Leaf, probably…

Kempo was an interesting diversion from the usual. It started at 7pm and was in town, so it gave me time to catch up over beer and orange juice with Ben.

The class itself was easy enough to find after our host had leaned out of the top story window to yell instructions at us…

Once we got up into the gym we were greeted with a boxing class doing their thing - and oh my god did I want to go join in! I’m always a bit surprised at just how much I miss throwing on a pair of gloves and punching the shit out of something.

It looked like a good class because it was nearing the end and most of the participants looked like warmed over death.

The gym is called Gloves Boxing Gym, and it’s near Webb St in Mt Cook. It has a mat area set aside for Kempo. We formed up and the instructor gave a ’readers digest’ intro to his art - which turns out to use a lot of pressure points.

We were there to learn a few holds and how to apply pressure points and body waves to those holds. I think some of the stuff I learnt will be handy for Taekwon-Do especially when we’re doing self defence - even if it wasn’t quite the workout I was hoping for.  

I found out how to successfully do a hold that makes the other persons arm look like an ‘S’. I also found that that particular hold doesn’t work well on me (because I am a girl, and bendy, and a ‘water’ type…) unless the other person compresses my wrist.

I also learnt that if you vibrate one, or both of your hands while doing certain holds then you can increase the effectiveness of your holds. Also you can make your partner squeal like a girl and drop to the floor like a brick.

Holds and pressure points are fun.

Overall the class was fun, but it did serve to reinforce that I made the right decision when I chose Taekwon-Do.

When I (finally) got home I grabbed a pair of scissors and hacked a couple of inches off the bottom of my hair.

It doesn’t look too bad, but someone should definitely remove the scissors from the bathroom cupboard. 

I promise I’ll go to a hairdresser next time.

Hey guess what? Tonight, instead of going to Taekwon-do in Kilbirnie, we get to try Kempo Karate in town. And by we I mean Miramar Taekwon-do. Neat right?

I did a bit of research on Kempo and discovered… well, not a lot really. I did find out that nobody is 100% sure exactly where Kempo originated from, and that it incorporates a whole bunch of different techniques from a whole bunch of different martial arts  - including aerial and spinning kicks from Taekwon-Do.

There seems to be a few different styles, and after doing a quick google search, most of the ones in New Zealand seem to be the American branch - although I couldn’t find the exact branch we’re doing it with.

According to Wikipedia “American Kempo employ linear and circular movements with a signature “rapid fire” combination of blows to vital areas of the body.” Now I don’t know exactly what that means but WOW it does sound bad-ass doesn’t it?

And that whole ‘rapid fire’ thing? You know what that means? It means it’s going to be an awesome workout… Or, you know, it means that I’m going to have a lot of bruises on Friday and I’ll have to explain to my boss that I let a 14 year old boy kick me because I was wondering whether to block. Whatever.

And you know what else I found out? They have totally cool uniforms. Lots of black, and everyone knows that black = cool.

I’ll bet Kempo Karate members never have to get up at 6am in the morning to wrestle with an ironing board because they forgot about class that night after work, and then find a stain that looks a lot like cranberry juice on their belt, and then have to figure out whether normal washing powder will get that out of white, or whether they’re going to have to use bleach.

Actually people who belong to Taekwon-Do might never have to worry about that either. It’s probably just something that happens to me.

—

I spent lunch time yesterday in Rebel Sport shopping for new gym pants because of this. I hate gym pant shopping. I especially hate shopping in Rebel. It takes forever, there’s never anything in my size, the shop assistants are few and slow to respond, and it’s hideously over-priced - $80 for a pair of performance enhancing running pants with dry technology?!

I’m looking for a pair of shorts to get sweaty in, they don’t have to be made out of gold and sprinkled with fairy dust.

I did not buy the fairy dust running pants. I brought the first pair on sale that would let me do wide squats and lunges without getting in the way and making my butt look saggy.*

Anyway, the point of me telling you that was because I’m curious, where do you buy your gym gear? And do you get yours with all the sides and toppings, or do you go cheap and nasty?

*Yes I did squats and lunges in the changing room in Rebel sport. It was cramped and I looked like a dork because the doors do not go right down to the floor.

Ahhh!!! Sex and the City!

Ok, sorry. Had to get that one out there.

So Leslea and I met at Readings before the show. We gulped down a burger from classy McD’s before making our way upstairs. When we got up there - I’m not even joking - we were greeted by a swarming wave of GIRL. Sure there were a few guys up there, but they were the ones in fetal position, at the sides of the room. Most of them evacuated back downstairs until the craziness was over.

The tickets we had procured were from Kinetic Recruitment, sent out to Louise as a thank you for choosing them earlier this year. We felt a little shady about pretending to be Louise, so we slunk by the first wave of friendly recruitment girls.

We found the second wave of recruitment ladies at the door of the theater. I was sure we were about to be thrown out. Around us the other movie goers were greeting their agents and chatting about their new jobs. Instead of throwing us out on our ear, or asking where the heck Louise was, they took our coveted double pass and handed us two cute little Chinese takeaway type boxes full of sweets. Then they ushered us past the pink and white balloons and into the theater.

In the movie theater we were confronted by the third wave of recruiters. They wanted to know if we would like ice cream, and perhaps a bottle of water, or fizzy drink. We did.

The people from Kinetic were genuinely nice (even though they didn’t know us at all) and the ladies were all so excited to see the film. It was catching I think because by the time we got to our seats I was dying to see the film too.

We had a bit of a wait, for all the last minute ladies, and made a game out of counting the boys. There were no more than 11 in a theater of 200, and boy did they all look pleased as punch to be there.

When the movie finally started it exceeded my expectations. Sure in places it was a little over the top, but I had expected downright awful for some reason. It wasn’t. I laughed my butt off in places, and got a little tear in my eye in others. It was a good movie, and enough to make me want to watch all the seasons again (also because I missed the last season!)

I’m not allowed to say too much - or anything - because Stace, Louise and Karlie will all shoot me, but the movie has a lot of raunch.

Also… you see penis… There I said it… This movie is going to be the new Wild Things.

(If you’ve ever been a teenage girl, in a room full of teenage girls watching Kevin Bacon in that movie you know what I mean.)

Tonight I am going to Sex in the City on behalf of Louise. Her recruitment company sent a free double pass to the preview but unfortunately, because Louise is massively popular, she has to be elsewhere tonight.

She gifted it to Leslea and I - although I have yet to hear back from Leslea as to whether she actually is coming. If she’s not able to get off work in time I’m sure it will be no issue at all finding someone willing to drop everything and come watch a movie with me.

Someone female that is. I hear guys would rather eat their own arms than have to sit in a movie theatre and watch SJP run around New York in a wedding dress. Whatever.

I was having a conversation along those lines with Ben the other day over coffee and he said the most improbable thing… He was moaning about how much of a waste of time the movie was, and how no self respecting male would allow himself to be badgered into going, and then he said:

“Besides, you can tell he totally doesn’t love her anyway.”

Did anyone else know that my boyfriend used to watch Sex and the City? Because I sure didn’t. He defended it by saying that he used to live with girls and was forced to watch it.

I’m not going to call him out on that at all, but I will say that of all the times I’ve been forced to watch something I’m truly not interested in I retain almost no memory of the programme, and certainly not enough to analyse the main characters relationships.

I finished my essay on Friday at 15 minutes to 11. I got up the hill in record time, handed it in, and promptly forgot about my 11am class. I was too busy hearing ‘Eye of the tiger’ while bouncing around on the 5th floor stairs in the Political Science office.

I wandered out of the building and caught the next bus into town. When I sat down all the tension in my back released. It sounded like a baby T-Rex was munching on my spine.

Then I went and did 3 gym classes in a row, had a bath, and drank a bottle of wine with Ben.

So I was looking at my stat’s this morning, and I realised a few things. First, this blog has been active since 16 August 2007.

In that time I have written 234 posts. Roughly 233 of those posts were about a Very Important Subject; namely me. You guys don’t seem to mind that so much though, because I’ve had 1,725 comments, also all about me, or the stuff I’m interested in.

In total this site has had 16,630 views - most of which from people looking for “vomit porn”, “pumpkin boobs”, “leaf porn”, and “smokin hot dive babes”. One of my posts mentioning 3 out of 4 of those things has 524 views alone. I expect this post to top that.

Today is a little different. This post is about the fact that I know it’s all about me, and my activities, and my friends, and my house, and the stuff I whine about. And I also know that can get a teeny tiny little bit repetitive.

So today I’m giving you the opportunity to tell me something about you.

What do you like doing in your spare time? What have you done recently to embarrass yourself in public? What really annoys the crap out of you? Would you like to take this chance to whine about something? anything at all? Would you like to tell me about something you’ve eaten recently? Or all about someone you know?

Well now is the time. Comment away. Spill the beans. Hijack my blog for your own nefarious purposes.

Just don’t you get used to it though, because tomorrow’s a new day, and it’s back to being all about me, me, ME. As it should be.

DIY therapy people, it’s the new thing… In the following interview my therapist (who, coincidentally, is also me) interviews me about an irrational fear that I’ve been trying to get rid of. Yeah I know. It’s all me, me, me around here.

I heard somewhere that you get anxious about going to the Taekwon Do Class that you’ve been a member of for 3 months?

Yup. New things and people scare me silly sometimes. Most times. All of the time.

So when do you think that this class will stop being ‘new’ and scary then?

I’m not sure. Sometimes when I walk in that door I’m pretty sure it’s not going to pass.

My job used to do the same thing - it took 4 months before I could walk into the office without desperately wanting to leave and go pee/ stand in the bathroom and hyperventilate.

So walk me through it.

Well I’m fine all day, right up until I leave work. Then I sit on the bus and even if I’m thinking about other things, the nervousness finds a way to worm it’s way on through. Most of the time I can’t figure out why I’m even nervous. It’s crazy. I don’t even know why I react like this.

I walk across a big field on my way to the hall, and all the way across my stomach churns and my mouth goes dry. I have difficulty breathing past the rock on my chest.

Then I get into the class and take a few minutes to change. Once I’m dressed in my dobok and running around with all the other students I’m usually alright. It’s not scary anymore.

 Do you have anything you do to decrease  your anxiety?

Mostly I keep breathing. And I tell myself that I’m a big grown up baby. I remind myself that I’ve done this twice a week for almost three months, and it hasn’t been as awful as I was sure it was going to be each and every time I want in there.

Also I carry all my stress in my shoulders and back, so I make an effort to stay relaxed there.

I know you said you can never figure out why you’re nervous about something you do so often. If you were to guess, though, what do you think could be some reasons for it?

Possibly I’m worried about having to do stuff in front of people. Embarrassing stuff. Stuff that I’m not going to get right. Maybe I’m scared of looking stupid.

And what do you think of that?

I think it’s a stupid fear. Of course I’m going to have to do stuff in front of people. Of course I’m going to get it wrong - probably more times than I get it right at this point. Also everyone looks stupid at one point or another. I also wish I didn’t care.

Why do you keep attending the class if it makes you feel like this?

Because despite all of that, I really enjoy it. And I do make myself do this stuff in an effort to force me to confront these feelings I think.

Is it working?

I’m pretty sure it is. I’m far less worried about putting myself into new situations these days. And I’m way better at talking to new people.

Also I’ve been thinking more and more about traveling overseas… And the thought of doing it alone scares me a lot less than it did before - although I’d love to do it with someone else if I could.

And finally, how does that make you feel?

Elated. More approachable. Self reliant. And because of all this new stuff I’m learning, I feel far more interesting, and I’ve always wanted to be one of those really interesting people, you know?

Wait… You’re not going to put this up on the Internet are you? Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t sign a waiver for that.

_________

Do you have any irrational/ crazy fears? Go on and spill them for my amusement  because it would make me feel like much less of a crazy person right now.

*My hair smells like coconut and hair dye. It’s a confusing mix.

*I have my International Relations test today at 11am. I’d like to pass it.

*I found out that I have one week less to write my International Relations essay than I thought I did. It made me want to cry.

*Some nice people at TKD insisted on giving me a lift home on Monday night, and they made me feel bad for not asking people for lifts. I really don’t mind catching the bus, and don’t like the idea of asking people for lifts.

*People with cars generally don’t care for taking the bus.

*I want a car. It would make it easier to go places late at night, and get to Uni on weekends, and see Ben, and go home for weekends. We even have free parking at our house. I even have a free arm, and a leg for petrol.

* The more I go to TKD the more I realise I don’t know.

Yes you read that title right, and I’ll get to that later.

This weekend was a good one. I lay in bed for a few hours following Friday night’s attempt to go dancing. I say attempt, because we ended up in the Big Kumera waiting until midnight for the live band that never showed. Then we re-located to KFC.

After I spent a few hours lying around my house, Ben and I spent a few hours laying around his house. Then Later Jordan and Karlie joined us for laying around at Ben’s house, while watching DVD’s.

While it may sound an awful lot like I spent Saturday laying anywhere I could, I actually didn’t. There was that walk Ben and I went on to get him coffee, and me gelato. And I had to sit upright on the bus all three times that I used it to get between Ben’s place and mine.

On Sunday I had to be in Petone at 9am to get my gear ready for diving. I wasn’t. At 9am I was standing in the bus stop at Wellington Train Station watching my phone’s power supply inch closer to death. In short: Wellington doesn’t have an actual public transport system  on Sundays before 9am. Instead, it has one man, and a donkey-drawn cart. It’s not very effective.

I eventually did manage to get to Island Bay, which is where everyone (including Kat!) ended up diving from. It was cold and rainy and I was pretty much freezing my butt right off - until I had to wrestle myself into my wetsuit that is. After that I was warm like a sauna.

The spot we dived from was all rocky and sea-weedy, which was a new experience for me (it’s all new) and if the water was cold, then I didn’t feel it. I saw tons of little fish swimming around in the vegetation, and was pretty much stoked to be there.

The second I win lotto, I’m buying myself all my dive gear and quitting my job to take up my new life as a bum who dives, and hits things a lot. I’ll probably also write crap poetry, because there’s only so much diving and hitting things you can do in a day.

So. Back to my weekend. When I got home in the afternoon, I watched a DVD for work (I know right!? Who does that?) Then I went to the bathroom, and rinsed some conditioner through my hair because it was one big mangy mess from all the sea salt.

I was standing there, in the bathroom, combing my hair and staring into the mirror when I suddenly thought: “I need the ends chopped off this. But there’s no way I can afford a haircut until that loan has been paid off… And that’s still a few months away…” So I used the comb and my fingers to mimic what the hairdresser does to cut my hair, just to see if it was as easy as it looked. And you know what? It was.

And then I went and got my scissors. I’ve always been pretty certain I would be one of those idiots who one day gives into temptation and cuts their own hair. I had managed to avoid falling prey to the lure of the scissors, until yesterday that is.

I chopped a centimeter or two off the ends, and layered the hair around my face a bit.

As I was standing there, looking into the sink full of hair, I thought: “Well, I’ve come this far. I might as well dye it while I’m here, right?”

So I dug around in the bathroom until I found that extra bottle of ‘rich brown’ hair-dye from a few months back, and dyed my own hair. Just like that. It was that easy.

It doesn’t even look that awful. It’s not crazy uneven, or blunt, or anything. I’m even wearing it straight today, so it would have shown VERY clearly if I had taken a giant chunk out of the side. But I didn’t. And if we had the Internet at home I could show you that. But we don’t. So you’ll have to take my word: My hair looks fine. Normal. Almost untouched by the hand of an overeager penny pincher.

The funny thing is that even as I write this I’m fairly certain I can hear my mother screaming in horror from her computer in Foxton.

Lately I’ve been feeling a bit negative. Uni has started up again, leaving me with less free time, and more work to do. Work has stepped up again, and I’m finding very little there to keep me interested  or motivated. My gym still doesn’t have any kickboxing classes I can attend, and as a result of that and stress I’m getting very little sleep.

All of this has had me trapped in a nasty mindset, example - I hate the bus. Uni blows. I hate my job. I should quit. Why bother it’s all just going to go down hill because I’m getting old. I’m so old all my muscles hurt. Old people need more sleep in the mornings. I hate having to get up. I’m only going to spend the rest of my life in admin hell anyway. Why bother finding clean clothes for that? And I’m never going to be allowed a puppy. - all before 8am this morning. (I’m just a beam of gleaming, life-filled sunshine in the mornings…)

So I thought I’d spend some time today reminding myself of things I love:

• Wiggling my fingers under the sand to attract fish.
• Cantering bareback on horses.
• Eating gherkins.
• Smelling freshly popped popcorn.
• Owning a computer (Come back, Marvin!)
• Wearing my dobok.
• Roundhouse kicks.
• Equalising.
• Fixing someone elses computer problem.
• Figuring out how to make my computer do something that I didn’t think it could.
• Making conversation with the old people who call our office phone.
• Hour long baths with yummy smelling products. And a book. Also a small bag of M&M’s and a big glass of chilled water.
• Having people believe the stories I make up.
• Cranberry Juice.
• The sound of my boxing glove slamming into a pad when I do a right hook.
• My boxing wraps.
• Catching up with friends.
• Connecting with new people.
• Knowing I did well.
• The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra.
• Beating the photocopier into submission when no one else can.
• Winning stuff.
• Free stuff in general.
• House, Bones, and Boston Legal.
• Putting up the Xmas tree.
• Wrapping gifts.
• Getting my hair cut or coloured.
• Giggling.
• Dreaming interesting dreams.
• Getting letters and packages.
• Waking up slowly on weekends.
• Waking up early on weekends when Ben’s over.
• Walking dogs.
• Cats purring.
• Taking photos.
• Knowing where my phone is.
• Neatly packing boxes.
• Fresh sheets.
• Laughing with Mum when she tells me gossip.
• Doing Dad stuff with dad when I visit home.
• Running through kickboxing combos in my head instead of counting sheep.
• Finding a new hobby.
• Neck and shoulder rubs.
• Hugs.
• Learning New things.
• Helping someone else learn new things.
• Cold water, after standing for 1/2 an hour in the sun in a wet suit.
• Lukewarm showers.
• Biting into Kit Kat chocolate bars.
• Old jeans.
• Romance Novels.
• Watching other people dance.
• Going to the theater.
• Seeing the circus.