Leaf, probably…

I haven’t done a post in list form for a very long time. At least a week anyway. So I thought I’d do one today: 

• I might be going for drinks tonight with Karlie and Leslea. Or I might be going to the gym to work out all alone. Considering how much I enjoy working out on my own (I don’t) I’m leaning a lot towards the drinks.

• This morning, while on the bus, I saw a man stumble out of Mermaids (Wellingtons premier men’s entertainment club.) He grinned blearily at my bus and waved before stumbling down Courtney place. He looked very pleased with himself.

• The other day I had to buy a text book for my POLS course. I hate it when the lecturers prescribe books that they, or the course administrator, have written. And I hate it even more when the text is so very obviously overpriced. $50 for a badly written dry-as-toast book.

• Because I was angry about the book and the spending of hard earned money I went on TradeMe and bid on the equivalent amount of trashy romance novels, and winter clothing. I am a very bad influence on myself.

• Taekwon-Do camp is coming up on the 15th-17th (I think) of August. It’s near Lower Hutt somewhere, and Dad, if you’re reading this, family is allowed to come watch the grading, which I’m fairly sure is on Saturday (16th) morning.

• Last night at TKD they made that same joke about the 6am run and swim in a freezing cold river. I think they might actually be serious.

• I hate running.

• It’s winter here in New Zealand. Winter is cold. 6am in the morning is cold. Rivers are very cold.

• I hate being cold.

• Seriously, I don’t like the cold. I have an electric blanket, two duvets, two blankets, a throw rug, a hot water bottle and many many pairs of flannelette PJ’s. Last night I used them all. Except the electric blanket - I’m scared it’s too old to be safe anymore, and I’ll wake up on fire.

• In that same week of the TKD camp I have a briefing paper (worth15%), a class test (worth25%) and a 2000 word essay (worth 25%) due. I’m thinking I’d better start writing now.

• Also: I’d better start practicing and learning my theory for TKD because my mini-grading is in roughly two weeks. (there will be no grading without first passing the mini-grading.)

• Whoops. I agreed to go out for a drink with the girls before considering the fact that I am so not dressed for it. I am wearing trainers, jeans, a woolly casual Friday jumper, and a very baggy thermal top that I stole off my Mum last weekend. Crap. I need to go shopping.

• I also need to go food shopping. I am down to a packet of pasta, three different types of rice, a jar of pesto, and a jar of garlic aioli. I’ve had pesto and pasta for three nights in a row. It would have been four, but thankfully Louise took pity on me last night and gave me some of her chicken and vegetable pie.

• Who says I’m not domesticated huh? THREE types of rice. Domestic goddesses probably only ever have two at a time. And one of my bags is wholegrain brown rice. That’s very healthy.

• Usually I have brown wholegrain pasta too. Last time I couldn’t find any on the supermarket shelf, so I gave up. Also: It takes five times as long as normal pasta and rice to cook because it’s so much denser. Sometimes I’m just not that patient.

• Ok. I’m never that patient. I eat crunchy pasta and rice 99.9% of the time.

Hm. So that was less of a list and more of a stream of consciousness in list form.

Anyway: Homework.

I’ve just started back at uni, and there seems to be an excess of it. You know me though: I like to share the fun around, so today you have homework: I’d like you to list three things you’ll be doing today. If you don’t have three things, make some up. 

Shannon needs some procrastination material…

Yesterday at Taekwon Do I had to do push ups on my knuckles for the first time ever. On a hard wood floor. Today - I shit you not - my knuckles are black and blue. OUCH. 

Luckily bruises on my hands don’t usually linger too long - as opposed to the ones on my legs that hang around for weeks. 

My marks for last semester came back: I got a B for International Relations, and a B+ for my European politics paper. Monday was my first day back at uni, and I think the papers I’m doing this time are alright. 

They seem a little easier than what I’ve done before - they’ll be covering a lot of old ground, but I choose to look at that as a good thing. I think my average is sitting at about a high B, I’d like to get it up to a B+ at least this semester. 

Finally: This morning I read something on the Internet about bacon. This afternoon my brain went: Bacon. Bacon. I need to do some filing. Bacon. I should probably do a quick milk run. Bacon. Bacon. Phone call. Bacon. Baaaaaccccooooon!

I have bacon on the brain.

Today I spent lunch down on the waterfront with Kat, Becks, Jeri and Maike.

Usually when we all get together it’s fun and we laugh a lot, and bitch about boys and relationships, and talk about punching things. Our meetings make me feel powerful, capable, and happy. 

When it’s time to go I leave with a sense of direction and a cool ball of calm lodged just under my rib cage. Not many people give me calm. I value the ones that do highly.

We were all there on the waterfront today for Kat - one of the very few people that I actually hero worship.

Over three years ago now she introduced me to kickboxing and changed pretty much my entire outlook on life. To everyone else she’s the person who taught me how to throw a nice punch, to me she’s the person who taught me that I can be badass.

Kat can make me do things I never would have thought about trying without her influence. Like the time I did two boxing classes in a row for her. Or the time she convinced me to try scuba diving.

She’s the first person I think of when I need courage, or no nonsense ‘get your butt into gear’ advice. And I have a feeling I’m going to be needing that sort of advice quite a bit in the next few months.

All in all she’s one of my favorite people, and even though she’s younger than me I look up to her like the totally badass big sister I’ve come to see her as.

Today’s get together on the waterfront wasn’t about boys or laughing about crap, or punching things.

It was because Kat is going to Rarotonga for a long time. She’s planning on doing her diving instructors exams while working in one of the dive shops over there. We were all there to say goodbye to Kat, and to try and keep our collective raging jealousy under control.

When I left I didn’t have a sense of purpose, and I sure as fuck didn’t have a nice cool ball of calm under my ribs. Instead I have a messy ball of weepy sad GIRL.

I haven’t lost it and actually cried yet, but it’s probably not far away. In fact at 1.15pm tomorrow I’m going to be standing with my hands pressed to my office window watching Wellington airport and blubbering like a big baby.

It’s hard to be badass when you’re sad.

Kat: Have an awesome time, but not too awesome, because we all want you back.

So. I have an exercise for you. Yes YOU. Get off your chair.

Now stand with your right side towards your computer chair. 

Lift your right leg up and out to the side so that your foot is resting on the seat or the back of your computer chair. You should look like you’ve just been interrupted doing a side kick.

You look a little silly, so you may wish to go ahead and shout KAPOW ! or Put your game face on - you’re about to get played suckahs!

Now, here comes the fun bit. The foot that is resting on the ground - you know, the one keeping you upright?   Jumpit off the ground, tuck it up quickly and tap your inner thigh. You should land back in the same side kick position you were in before the jump.

At no point should your right leg come off your computer chair.

Do a couple each leg. (Seriously, do it please, I’LL WAIT.)

Now, tell me, how many of you managed to get your foot off the ground? How many of you actually managed to touch your inner thigh with that foot? How many of you sustained major head injuries caused by losing your balance?

I got my foot off the ground, but only 5 cm off the ground. And boy did I feel like a dork doing it. Especially in a room full of TKD spring people. (And we didn’t use chairs, we partnered up and our partners made a platform with their hands at hip height)

We also played leapfrog in teams of four. I was fine jumping over the little 7 year olds, but when it came to the fully grown man I wasn’t so sure. I took a bit of a run up, then stopped. Then I thought about it for a bit, calculating angles and height. And then told him quite frankly that it wasn’t going to happen.

He’s a tall dude, and even with him all hunched over I could just see myself not getting high enough and then landing on his back and breaking him.

I don’t want to be responsible for breaking the instructor. Every week at TKD I’d have to put up with the new people pointing at me and saying ‘You know that girl? She once broke the instructor, seriously. She jumped on his back and rode him like a pony - or at least that’s what I heard.’

This weekend I plan to practice jumping. I suck at jumping games, and jumping kicks, and jumping changes.

I think it is ridiculous that I got to be 22 without learning how to jump properly. There are 15 year olds in my class who can jump their own height, straight upwards from a standing start - for that matter there are 30 year olds who can do the same. I can get to about knee height.

I’m clinging to the top of a climbing wall at Fergs on the waterfront. My arms seem to have locked into place - which is a good thing, because I’m tired, and from my last estimate I’m roughly 10,000 meters from the ground.

“Lean back!” Louise is yelling. She’s been saying that for some time now.

She’s easy to ignore all the way up here.

I don’t want to let go of the wall. Perhaps I could climb back down, like spiderman in reverse? I go down half a step, and Louise yells at me again.

Finally I manage to relax my hands and sit back onto the harness. Not too far back, mind, but I’m not clinging to the wall anymore. I’m clinging to the rope.

Louise lowers me and my stomach takes a little longer than everything else to hit the ground.

“That was scary.” I say shaking out my hands.

Louise looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re on a rope. I’m not going to drop you.”

“Yeah But I’m scared of heights, and it’s scary leaning back.”

Louise clearly doesn’t get it.

For her the fun bit is whizzing back down to the ground. For me it’s looping the knot before I climb, and the climb itself. My climbs are always slow. I like to think about where my hands and feet are going, and I like to be sure that I’m not going to slip and plunge to the AstroTurf below my feet.

Louise hooks herself onto the ropes, and almost before I’m ready she flings herself up the wall that I just climbed. She gets up it in less time than I did, and casually lets go of the wall, leaning back into her harness with no issues.

I shake my head in wonder. I want to ask ‘What if you fall Louise!?”. I don’t yell out though - I know it will be counterproductive to getting her back onto the ground. Also it would be a really shitty thing for a belayer to say to a friend.

My turn again, and I jump up onto the wall. Two meters up the fear settles itself over my shoulders like a blanket. I shrug it off casually, and stretch to reach my next hold.

As long as I’m going up I’ll be fine.

I lay on my back with my hands under my butt and my heels one inch off the floor, wondering why the hell I am here doing this.

Lifting my heels to 45° hurts. Opening them as wide as I can hurts. Holding that position hurts. Dropping back down to one inch and closing my legs doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t exactly tickle either. Going back up to 45° is an excercise in pain.

I briefly drop my legs before imagining Kat scowling at me, I lift my legs back up to the proper position and scowl back. Kat isn’t even here and she’s being a bully. I’m going to miss her when she goes overseas.

Back down to one inch. I try tilting my hips upwards, but that doesn’t help either. My lower stomach and thighs are killing me.

The things I do for Taekwon-Do I marvel. It’s not like I particularly enjoy this sort of crap, right? I’m not a pain person. If I had a choice between the crazy abs workout from martial arts hell and drinking a mojito on a beach I’d choose the mojito and the beach every time right?

45°. Open. One inch. Close. Back up to 45°.

Actually I’m not even sure I like mojito’s. Sometimes they’re alright but other times they’re just too soda waterish. And I don’t like soda water.

I do like beaches though. I should really call Claire about doing that cleanup dive, it sounds like fun. Or as much fun as picking up rubbish from the ocean can really be. So, you know, lots of fun.

45°. Open. One inch. Close. 45°.

We roll over and stretch our stomachs out. Mine feels a bit like cold taffy - about to shatter into little pieces. I don’t pull too hard on it.

Then we break off into groups to practice our grading skills. I’m with two other 9th gup white belt-yellow stripes, guys that I’ve never actually worked with before. I feel about a million years older than them, and tired.

I don’t make much conversation, because I’ve never know how to interact with highschool aged boys. I can’t tell a good fart joke to save my life. High school boys are a group that I still don’t understand even now that I’m in my 20’s.

We go through our pattern, Chon-Ji Tul. I struggle to get the stance changes right in the second half, and briefly consider throwing my toys. I don’t. Instead I make myself stop after every turn and double check my feet. It’s slow going. I wish there were mirrors here.

We run through our four directional punch and four directional block fundamentals from last grading. I’m a little annoyed at how much I’ve let them both slip.

Then we run through sparing: Forearm guarding block, three offensive paces forward, step back into attention stance. Three defensive paces back, counter attack.

We’re supposed to yell out before we begin our defensive and before we begin our offensive. I do, but it sounds like a dying frog in a hall full of snakes. I don’t like yelling out. I don’t want people to hear me.

I’m tired, and my eyes hurt, and we’re done. My stomach muscles breath a sign of relief, and I touch my toes to try and loosen up my back.

If I enjoyed this my back wouldn’t be tense and sore.

I sort out the ‘good’ pain from the ‘bad’ pain and stretch the bits that can’t wait until I get home. Nobody enjoys this sort of thing, not really.

Leaving the hall I know I’ve got a silly smile on my face. I’m tired and I’m sore and I’m only smiling because I’m done. There’s no other reason to smile. Who the hell actually enjoys that sort of punishment?

I go home and fall asleep in the bath. I dream about doing the perfect pattern, and nailing the stance changes from gunnun sogi into niunja sogi.

The bath goes cold, and I know that I still have that stupid smile on my face.

__

I’m rock climbing tonight with Louise and maybe Karlie, anyone else interested? Send me a text before 5pm. Seriously. I’m actually going to do it this time.

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.

Wintertime really does showcase Wellington flats at their best. Over what seems like the last two weeks our idyllic Miramar flat has turned into a damp chilly fridge box.

In summer, or during the day - when nobody is home - the sun shines into our lounge and kitchen warming them up through our very big windows and ranch slider. At night the heat escapes though those same windows and we huddle under blankets.

As winter mornings are pretty much unbearable to shower in, we’re been leaving the window in our bathroom shut, and sometimes forgetting to open it again once we’re done. As there is no other form of ventilation, and our bathroom has a heat light, our pristine white walls have bloomed with black mould over the space of a week.

I sprayed exit mould onto the walls this morning, and I’m hoping that’s all that’s required to keep it at bay.

Our washroom will also soon become victim to the mould, as whomever designed it chose not to put in any sort of reliable ventilation and one window that does not open. It does have a door to the back to the house, but you have to be home all day, or very stupid to leave that wide open while the washing machine and drier are going.

And another thing, do you remember when I mentioned my bedroom and it’s linoleum floors? Yes? Good, because those suckers are COLD in the morning. They’re cold in the morning, and the afternoon, and they’re even cold in the evening.

Actually my room doesn’t hold heat at all. Despite only having one very small window. It’s damp, and I’m tempted to keep the dehumidifier in there all day every day. Unfortunately the dehumidifier is upstairs being used to solve the drier/ mouldy bathroom/ condensation-y lounge and kitchen issue.

Does anyone actually have a nice ventilated, dry, well insulated house in Wellington?!

Do they even exist?

In other news I have my POLS exam today. I’m freaking out a wee bit over here, so I think I’m going to sneak out of work early to go over my notes. It’s not like my boss is here anyway…

Yesterday I went shopping and brought a Jersey dress to be worn over pants, and a flowey empire type top. I um-med and ah-hed over them for ages, because although I need something to wear to Leslie’s, and for Mums partners 50th, and for Cats on Saturday I wasn’t quite sure whether they drew all sorts of nasty attention to my tummy. I’m blaming winter fat stores if they make me look bloated and preggers (I’m NOT by the way that’s just where I happen to store all my fat.)

That and the strange skinny mirrors in Farmers. They’re honestly like something from a fun house. One minute you’re wondering if you’ve gained weight from all the shitty exam eating, and the next minute you’re standing in front of the skinny mirrors marvelling at your reality defying tummy and butt.

Perhaps I should break out the nasty black corset I brought on our flat’s last outing to Bras ’N’ Things (nasty in a very good way of course)… How do you guys hide the inevitable winter bulk up?

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.