds and call it an early night.
@ 12:03 AM EST
Friday, March 26, 2004
Wednesday's Kyokushin class was pretty punishing. A different sempai led the class too, and therefore I had to get used to a different pronounciation of stuff as well. This one also did a LOT more push-ups, and so later that night my back was really sore, which made sleeping hard. The sempai's English was also so heavily accented sometimes I couldn't make out that he was actually speaking English, as it just sounded Japanese.
During the last part of the class the white belts got split off from the main group, and the black belt leading us was the sempai we've had for the past 3 classes. I did pretty well in that segment of the class. The earlier part I had some issues with a few of the punches. There's one that's like some windmill thing, which really confuses me. Very annoying. I'll get PreZ to run me through a few of the punches this weekend, so that I can try and keep up with most of them on Monday.
I have to say that after Wednesday's class I was really glad that we didn't have any more karate until Monday, because I was knackered, and especially sore the next day.
In about 20 or so minutes we'll be heading off for our Friday yoga class. Here's hoping that one's a bit easier than last weeks class... I seemed to have more issues holding the poses then than I'd had the first week, oddly enough.
Hopefully after we get back I'll have enough energy left to prepare dinner or something, but we'll see. I also need to do some basic cleaning around here. I mopped the kitchen floor just earlier, so that's one thing out of the way at least. The bathroom's still looking okay, also a bonus.
Anyway, I need to go get my things together.
@ 05:09 PM EST
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
What is it that makes people so reluctant to walk away from something that's bad, like, for example, a relationship?
I know altogether way too many people who are in unequal relationships, where there's really only one person getting any kind of benefit from it, or one person is trying to keep it together while the other person is the center of destruction. Or relationships where people fight either frequently or constantly. Etc.
I once heard someone say that if you didn't fight with each other or argue occasionally you didn't have a good relationship. Bullshit. Having a constant source of irritation, frustration and anger is what's bad for a relationship. Sure we all have moments where personalities clash, or where one wants to do something completely different than the other person, but that kind of thing should be the exception rather than the rule. When you're irritated and/or fighting more than you're happy with the relationship/other person, it's time to start reviewing your relationship, in my opinion.
I'm also tired of having friends around me who are in destructive relationships and who have the misguided notion that they can help or fix the other person. You can't. It won't happen. If there's anything I learned from dealing with an alcoholic parental unit, is that you cannot help someone who doesn't want to help themselves, no matter what you do. You cannot change other people, that change has to come from their own internal catalyst. People seem unwilling to accept that kind of thinking, and maybe that's part of that 'quitting is for losers' mindset that's often pushed at you.
I'm sure some people have opinions about my giving up on my mother, usually it follows along the 'you probably didn't try (hard) enough' vein. I noticed it when corresponding with her current beau. But then, what became obvious from his correspondence was that he obviously didn't have a fucking clue about what he was dealing with. Only those who haven't yet witnessed the true depth of what a person with personal demons can do can have this smarmy 'it can't be that bad' attitude... that as long as you try hard enough, long enough, that your personal input will somehow bring them to some revelation. It doesn't, it won't. Yes, that might sound fatalistic, but I consider it more realistic. The people I've spoken to that have gone through similar situations have come to the same conclusions I have, so I'm not a lone voice in the world with this.
It just becomes a matter of how much will you let your buttons get pushed until you reach your personal limit. And this is where the parental unit story ties back into shitty relationships.
more
@ 10:23 PM EST
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Kit stopped by sometime Sunday afternoon. It was good to get together with him, I don't think he's been at our place since our Halloween party. He seemed substantially more cheerful than he did several months ago, which is good.
He'd brought his laptop as well, as there were some issues with it and it was due for a complete reinstall. Windows requires one of those every so many months. So chatter and tea and computer repairs took up most of the afternoon. He got us to listen to some Al Franken speech, which was absolutely hilarious. Nothing like proving Bill O'Reilly a liar with his own show transcripts :D
We had some dinner at Applebees later, and more tea and chatter after that. Sometime after 2am I also spent almost an hour on the phone talking to Kreestof, who figured that if I was awake and talking to him on AIM, we could also just talk on the phone, heh. It was a late night, and PreZ didn't get much sleep before the morning alarm woke him up on monday. How he manages to survive on so little sleep never ceases to amaze me.
Monday our third Kyokushin class, and I felt somewhat less stupid throughout it, which is good. I'm also not as sore after the fact right now, which is also definitely a bonus. My body strength still has a ways to go, but at least I can move without pain the next day and don't have lots of residual muscle soreness for days on end. Next class should be tomorrow.
Today also seems to be showing some semblance of spring... there's sunshine, and in the sun it's kind of warm, though there's a severe nip to the wind. I'm so ready for spring and summer right now. I've been completely over winter about a week after it started really :)
I'm currently reading China Miéville's King Rat, which I'll probably finish later, as I've only got some 40 odd pages left I believe that are building up to the book's climax. I'm really enjoying it so far, and if you've read and enjoyed the way that Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere had a subterranean London invisible to the mundane inhabitants, then you'll find this story interesting as well, as it employs a similar concept. Only the main protagonist finds out he's part rat. Mentioning this detail to PreZ and Kit netted me all kinds of silly superhero/mutant type jokes, but the novel is much more succint than that. Think human form but with extra abilities, more like Spider-Man rather than some human/rat hybrid body like the wolfman. Anyway, even if it's a detail that makes you apprehensive, it's worth picking up and reading despite any apprehension you may have.
Next up after that will be Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Cherie is a budding author, and someone on my livejournal friends list. After hearing the small-press publisher of her first novel was going to pull the book for (bizarre) reasons too extensive to break down easily, I ordered myself a copy while I still could. I've much enjoyed reading her regular lj entries, and as such I expect that I'll enjoy the writing at the very least, though the story premise also sounded very interesting and I like the genre she works in as that was what first attracted me to her and her journal.
@ 04:17 PM EST
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Of course I walk into the bathroom for a shower, and I hear them running water for laundry upstairs. It never fails, no matter what time I choose to have a shower...
Ah well, I only need a quick shower, I'll manage.
We also received 2 Amazon gift certificates from our creditcard reward points yesterday, and placed an order last night too. PreZ ordered UT 2004, and some computer book he needs. I got a complete works of Shakespeare leatherbound volume, and Poppy Z. Brite's new novel Liquor. I'd wanted to get the Enemy At The Gates soundtrack cd because the music to that movie is so wonderful, but that was $18+ on Amazon, so I'll order it from secondspin.com, where they have it for $4.99, albeit second hand. The cd's I've gotten from there have always been in very good shape though, with no scratches on the discs.
So new goodies to look out for :)
Still waiting to hear back about the Enemy At The Gates fanlisting application. God I hope I get it. *squee*
@ 02:28 PM EST
So no Kyokushin on Wednesday. It started snowing on Tuesday and has kept up on-and-off for most of the week. PreZ also worked from home on Wednesday and we didn't really feel like going into NYC for karate in that weather. I have to say I didn't mind so much as I was still really exhausted from Monday. You never recuperate as fast as you would like from exercise.
Yesterday evening was the second Bikram class. That turned out to be slightly harder than the first one too, I didn't hold all the poses as well as I did the first time, and neither did PreZ. I think it's also just tiredness and lack of good body condition that's responsible for that. Hence I really can't wait to get back into some semblance of shape soon.
Thursday was a trip into NYC to go to the INS BCIS USCIS office to find out what was going on with my application, as we've heard nothing and the 2 year processing period has passed. It turned out they *still* had our old address listed, even though we sent at least 2 change of addresses in. But they handed me a wad of paperwork including one form to go get fingerprinted, one with a May 5th appointment with an immigration examiner (one of those 'prove your relationship' interviews), a form to go get a full medical exam, which is irritating because I had one when applying for a fiancee visa complete with bloodwork, chest x-ray and immunization boosters, and I don't really feel like getting socked with medical bills again when I know I'm not sick. There's also a 12 point check list of stuff that needs to accompany that appointment too, so more paperwork to chase down.
At least I didn't spend too much time at the INS office, which is good, especially as the site tells you to expect long waits and that you might be there for a few hours. I was only there for an hour, hour-and-a-half or so, and I got some answers that I'd been wanting, which is also a bonus.
Thursday evening Kreestof came over after his allergist's appointment, our weekly gettogether. We had dinner and watched various miscellaneous stuff on tv, before deciding to go play some UT on the LAN. By that time PreZ arrived back from bowling and he joined in too, so we played UT against each other for a while which was fun. No CSI on tv due to basketball or something sucky. I hate when sports take over regular programming.
No plans for today, I'd thought Keith and Katie would be coming over this weekend, but that'll be next weekend or the one after. It does look as though Kit might be coming over tomorrow, which is good because aside from seeing him last Sunday at Roulette, we haven't seen him in forever. So sometime this afternoon or tonight I'll make up a new batch of carrot & cumin soup for tomorrow. And maybe today I'll go check out the indo-pak grocery store for a particular spice, or just try and make food without it, or just shelve that food plan for a while until I have time to go to that store. We'll see.
Next up, a shower and some online UT against PreZ and Vervain :)
@ 02:23 PM EST
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
So last night was the second kyokushin class. I think personally I did worse this time than I did last Wednesday at the first lesson. Bleh. I hate being a newbie, I hate not knowing the moves, I hate screwing up, it all makes me extremely self-conscious. And being more self-conscious doesn't really help, it just kind of makes you screw up more. I need to get PreZ to run through some of the punches with me, it's the ones that have both arms doing completely different things concurrently that really throw me off. And yes, I know it'll eventually come to me, and the senseis and sempais are all patient and stuff, so it's mostly me being hard on myself rather than anything exterior. Part of it is also a general lack of fitness too, you don't kick quite as high as you could when your legs feel like they're going to fall off if you do it one more time ;)
And I need to start doing things like push-ups at home, I have fuck-all upper body strength, especially the arms. Next class on Wednesday, so maybe tonight I can get PreZ to go through some of the stuff with me in preperation, and read up on the counting stuff that some people helped me out on.
@ 03:50 PM EST
Monday, March 15, 2004
Applied for the Enemy at the Gates fanlisting yesterday too. I've been waiting since like October for that to *finally* get removed from the Troubles list. However, knowing my luck with acquiring fanlistings that more people than just myself want to have is about zero, even though I have plenty of internet skills to back up my claim, not to mention the fact that I'm ridiculously fannish about this particular movie.
Being the pessimist I am, I'm pretty sure that I'll end up having waited 4+ months for this movie, only to see it go to someone else. Argh.
@ 01:16 PM EST
PreZ was up early on Saturday to go for his skating lesson, and then crawled back into bed afterwards for a nap. Around 3.30pm we left to go to NJ to meet up with Tom and Karen and Audrey, whom we hadn't seen since Boxing Day, to go see a movie and have dinner afterwards. We saw Johnny Depp's latest, Secret Window, which was good. The ending had a twist I wasn't expecting, which is always good. I'd much rather a twist that works, than an ending you expect. Johnny managed to inject all kinds of little humourous bits into his performance, which illicited many a giggle from the audience, and made the movie all the more entertaining. Just watching him walk out of the house after his wife in a flashback, face covered in shaving cream was both hilarious and cute.
After the movie we had dinner at the Noodle House, which was almost across from the multiplex. Good food, though it was insanely busy at the restaurant. Tea and chatter back at Tom and Karen's place afterwards. We left there around 1am, dropped Audrey off home and headed back to our place.
Sunday was sleeping in day, though I didn't get up too late. I let PreZ sleep in for a couple more hours, as he generally doesn't get enough sleep during the week. Vegged out, played some UT Holy Wars online against Tom, and then got ready to head into the city to go see Roulette, which Kit had graciously gotten us tickets for. The show was good, I enjoyed it and it had a lot of funny moments. It had Anna Paquin in it, as well as one of the Saturday Night Live cast, also an Ana, the one who does the Martha Stewart impressions. We got to talk to Kit after the show for a few minutes, and give Kit his Christmas Easter presents. We stopped off at the Applebee's on Times Square for a quick bite to eat before heading on home.
This evening is going to be the second karate class, which should be interesting. I wish I knew more about what was going on when we're there, I hate just being kinda clueless... it makes me insecure and leaves me feeling extremely self-conscious.
Now I need to iron my kyokushin patch onto my gi, make a batch of soup, clean up around here a bit, deal with the last remnants of laundry, pick up a prescription and leave the house on time to go to karate.
@ 01:11 PM EST
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Kreestof came over Thursday night, earlier than last week because his appointments have been scheduled for earlier. I made dinner for all three of us, and we ended up watching CSI and then popped Pirates of the Caribbean into the dvd player to watch while PreZ was bowling. Later they talked geek shop, and even played some Unreal Tournament against each other, before I reminded them that it was now 4am ;)
Friday evening 6pm was our first Bikram class. Definitely some "bloody hell! what did I get myself into" at times, because it is really hot, obviously. But I felt really good afterwards, relaxed and rejuvenated. And then a nice refreshing shower at home really tops off that feeling. You're still tired, but not exhausted blah tired. The 90 minutes flew by, and I'm definitely sure we'll get some good stretching and flexibility from that class, which will be a nice compliment to the karate.
I'm also not sure what it is in Tiger Balm that makes it so effective, but I have to say that I do like that it does relieve some muscle aches and soreness. Rub some on before bed and then the next morning the aches were either gone or lessened significantly. Definitely a boon now that we're going to be exercising regularly like this. Pity it's so damn strong in it's menthol scent.
@ 11:53 PM EST
Friday, March 12, 2004
And even though I hadn't thought it was that long, it's a week gone by since the last post. Which seems to be a trend as the last 3 posts have all been Friday ones.
The yoga bags and mats finally arrived on Tuesday, and so Wednesday was our first kyokushin karate class, which was interesting. The worst thing was not knowing what the hell you were supposed to be doing, and kind of lamely following people. It also didn't help that the instructor wasn't that great at English pronunciation either and mostly he used the Japanese names for the kicks/punches/manoeuvers, and I definitely can't count in Japanese either, though I eventually figured out which word he'd use to indicate the end of a sequence, or where the sequence ended (30 or so).
Somewhere in the last half of the class the white belts got put off to one side and we got instruction from another sempai. This one didn't even speak English, he understood it (to a degree?), but he didn't speak it. Luckily one of the other whitebelts was Japanese who spoke fluent (and understandable) English, so he translated. It was amusing, yet also a tad frustrating, both because of the language barrier, and being a newbie... you feel as though you're making all kinds of social gaffes too, especially when you haven't had anyone tell you and when you notice things are quite formal in a way and that there are little rituals and ways things are done. I'd just hate to think I offended some of the Japanese there. I'd wanted to take their welcome class, but I don't think they actually gave it today (though it was scheduled) and we were also busy with the registration and getting changed and all that. A tad chaotic.
That said, the atmosphere was friendly. Many people were quick to introduce themselves when you came across them, which personally surprised me. There was a friendly and laidback atmosphere. Also met another Aussie there too, she was one of the other women in the class, a yellow belt. We chatted a little in the changing room after. She'd resumed training after having slacked off for a while and we might see her around more often, I think the fact that there was another Aussie, and someone else who'd lived there amused/interested her.
I'm somewhat sore now, which is to be expected. Hopefully that'll have lessened somewhat overnight so I don't feel so sore during our first yoga class on Friday afternoon/evening.
@ 04:59 AM EST
Friday, March 5, 2004
Most of the sports related shopping is done. I picked up a white lightweight sports shirt on Tuesday when Kreestof was here, one I could wear under the gi if necessary. Sports bras were picked up last weekend when we went to the Palisades Mall on Saturday. The shorter barbell arrived yesterday, along with the yoga clothing. I was surprised the yoga clothes arrived so fast, as I'd ordered that via snail mail with a cheque, and after all the online orders, and it arrived together with the barbell. Bonus points for the personal touch with the wrapping they did and the free card they included. We're still waiting on the mats & bags to arrive which I hope won't take too long. The sooner they arrive, the sooner we can get started, and I'm getting a tad antsy now.
Kreestof also dropped by on Thursday, after his allergist's appointment, and we basically watched some CSI and chattered away and headed off to meet PreZ at bowling so we could all have food together afterwards. I made a batch of pumpkin cookies too, which are yummy. Made 2 batches of soup yesterday too, though the partan bree was binned, I didn't like it at all, and I knew PreZ wouldn't. So the batch of spicy lentil is left. I tried to make a carrot & ginger cake earlier in the week, which didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped it would, which was a shame. So lots of cooking this week.
Went through all the email/space applications on goth.net, so all of that is finally out of the way, after it was neglected for quite a while for various reasons. I wish some of the people applying weren't such complete dumbasses. It's ridiculous. The information and requirements and such are so clearly stated on various places on the site, yet people still don't fill stuff in properly. To the extent that I think I delete at least 1/3 of all applications for some reason or another, mostly related to them not filling stuff in properly. Morons. No matter how explicitly you put stuff on the site and form, people still foul up horribly... if they weren't such lazy wankers and would just spend the 2 minutes reading it, they'd not end up looking like such gimps.
@ 08:20 PM EST