Friday, December 30, 2005

Pain...

Hm...Judging by the extreme pain during that roll, I think it's safe to say that my left shoulder is broken... - Me, muttering under my breath during Aikido Lesson

I'm absolutely aching today...My right leg, neck and left shoulder are throbbing like hell...

Aikido yesterday was much more fun than I had expected. Shifting from the childrens' to Adults' class had me really worried as I still wasn't good with the basics. However, my nervousness ( shared by Jo-ann) was alleviated when she, two new students and I were split off into a small group together.

We went through the basics again, meant for the benefit of the two new students, but I know I learnt a lot from it.

Firstly, we had to practise the kneeling forward roll. Trust me, it might look easy, but it's not simple. Michelle ( the teacher of our group) pointed out various flaws in my rolling. I kept (and still do) forget to tuck my head in while rolling, resulting on an awkward flip. After about 5 minutes of practise, we moved on to the standing forward roll.

That's where the pain started.

The principles of the standing forward roll were the same as the kneeling forward roll. However, I was rather nervous and right as I was about to roll, I hesistated, breaking my momentum and sending me into a flip-sprawl thing. Getting up, I noticed a pain in my left shoulder but ignored it. After a few more times, I got slightly better but the pain was growing. Ouchies...

We practised the falling exercise several times before moving on to the backward roll. Lots of problems initially. Forgetting to tuck head in, not rolling in a criss-cross fashion, crashing into people >.<''' Unlike the Kneeling Foward Roll though, I could soon do the backward roll rather successfully although I still have problems maintaining a smooth roll. Usually, I roll, stay on my shoulders for about 1 second before finishing the roll....

Next, the stance catches. First off, the Ai Hanmi (Mutual Stance) and Gyaku Hanmi ( Opposing stance) catches. All 4 of us had no problem with it except for 1 time when I told Jo-ann to extend her hand so that I wouldn't have to take such a big step forward. I suppose Michelle thought that I was asking Jo-ann to grab my wrist...

After the catches, we moved on to the Shomenuchi ( Head strike ) and Yokomenuchi ( Neck/Side of head strike). On the first Shomenuchi, my hand moved too fast and bopped Jo-ann lightly on the head before I stopped it completely. A murderous glare from her followed. Grinning, I finished up the exercise. On her turn, I expected her to "accidentally" strike me, but she didn't during both the Shomenuchi and Yokomenuchi. During my turn to perform the Yokomenuchi, she flinched everytime I executed the chop...>.<'''

Taking a break, we sat in the Saiza position and were taught the 6 basic locks - Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, Gokyo and the Kotegaeshi. I still can't remember which is which...

Finally, we practised one of basic throws, the Ai Hanmi: Ikkyo Omote Waza. Long name for a basic technique huh? Partnering up with Jo-ann, we stood in the Ai Hanmi stance.

Jo-ann and I could both perform the technique smoothly. Hand lock, arm swing and force your partner down to one knee, then step forward and send him/her sprawling before applying a lock.

After some cooling-down exercises, we thanked the senseis, teachers and fellow practitioners before going home...

By far, that was the most fun and painful Aikido class I've ever had...

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Christmas

Hmm, strangely, I don't feel full. Oh no wait, that's because I don't have my braces squeezing the sh*t out of me - Jo-ann

Gosh, this is SUCH a bad Christmas for me...

Keeping it short, I'm feeling so lonely...Christmas is an occasion where you mix around with people right? Where you're suppose to be happy isn't it?

Well, I'm lonely...and sad..

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Why do I even put titles?

You want a present from the heart? Ok choose: Blood or muscle tissue." - Me

Alrighties, it's 9.54 in the morning according to my watch and I'm pretty sure it's not the best time to blog. I should be doing my homework, I should be finishing up my Chinese storybook, I should be doing my assessment, but homework intrigues me. I can stare at it for hours and hours.

Tuition teacher is coming in about an hour and a half, gotta start reading at 11.

I'm just lying here on my bed, the room is dark, the curtains are closed and my bro just went out of the room. There's some stupid maintenance work thing going outside my house, can hear the irritatingly loud drill noises.

Sigh...I was reflecting last night, and I realized that I actually keep a constant personality, it's just that I make such different kinds of comments, that people are confused to who I really am. So far, only 1 person, Max, has seen me for who I am. He told me that I use humour and/or cynicism to keep people from getting too close.

Do I really? I used to think that humour and cynicism were part of me, as in...Oh screw that bloody drill, I can't think properly. Good, it stopped. I never realized that I could be using humour and cynicism to keep people from discovering -me-, I just thought that I am cynical and humour just came along with it...

Ah well, in any case, I think I've found -me-. I have a constant personality, that is, one which is subject to changes. So my personality is consistent in being different.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Chronicles Of Naria

"Your daughter? Wah, so pretty" -Shop assistant to Jo-ann's mum
"...Shut up, I know you're laughing" Jo-ann to me

Alrighty, if anyone has been paying attention to the title of my blog ( which I doubt ), you'd have seen that I've changed it to "Chronicles of Linus". You can probably tell that I watched Chronicles Of Naria.

It's an inspiring, yet somehow cliche movie. I dunno how all you others feel, but CoN just seems a tad cliched. Oh sure, it had its good points, namely the wonderful CG animation, the good acting and the fact that it had its share of humor.

But, I'd just like one, just one, movie where good doesn't win in the end. I mean, it's not that hard to come up with a solid storyline where the baddies win. What do good guys have that bad guys don't? Good guys have morales, bad guys don't, which is in favour of the bad guys because they have no qualms about doing anything. But, but the storyline always introduces a fatal flaw in the personality of the baddie which ultimately leads to his/her downfall. In the White Queen's case, it was being a total overbearing pissy bitch.

Also, there was one big problem while watching the movie. There was this, I think 6 or 7 year-old...thing that kept commenting and whispering throughout the movie. He would be like "Wah...Lion!' and all that sort of crap. His mother was there with him and she made so little effort to restrain him. He even stuck his head through the gap between mine and Jo's seat. I was really tempted to slam my elbow into his face " by mistake" but...I'm trying to be nicer. Jo-ann was postively furious; after the movie, she gave the little asshole a long, scary glare.

Oh yeah, went shopping too after the movie. I dragged Jo-ann around, shopping for my parents' Christmas presents. I had to borrow $10 from Jo's mum AND auntie melda, which meant I had $34. Mum's necklace cost $15, Dad's book cost $14.20. $34 - $29.20 = $4.80. I had $2 left in my wallet...So, where did $2.20 go?

Ahhh....The mysteries of life...

By blogging so often, I'm obviously bored...Talk to me people!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Flare

"For your information, this is how deep people dress" - Quinn
"Yes, deeply affected people " - Daria

Warning: This post is not really interesting and is mostly a review on how I spent my day with reflections.

Mm mm mm, just ate a sumptuous dinner - Sesame Oil Chicken, rice and Miso Soup, courtesy of Auntie Melda. I'm full and pretty much contented and having nothing to do ( besides moutains and moutains of holiday homework...but petty, small issues...), I've decided to blog.

Well, finally changed my blogskin. Blogskin.com has a pretty damn good selection of blogskins. Didn't take me long to find one; I already knew what I wanted. Searched for "Fire Skull" and after previewing only the "5 Stars", I chose mine.

Then it was template editing time. First off, I opened Photoshop CS 2 and decided on what I wanted to change. Then I had to painstakingly choose the colours, type in the codes and pray I didn't completely screw up my HTML codes. Inevitably, I did so once but, it happened after I copied and pasted the code onto Wordpad so I had it saved.

I still can't find the links for the navigation. I don't like the "Entries, Friends etc etc" thing but until I find the links, I can't do anything. Well, I could just create my own blogskin but frankly, I don't really have the time or the knowledge of html codes to do that. Also, I had put up a "Hit Counter" but after seeing it

After that, I got bored.

After many futile attempts in trying to figure out which plug went where on my TV, I gave up on the Xbox and decided to just eat dinner. After which I came up and blogged

And until I find something else interesting to post about, I probably won't blog. Unless of course, I get feedback that my mundane life has helped/traumatized someone.

Lino squeezed Panda at 7:12 PM