some of the night was peaceful, some unfortunately restless and frustrating. i didn't have far to go to get up for early training, but my chest was still buggered. i worked with vfmp for about an hour and a half on uppercuts, which to my great relief and satisfaction he eventually got, and then he started drilling me on the jiu-jitsu moves he'd shown me the last time. the progress i'm making is *so* slow! and it's such a head game. towards the end we rolled a bit, and were treated to zahabi himself stopping us to give us pointers and make sure that we'd internalized them. that - was - AWESOME ^_^
i got home to face job hunting stress... i had some emails and applications to sort out, and felt so overwhelmed by it that i sat down to watch a bit of comedy and learn some french instead. a bit later i received a call from one of the girls from my french class whose husband had recommended me for a job opening, and after investing an inordinate amount of time re-entering my data* i made a point of applying for a bunch of other jobs there as well.
* why can't all the companies using taleo's hr system let me use the same account? it's such a ridiculous mission filling in the same damned forms with the same damned information every single time :/
...
i have finally registered for the french exam at the end of the month. there's a lot of work to be done. i'm a bit nervous.
...
evening boxing: my chest was much better until the end of the class, and my ankle was mostly fine. i was partnered with army brat, who took her dancing / boxing crossover technique to a new level when she unwittingly shot her right foot into the air for a half-pirouette in the middle of a punch. i was laughing, but tears were actually streaming down her face from the combination of laughter and shame!
my previous assessment about the boxing coach not liking me any more proved wrong. he was giving the beginners in the class a lecture about sparring and when it was over he made it clear that we're cool. i managed to get a smile out of the guy, which undid the inadequacy i was feeling for having disappointed him.
...
everyone who was supposed to come for the house of cards marathon either cancelled at the last minute or arrived late, so i had enough time to shower and eat after getting home late myself.
that show is unbelievably cool and clever. just like downton abbey, it's excellently written and the finesse is greatly appreciated! we got through three episodes and i'm totally into it now.
...
after everyone had left and i was about to get into bed, i received an email from the accountant. the amount of money the israeli tax authority owes me wouldn't even make a dent in the more than NIS 20,000 they're demanding in late fees! this horror show keeps getting worse...
...
if i'm flossing and can taste the hand soap flavour, did i just wash my own mouth out with it?
i read wired's zappotopia article before trying to sleep. privately funding a tech / burning man scene in vegas is really interesting stuff! i turned off the light, and instantly the rls nightmare started. it would be over an hour of suffering before i finally passed out and slept well, and a few hours later i got up to a sore nose and dry hands.
happy days :/
it was a gorgeous morning, my health notwithstanding, and i met army brat and the guy from the week before for light sparring. the guy discovered that there's an all-levels sparring class every saturday morning that's precisely what we need, so now that i've initiated army brat we'll be joining them.
driving in quebec in winter: the other drivers are not a problem. the weather conditions were fine. but what the hell, quebec? not only are the signs utterly unhelpful on the rare occasion that they exist, but the road lane markings on the highways are practically invisible at night. wtf?!
aside from getting quite lost on the way there, taking two hours instead of forty five minutes*, the weather was just fine for driving. i'm really not comfortable driving in quebec, i had a couple of embarrassing incidents that would never have happened in cape town because i'd have been more focused on actually driving. the first was going too fast over a speedbump that had been partially covered over with snow, and the second was hurriedly switching from reverse to drive before coming to a complete stop. fortunately neither of those did any damage to the car, but they did make me feel stupid.
* still faster than the bus. but not easier.
anyway.
saint sauveur's late-night skiing special was excellent! the slope conditions weren't fantastic but they were still fun, the dj's they installed at the lift played funky beats and the only thing that wasn't great was that my ankle limited me a bit. it was fine for regular stuff, though it took me a few runs to relax, but the first time i attempted to switch i felt the torque and knew that i really shouldn't try anything demanding.
...
the slopes closed around midnight but we were done by around 11pm. the ride home was uneventful, though it took forever for the windshield to defog, and i got back too late to use the metro. there was a trance party happening downtown that i really wanted to go to and i was feeling up for it, but i didn't want to take the car*, a taxi at that hour was way too expensive and the night buses would have been a mission. i must have deliberated for over half an hour before finally deciding to call it a night.
* i thought that finding parking would be difficult. i've been informed since that that's not the case.
i don't know what the hell tilt got a parking ticket here for, but before going to bed i walked up and down the street to try to find some sign that didn't suggest that weekends are cool. i finally decided that rather than risk it i'd get up super early and return the car instead.
...
a coughing fit in the middle of the night was so bad that i felt my jaw unhinge. that was ugly and scary.
...
my alarm freaked me out when it went off, but i'd been so deep in my dreams that even after returning from dropping the car off i fell straight back into them.
thought for the morning: being allergic to kleenex would really suck.
[or blow, as moonflake kindly suggested]
but lo! suddenly, as if by magic, a form appeared before me asking me for an e-ticket number. which i located in my email, entered, and suddenly had all my points. so they *do* store previous flight details! i wonder why they wouldn't let me view my history, then?
anyway, i'm rather glad i didn't have to do any more.
i went to the pharmacy to pick up cold medicine, quickly ate at subway and did a super-fast shopping run. somehow that took me an hour, which meant that i was late for my date! and then i just missed the metro :(
no matter, i arrived before she did. and it wouldn't have mattered much if i hadn't! i cannot imagine what could possibly make a girl think that using someone else's photo for a profile picture would be a good idea. i promise you it's not something that goes unnoticed. she looks nothing like the picture, which put us on extremely odd footing, and the more we spoke the less i felt that this was the same woman i'd spoken to online. although making the mistake of having a first date with our attention focused elsewhere had concerned me at first, in this case it turned out to be a blessing. she's not unattractive, mind, i'm just blown away by the attempted ruse and simultaneously amused by the fact that there's not going to be a second date and we're probably going to see each other once a month now.
...
my introduction to the throw poetry collective:
"are you going to compete tonight?"
"no, i'm just here to scope out the competition."
"great! you can judge, then."
that's certainly one way to do it! i had a lot of fun. whenever i gave low scores and everyone shouted "higher!" i just wanted to shout back "stop judging me!", but overall i think everyone agreed that the judging was fair. there were some awful attempts, especially the open mic, but there was some great stuff - one of the better poets (in my opinion) happened to be a particularly sexy girl, so there was this perpetual internal debate over whether i was really scoring her performance or if it was just her...
anyway, there were some wonderful surprises. but the guest poet? AMAZING. titilope sonuga projected a stream of beautiful works into my consciousness and left us all in stunned silence. she has a couple of pieces on soundcloud...
i'm very glad that my coughing wasn't too bad. i only needed to cough twice and i managed to suppress it until there was an appropriate moment.
...
i left absolutely inspired. i needed the fix! i'll definitely get up on stage next time :)
i got home at a reasonable hour to go to bed but felt an urge to play fallout instead. a couple of hours flew by and i thoroughly enjoyed them!
i medicated before going to sleep; i slept well, but woke up with tender, stuffed sinuses. i spent an inordinate amount of time responding to dating messages, played some tekken, and did very little else. i'm off in a bit to vfmp's for dinner and more house of cards.
norway's olympic response is awesome.
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