first french finale - part i

oh, wow. it's sunday night. i should be studying for the end-of-course french exam tomorrow, but i haven't posted since thursday and i have shit to get off my chest.

---thursday:

at 2.30am i finally sent in my homework assignment. in spite of that i woke up feeling good. i totally zoned out on the metro. we began the french lesson with a great guided conversation. my french partner was very confused and went to the coffee shop to meet me twice even though i'd told him three separate times that we weren't going to meet that day.

---yang got a contact for me to send my resume to, but something particularly stupid that he said really bothered me and triggered interview anxiety: that was when i realized that the rage that i didn't feel when i was fired was simply suppressed. this makes the specialist's suggestion that my laboured breathing might be psychological even more plausible as it's the same kind of laboured breathing that i remember from my mini-anxiety attacks in 2010. if that's the case, it's a completely unintelligible message from my body :(

one of the things that's been really bothering me is that i haven't been able to accept that people like megaman exist. afterwards, when i spoke to my mother she suggested narcissistic personality disorder and "these qualities are usually defenses against a deep feeling of inferiority and of being unloved" does a good job of settling the issue for me. when i spoke to aota this afternoon i learned that his inadequacies have been thoroughly exposed since i left, and that darn has become an office joke to boot.

told you so.

---i hit the health store near vendome. i learned that the vega antibiotic scare really isn't anything to be concerned about and that clif builder max is not available for canadians :( (the assistant was more disappointed to find that out that i was)

the beast had left me a long voicemail message to remind me to go spar, and i was sorry to arrive with only twenty minutes of his session left on the clock. apparently this was fine by him, but the coach got an emergency phone call and the beast had to take him to the hospital so i worked a bit on the bags, did some weights and went home.

kgb called me up and asked me if i was familiar with the leap. i admitted that i own one and haven't taken it out of the box... he proceeded to pitch an idea so remarkably similar to mine that we're gonna meet up on wednesday and figure out how to proceed :D

i passed out, and as usual half-woke to my alarm with no energy to go to the gym. i forced myself up, chugged an energy drink and would have been horrified if i'd missed such an important session! (erm, and knew what i'd missed, of course)

although i walked in to the kickboxing class with a suddenly sore back - i don't know what the hell caused it, and it's still bugging me - i not only had a great class, but when entering the octagon afterwards to spar with the beast it was with badger sitting in a corner and coaching us. me, mostly. the beast was only too happy to oblige and our kickboxing instructor came out from the beginner's class every once in a while to observe and throw comments.

it was an extremely humbling experience, but i pushed through and i learned a lot. i walked out of the ring feeling uplifted.

i did dinner math and headed downtown for a tofu meal to precede the spaghetti i was going to prepare when i returned home. after the meal, though, i was totally stuffed and everything slowed down while my body dealt with the excess of deliciousness that i'd consumed. it was all i could do to get home and fall into bed.

---friday:

i sent off my resume to yang's contact (why does that take so long each time?) and left for class without having done the homework. i was in a dark mood because my back was hurting me, the weather was raining miserably and i was deep into tool - triad when suddenly a man on the pavement stepped into my path, forcing me to stop. i gave him a dark look and he began to speak to me; i was dimly aware that his comrade was standing on the edge of my blind-spot and my defenses shot up in spite of this being canada. it was just a homeless guy trying to bum change, but either way i was already so fired up that it took all my energy just to speak relatively politely as i forced him (with my body language) to step aside so that i could continue.

it was in that mood that i received news that my older siblings' mother had passed away that morning.
*rubs temples*
i shouldn't be proud of myself that i remembered to send my brother condolences even though our relationship is up to shit, but i am. i think that speaks volumes.

---my french must be improving, i'm unwittingly mixing in hebrew. the look of incomprehension on the teacher's face was priceless :P

i went for a quick haircut and then hit the chinese place again for lunch. it's the first time i've seen their lunch menu and i was excited to get corn soup with my veggie plate. i love corn soup!

my fortune cookie told me "you will soon get a promotion". uh, huh.

my back was feeling slightly better and i headed to walmart to pick up laces (for my mr. price '99 specials) and a new laundry basket. one of the workers in the shoe section made a two-foot throw of something into a trash can and his co-worker sarcastically told him how amazed she was... i walked up having overheard and said "hey, man, i saw it from over there and it was really impressive!"
i can't tell if he appreciated my joke or if he was offended :P

i left walmart in an evil mood. i stalked home and watched some of ufc 145: the schaub vs rothwell fight. each replay of schaub vs the invisible fighter was more disturbing than the last.

---ugh. it's bad enough forgetting to air out my wraps every once in a while, but two days in a row?? this time i didn't have any other laundry to do... what made matters worse is my backup "adult sized" everlast wraps are too damned short. i have learned an important lesson about bringing cash to the gym...

there was a sense of the weekend in the gym on friday afternoon, and i was actually sorry i had plans for saturday night because the boxing instructor finally saw fit to invite me to watch fights with him and his crew... i was so proud when he was so pleased to see me sparring!

my first two rounds were against a really tall brazilian guy who taught me what it feels like to get hit at that perfect spot on the jaw so that your mouthguard pops out - i managed to catch it with my teeth and suck it back in, but i was quite shocked that it had happened and surprised that it didn't actually hurt!

the third round was against a southpaw who was so much better than me that he toyed with me the entire time. i did land a couple of punches, but i took so many that i one point i almost jumped out of the ring in frustration. the fourth was against one of the guys i'm friendly with and i was surprised when he connected with a fairly powerful (for him) shot. i remembered what badger had said the day before about respect, that whether you want to or not you need to increase your power if you want your opponent to chill out or he'll disrespect you. even though i was worried that things would escalate, i hit him harder and he did back down.

people, man. people.

...

the boxing class afterwards was fun and tough. a couple of us had a long debate about ufc scoring, and i feel pretty strongly that if a ufc fight goes the distance then it should be counted as a draw. points don't mean a damned thing! if it was real life, one of the combatants would at some point have to call it quits: "hey, dude, we'll have to continue this another time - i have better shit to do". to count points is to completely devalue a fighter's ability to take a beating and make a comeback.

---i hurried made pasta - perfectly! - and wolfed it down before heading to vfmp's for carcassonne. we repeated the previous debate about draws and i discovered the angry nerd in me when we talked about iron man 3.

[continued...]