Late night work
I'm actually doing work now. As in, to be paid. Remotely, of course. Which is AWESOME. Which is an appropriate end to a rather crazy day.

Crazy, you may ask? Yes, indeed. Woke up later than I wanted to, off to go nab a free lunch. Always good. Then clean up, go off to work for a while. Got some things done, which is good. Then had to come back to help with a big dinner/presentation for our Newman big-wigs. The people that keep the Newman Center running, monetarily. So that meant singing songs, giving them nice food and conversation, and a few talks. Which is cool. Bonus - I got my mom her birthday present, through a perfect coincidence of timing. (Her birthday's the 23rd.) In case someone suspicious is reading, I can't say what it is. Spies are everywhere. At least they're not ninjas.

So that wasn't too crazy, just busy. I come back fairly late, get into crazy online conversations, lots of them. And perusing some Live Journals. Where I find something VERY interesting. Apparently a fellow CS major (female) is going to learn some self-defense from a friend of hers. Why would this friend teach her self-defense, or be qualified to? Apparently, he knows kung fu. So naturally, I become immediately very curious. I figure out this guy is still in high school, loves kung fu, and takes it in town. So that leads me to believe one of two things - he's quite apparently not taking at MY kwoon, so either he's taking from a private instructor, or at the only other place in town that offers kung fu publicly.

This is where things get interesting. Yes, there are two places in town. One of which is the Academy of Self-Defense, where I've been going for a little over four years now. The other is the Thomas Academy, which teaches tai chi and kung fu. The catch is this - this guy Thomas (Rick Thomas, if I remember correctly) learned his kung fu from Sifu. Yes, MY Sifu. I know all about him - Sifu basically doesn't like him so much. I won't get into the details, since a lot of it is personal, but Thomas basically didn't do things quite properly, so Sifu doesn't really support him anymore. The funny thing is that Thomas was at the Academy (Sifu's academy) for a moderately short time, and learned (I think) something like three forms when he began teaching. So, technically, I'm his superior when it comes to kung fu. Since I've been through, oh, eight or nine forms or so.

So that leaves us with where we began. I manage to contact the CS major and ask her about her "sensei" (as she called him, even though that's JAPANESE) in kung fu. And she tells me. Yep, the Thomas Academy. So - this kid who's teaching my fellow CS major self-defense is taking kung fu from an instructor who's my sidai (younger brother) in kung fu. The kid is very excited about it, too, talking in his LJ (Live Journal) a lot like I talk about it in mine. Although a lot of his seems to be more about complaining of painful shins from kicking someone who blocked it. (If I hadn't found out he went to Thomas, I would have wondered if he was one of MY personal victims.) Ooh, and so now I'm VERY excited. See, I have a tournament coming up on Saturday, which you may already be aware of. And I need to practice. So what's a better way to practice, then by sparring an apparent badass in kung fu? So yes, I'm going to spar him, if I can. And THAT makes me very excited. Man, makes my adrenaline flow even NOW, thinking about it. And if he's as good as I suspect he is, maybe I'll be the one teaching my fellow CS major some proper self-defense. Since I go to the Academy of Self-Defense. I'll have to be careful with his shins, though. Muahahahahahaaaa...

Anyway, that's been my excitement, pretty much. It may not get YOU excited, but BOY DOES IT ME. And I think that's plenty of insanity for the blog of this evening. Random link! This was sent to me by a friend. For anyone who codes, they'll appreciate this. Oh, it looks like a normal game. Except the whole thing is UNDER 100KB. If you know why that's impressive, then you know that's hella impressive. Worth seeing.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:10 AM | 0 comments