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This review of Game of Thrones pretty much summarizes my love/hate affair with the books and generally describes my opinion on the show, though I don't get the weird comparison chart in the middle.
I went to a Bujinkan seminar yesterday. It was about 4 1/2 hours long so it's no surprise that I've got muscles in all parts of my body aching today. I had really good luck in training partners for once except for one of the guys when we trained in a threesome at the end who was too punchy (seriously, just let me do the technique once without you trying to punch me in the face in the middle of it, ok?) I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my first training partner, S., was Scottish and was a fellow alumni of Edinburgh uni. We had fun trading stories in between practice and he was also good at training so it was a pleasant two hours. My second training partner was from Vermont and was a phd student so we had something in common there as well. I had to do a lot more teaching with him, but it was fine cause Jack would wander by every once and awhile and teach/throw me. J. was watching after one of those times and he goes, "It's so nice to see you getting thrown." I made a face at him and responded, "I'm glad to bring you such joy in your life."
So the theme of the seminar was about making your movements as efficient as possible, staying along the line no matter what (or creating your own), and always keeping being ethical to your opponent in mind. We started off with escaping using the three basic rolls (front, back, side) and I discovered that you keep your balance better if you pull in your center, ie using your ab and hip muscles to make your stomach area centered and solid. Jack's been saying this for ages with the center and other techniques, but this is the first time where I really got the sense that it was working because pulling in my abs made the turn really tight and solid. From there, we switched to using this principle of centering and focusing using different weapons - sword, baseball bat, and rope. A lot of it was actually stuff we'd already done in training this past week but with more time to refine it than we had during the weekly classes so it was nice to focus on. The sword one was really hard since it involved being on the line, bringing your sword down to provide an opening and stepping off the line, then getting back on the line once the person attacked. Sword takes a lifetime to learn and we never do much practice with it so it's not surprise to me that I only get techniques to work one out of two or three times. I'm mostly resigned to this fact, but it's still a little frustrating especially when Jack comes over and makes it look so effortless. Baseball bat and rope were fun though. I like training to force yourself to jump in and take the space around the hand's of the person swinging the bat. It's frightening but practising it now means not freezing in a real fight.
Currently, I'm applying for assistantships at Wisc-Madison, and contemplating which of my two books I should work on. I need to finish the Uric book this summer, which isn't impossible since I'm writing the climax right now so it's more than half way done. My other book is the non-fiction about how bad so many of my holidays around the world have been. I've had two chapters written of it for ages but no time to write. It should be easy to finish writing since it's just an account of my crazy vacations , but every time I think about the bedbugs part I get all creeped out and don't want to talk about it anymore. Will maybe write all the other chapters first. Other than that, I'm now catching up on my reading which was mostly abandoned over the past several months due to the internship and classes. Still have two jobs right now, but I can often do other things in between my duties for both jobs so reading and writing are it. My hospital job finishes at the end of June and the help desk job in July/early August. So because of that, I'm working a lot of hours for the rest of May and all of June.
Is anybody on my friends list going to OtaKon btw? I'm trying to decide if I should go and if I do, if I should just drive up there for one day, or if I should actually arrange lodging (or, you know, if I should just sleep in my car).
I went to a Bujinkan seminar yesterday. It was about 4 1/2 hours long so it's no surprise that I've got muscles in all parts of my body aching today. I had really good luck in training partners for once except for one of the guys when we trained in a threesome at the end who was too punchy (seriously, just let me do the technique once without you trying to punch me in the face in the middle of it, ok?) I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my first training partner, S., was Scottish and was a fellow alumni of Edinburgh uni. We had fun trading stories in between practice and he was also good at training so it was a pleasant two hours. My second training partner was from Vermont and was a phd student so we had something in common there as well. I had to do a lot more teaching with him, but it was fine cause Jack would wander by every once and awhile and teach/throw me. J. was watching after one of those times and he goes, "It's so nice to see you getting thrown." I made a face at him and responded, "I'm glad to bring you such joy in your life."
So the theme of the seminar was about making your movements as efficient as possible, staying along the line no matter what (or creating your own), and always keeping being ethical to your opponent in mind. We started off with escaping using the three basic rolls (front, back, side) and I discovered that you keep your balance better if you pull in your center, ie using your ab and hip muscles to make your stomach area centered and solid. Jack's been saying this for ages with the center and other techniques, but this is the first time where I really got the sense that it was working because pulling in my abs made the turn really tight and solid. From there, we switched to using this principle of centering and focusing using different weapons - sword, baseball bat, and rope. A lot of it was actually stuff we'd already done in training this past week but with more time to refine it than we had during the weekly classes so it was nice to focus on. The sword one was really hard since it involved being on the line, bringing your sword down to provide an opening and stepping off the line, then getting back on the line once the person attacked. Sword takes a lifetime to learn and we never do much practice with it so it's not surprise to me that I only get techniques to work one out of two or three times. I'm mostly resigned to this fact, but it's still a little frustrating especially when Jack comes over and makes it look so effortless. Baseball bat and rope were fun though. I like training to force yourself to jump in and take the space around the hand's of the person swinging the bat. It's frightening but practising it now means not freezing in a real fight.
Currently, I'm applying for assistantships at Wisc-Madison, and contemplating which of my two books I should work on. I need to finish the Uric book this summer, which isn't impossible since I'm writing the climax right now so it's more than half way done. My other book is the non-fiction about how bad so many of my holidays around the world have been. I've had two chapters written of it for ages but no time to write. It should be easy to finish writing since it's just an account of my crazy vacations , but every time I think about the bedbugs part I get all creeped out and don't want to talk about it anymore. Will maybe write all the other chapters first. Other than that, I'm now catching up on my reading which was mostly abandoned over the past several months due to the internship and classes. Still have two jobs right now, but I can often do other things in between my duties for both jobs so reading and writing are it. My hospital job finishes at the end of June and the help desk job in July/early August. So because of that, I'm working a lot of hours for the rest of May and all of June.
Is anybody on my friends list going to OtaKon btw? I'm trying to decide if I should go and if I do, if I should just drive up there for one day, or if I should actually arrange lodging (or, you know, if I should just sleep in my car).
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Ironically, the closest I've been is that it was going on the day the 7th Potter book was released, and I drove up to Baltimore for my tour of the Poe graveyard that same day. I saw cosplayers all. over. town.
I think it'd be fun, but it's probably way outside my budget. But I'm here!
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How far are you form Baltimore?
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