Gotta Get a Gible

...And now I have one.

Looks like this is probably gonna be my last blog. Looking back, I don't believe I really said anything important or meaningful in the last 12 or 13 posts, but I guess that's okay. I don't think the point of this was to change the world or come to some huge revelation about who I am as a person; it was probably just to get the ball rolling and get classmates interacting. I think it did that for the most part. Not for me, but I always was way too much of an introvert to be affected much by such things. I've come to the conclusion that I need to have taken a class with someone else at least once before I start opening up to them. Probably goes back to childhood fear of abandonment, I don't know. Nor do I care to figure it out in the next 300 or so words.

What else is there to say? Still pretty much the same nerd I was when I started the blog, so no real progress there. I've caught 50 or 60 new Pokemon since then, but that probably only adds to the nerd factor. Quick aside on that - there is an eagle Pokemon named Braviary. I think that is like the most incredible and creative name ever, I'm serious. I'm like in awe of it. It's like Brave + Aviary, combined in such an incredibly genius way that I can't believe it wasn't done sooner. I have one, I love it. In all honesty, it's not the best Pokemon to have on your team, but come on. Braviary. BRAVIARY! Amazing. This one is going in the next academic paper on Pokemon that I write, just watch.

Anyways, I'm surviving six classes and even doing better than I thought I was going to a couple of weeks ago, which is nice. It's nice to not feel like a total failure all the time. My ribs still hurt, kind of shocked about that. I think my asthma is getting worse, not too happy with that either. Other than that, nothing really new has happened.

So what have I learned so far this semester?

**If you're the quiet kid in a hypothetical prison situation, taking on the persona of a serial killer seems to be a red flag of some sort. I thought I was being original by not being a gang member or drug dealer.
**If you are going to take on a different persona for class or acting, anything stupid, twisted, or gross you do is all a part of the character.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
**If I'm never gonna see or interact with most of these people ever again after this semester, why care what they think? It won't stop me from being awkward, but it's food for thought. Last time I thought like this I ended up with a trophy.
**It is much harder to guide than it is to lead, but people don't learn if you do everything for them.
**I am seriously never going to be a teacher.
**Group projects are only fun if your group is competent.
**Sometimes new situations aren't as terrifying as one might think.
**Taking two very similar classes back to back on one night is a recipe for disaster.
**I seriously hate participation grades.
**Renting textbooks > buying them
**People come and go. I just seem to consistently get people who are going rather than staying.
**It is so hard to not care what other people think, especially when you make yourself vulnerable. Vulnerability sucks and will never be intentionally allowed by me again. Live and learn.
**After 10+ years, you have still gotta catch 'em all.

I don't know who is going to read this or who has been reading all semester, but yeah. This is it. See ya later.

Hi, I'm A.J. I'm here to defeat you.

Cool title, right? I promise it has a purpose.

I mentioned in my last blog that I went to a karate tournament the day after Spring Break started and got second place in sparring, or kumite. I won my first two matches, surprisingly. Literally. I was shocked. In my last match I went up against a guy who I am about a foot taller than and about ten-fifteen years older than me. This guy is one who is at everyone of these tournaments, and he has a history of winning every division we are both in, or at least coming in second to the not-me person who ends up winning. I think we were about 3-3 as far as points were concerned when he landed a thrust kick right to my ribs. I don't know what I was doing as far as blocking was concerned, but he nailed this kick. A direct hit with one of the most powerful techniques around. Needless to say, he got that point and I recoiled pretty badly. For the record, we wear pads on our hands and feet and head, but nothing for the ribs is required. Additionally, the kick was with the bottom of the foot, mainly the heel, which is uncovered by the pad. Since the first to five points wins, we had to have another round, one which I tried to fight back in but ultimately failed. I tried my best not to show the damage to my ribs, but I really couldn't breathe at that point. Now, over a week later, my ribs are still killing me. I run for a little bit and I'm aware of the stabbing pain there and the three sit ups I tried to do also ended in similar pain. So, I'm still on the mend, but it could have been worse. If he could have reached my nose he probably would have broke that as well.

I guess the point of this post is that I'm refocused now. I forget how fun tournaments are until the moment after it's over; I'm usually pretty buzzed for a while afterward. All the dread and worry before hand is usually gone by the middle of the actual competition, leaving me with the desire to get out there and fight. I'm planning on kicking my training up for the next tournament in April. Honestly, I hadn't kumited since last October, and even then that was the only time I did it in the last two years. I was incredibly out of practice, yet I still managed to make the finals. I've learned not to be cocky, though, so I'm gonna work harder. It's not really even about winning the actual tournament; it's more about beating this guy. That's probably gonna rack up some bad karma for me, but it's the truth. A week and a half of rib pain needs to be avenged with a shiny, cheap plastic trophy at least one place higher than his. Haha. But seriously, it's more about getting better. I know what I need to work on because I had my butt handed to me, and that's all you can ask for in a loss.

I would love to be a state champion, though. My ego would love the recognition. It's also kind of like an affirmation that I've got better during the time that I've been taking karate. I guess I don't really need it; karate has already given me a lot. I've met a ton of awesome people that I would have never known, I've got some semblance of self confidence, and I have lost a ton of weight. I never would have thought I would be competing like this as regularly as I do, so that's a major boost for me. I'm more willing to try potentially awkward situations now because of my experience in karate. So, I guess the state title would just be icing on the cake.

It Was Worth the Wait

So, yesterday, March 6, was the United States debut of Pokemon Black and White. I had originally planned to buy both versions, then I planned to only buy one, then I wasn't going to get either until I got paid on Wednesday. Somehow I ended up having the money yesterday, so I went ahead and tried to find a copy on release day. My first stop was Wal-Mart on Sunday morning; it's usually quick, one stop shopping and I wanted to get some game time in. Wal-Mart, though, wasn't as interested in the release of the game as I was. Despite having huge posters/displays advertising its debut on March 6, the video game attendant notified me that they probably wouldn't have the game available until Monday, as they hadn't unloaded it or whatever. I wasn't happy.
Across the street, though, was K-Mart, but I wasn't really expecting to find it there. Our K-Mart usually has about the fifth of the selection that Wal-Mart does, and this was one of those occasions that I figured that selection would have mattered most. I still went, though; I wanted that game. Turns out they had it. A lot of it. Like ten or fifteen copies of each game as well as limited edition Nintendo DS systems to go along with the release. I ended up getting Pokemon White as soon as I found it and as I went to pay for it, I noticed that K-Mart was running a special on both games: buy one, get the other fifty percent off. Needless to say, I got both. This was both random and awesome.

So, I've been logging some hours on Pokemon. Pretty good start to Spring Break, I've been able to juggle playing Pokemon, karate, and trying to chip away at my pile of homework. I probably won't accomplish much other than that this week, but whatever. This week will end too fast, but I guess that's okay too. I kind of need this semester to be over with ASAP, the burden of knowing that I'm going to have all of these finals and projects due at once is something that I have never been able to get used to. I could normally handle knowing I have a bunch of papers due at once, but this time around I have to do public project/volunteer work for two different classes. Volunteer work is fantastic, but having to do it in a group in addition to everything else is kind of overwhelming. It'll be over in like eight weeks anyways, so there's not much to really complain about. I still will, though.
Oh, and I guess it's worth mentioning that I went to a karate tournament last Saturday. It was the first one of the year, which is usually a pretty good indicator of what I have got to work on for the rest of the year. It was also a pretty good chance to see how I measure up against people with similar ranking from other schools. It wasn't too bad; my performances in kata and weapons weren't as good as they could have been, but somehow I ended up doing really well in both regular sparring and sword fighting, getting second in both. We really never do either at our school very consistently, so it was pretty much just my long arms and legs combining with what experience I do have. In any event, I have a nice trophy and medal from that day. Just another thing to keep working on.

Sunday Night Randomness / Week in Review

I'm kind of at a loss for things to say. Last week worked out pretty well as far as content and a pick me up went, but I don't really want this experience to be me recounting events of my life every week. I don't know, something about that just seems like I'm unnecessarily volunteering things about me for the entire Internet to see. So, placing paranoia aside, I'll probably return to that next week. This week, though, I'm going to try and recount the events of last week. A week in review, I guess, primarily because as I sit here, I'm having trouble remembering what I did last week. I'm too young to have such a crappy short term memory.

Let's see.. Last Saturday, or yesterday, I taught the kids' karate class as usual. Pretty good turn out, the usuals were there plus a few extra. This was especially good considering promotions are coming up and it's like now or never to start getting them ready for their next rank. After class ended, though, it occurred to me that I probably won't be there next week to teach class/prepare them for promotions on the following Wednesday as I am planning on going to a tournament that Saturday morning. However, as I sit here, I was thinking I would also miss the promotion ceremony because of school, but I just remembered that next week is Spring Break. So, I guess I'll be there after all.

Speaking of next week, Pokemon Black and White finally come out. Really excited for that and kind of shocked that it fell perfectly on Spring Break. Of course, I'm expecting to be crazy busy next week now. Call it the cynic in me, but I know one of my classes is going to pile on the workload for the break. Either that or I'll try and work ahead on the stuff that I know ahead of time so I won't get buried towards the end of the semester. Anyways....

Last Friday we had that crappy snow weather. I ended up missing the first two classes of the day, which in itself isn't a big deal with email, but this is the second time this semester I have had to use my absences in these classes for weather related purposes. Again, cynical, but I'm expecting to fall incredibly ill at some point and have to miss class, yet be unable to due to my lack of free absences. Just one of those crazy things. Oh, and I think I broke my nose last Friday, too, or at least did some kind of damage to it. I spent like half an hour that night trying to push it back into place; apparently it was really crooked. Long story.

I don't really remember anything else last week. I know there were four other days of classes, three days of work, two days of karate, but I'm blanking on what I did. I guess a week in review is actually two days in review, if that. I may have to start keeping a journal...

Something Different

I don't actually know if this is something different. Whenever I sit down to do this I either want to write about something that pisses me off or try to mask whatever I'm feeling with the fake enthusiasm of Pokemon, which, by the way, comes out in about 2 weeks. I don't really feel like I have the right to complain about stuff that goes on with me or the problems I feel like I have, because I generally am pretty lucky and things could be a lot worse. So, I'm going to close my eyes and write about the first thing that pops into my head, knowing that I only need about 150 words to complete this week. 

When I was in fourth grade we had a field trip to the zoo. It was kind of a big deal; it was a whole day off of school and there really were no expectations for what we should do while there. No lectures, no required visits to an information seminar thing that seems to be at the zoo, nothing. The only real restriction was that we couldnt use any of the rides, I guess because they didn't want the kids to have their own money to ride them, which would have excluded some of the poorer kids. So, no rides. Anyways, my mom chaperoned us and we ended up divided into groups. My group consisted of a friend of mine and two girls that I could talk to but who I wouldn't really consider "friends." We walked around for a while and then we were called back for a group lunch/picnicy thing. If there's one thing I can say for my mom it's that when she does something, she really goes all out. Even though she only went on like three of my field trips when I was in elementary school, she always did her best to make it memorable. Anyways, this time around she brought an entire cooler full of those little plastic juice things you can get at Aldis, the ones that are filled with koolaid or whatever that non-juice flavored water is. I drank like five of these sitting there, which was probably three too many. We got back up afterwards and started walking around once again. About thirty minutes after this, I ended up throwing up a multicolored mess of liquid on the asphalt somewhere in the zoo. I didn't feel good after that, so I wanted to sit down. So, I sat down. On every ride at the zoo. From that boat thing to the safari ride to the horse (which didn't actually make any sense considering I already had an upset stomach and the horse probably would have made it worse). Mom took me and the three people in my group on every ride they had, paying for all four of us at each stop all the while knowing that we weren't necessarily allowed to do that. Good day.

This actually worked well for me. I felt kind of crappy prior to writing this blog entry, but this memory was awesome to relive.

In Between Class Ramblings

So, my COM class let out early for the day and I have a couple of minutes to spare. Why not make a blog post? Problem is, I have no idea what to say really. I guess I'll talk about this week.

Monday I had my second performance for theater class. This one was an impersonation of someone I know, which had me stressed at first but then became easier once I settled on playing my older brother. The character I made of him was perfect because it required no enthusiasm or anything extra; more of the performance was done through body language and tone than anything. I got through the assignment pretty good, I was the first one in the class to go on the first day it was available to be done. Better early than late in this situation.

I dont think the rest of the week was that special apart from Thursday, which was my birthday. I wasn't really expecting anything special, and so I wasnt really disappointed by it. Between work, school, and the karate class I went to afterward, I was freaking tired. I didnt really enjoy much of it because there was way too much going on. In any event, this was the last worthless (sober) birthday I am going to be having for a while, so now that I have that out of the way I guess I feel a little better.

3/6/11 = Christmas

This post really has nothing to do with the last one, so I figured why not make it a separate one. In less than a month, something amazing is going to happen. I've been waiting for this since around October of last year, and its finally going to happen.

Yes, I'm actually a 12 year old and yes, I am a gigantic dork. Glad we have that out of the way. On March 6, Pokemon Black and White come out in America. This comes about five months after it was released in Japan, but you know, whatever. We're close enough to the release date that I don't need to be bitter. And now, with my amazing new job at the Writing Center, I'll have enough money tucked away to be able to buy both versions the day that they come out. This is something I have never done for any video game; I usually wait until a couple of months have passed and the game is cheaper. Not now, though. The first day this comes out, I'm getting it. In fact, as I said before, I'm getting both. I don't care that I'm likely only going to use one (White), I'll just keep Black in the box and look at it.

And I just figured out how this ties into the last blog post I just made. I know that on March 7, right after I have this game, all six of my classes are going to pile on the workload and impose crazy deadlines for me. This never fails, and I totally see it coming now. I might have to alter my procrastination strategy in an effort to have a lot of time for this game after it comes out. I'll need to play through it enough that I at least become tired enough of it to put it down until the end of the semester. Probably won't take long.