Egyptian FAIL

So on my last day or so in Bangkok, I spent my time just aimlessly wandering the city, until the evening hours, at which point I went to watch some Muay Thai at one of the local stadiums.  SO fun.  I sat ringside, and got to watch the fighters do the pre-fight ritual in the middle of the ring, etc etc.  I got to see a pretty good number of fights before I had to leave for the airport, and was very satisfied :D  

The fights just looked so intense to watch, since the fighters were obviously in such incredible shape, and took so many hard hits, and just kept going.  Pretty impressive stuff...

I then caught my cab to the airport, and boarded my long flight to Egypt.  They kept the lights on the ENTIRE flight (9.5 hours), and repeatedly woke me up to get the bad airplane food.  ARG.  I was a grumpasauarus when I got off in Egypt, but knew I was going to get to see Michelle, so it was all ok :D

I finally got to the hostel, and we had the BEST reunion ever.  It was so good to see her!!  It was so fun to have things be just like before I left, and we pretty much spent the day just chatting, seeing the Egyptian museum, and doing.....nothing.....a good day, all in all

The second day was spent in a desperate hunt to find Ibn Tulun mosque, where we officially learned to NEVER trust directions given to you by an Egyptian.  It will most likely be incorrect....But we finally found Ibn Tulun, and got to go up in one of the minarets during the call to prayer, which was a really surreal experience.  The mosque itself was beautiful, but we sadly couldn't go inside due to lack of headscarves....

The harassment has been relatively tame, though we're learning that Egyptian men are probably the creepiest on EARTH.  Instead of cat-calling or doing anything else, they hiss??  Very creepy....Oh, and someone threw popcorn at us last night, but that's really all the aggressive instances we've had....

We did our bit at the pyramids yesterday, except we didn't actually go up to the Giza complex, as first off, it's right by the highway, which sort of kills the magic, and you get HARASSED so badly just trying to get in, that it destroys any enjoyment of the place you might have had.  Our guide drove us up just to get a feel for it, at which point groups of people started CHASING the car, knocking on the window trying to sell us things.....ugh

So instead we spent the day at Saqqara by the step-pyramid and old tombs and whatnot, which was much better, and go to ride camels through the Sahara, away from all the crowds and stuff, which was GREAT.

Today Michelle and I head off to Athens for 3 days, and then I'm off to Budapest! :D

Updates to come!

p.s. - I changed the comment settings so you shouldn't have to log-in to comment, so go for it....

Ping Pong and Tigers....

So after a very long day of traveling to get to Phuket, I FINALLY got on my plane to Bangkok.  I somehow got to talking with these three other people who were traveling independently of each other, all from San Diego.  Turns out they each had an overnight layover in Bangkok, and wanted to go see the city, so, figuring it'd be my only SAFE time to go see Bangkok nightlife, we all shared a cab, and I dropped my stuff at my hostel, and we headed out!

We went into Patpong, which is one of Bangkok's many red-light districts (it's just one of those things you have to see at some point in your life).  It was EXACTLY as stereotypically raunchy as you would have pictured it to be.  So after the novelty of that wore off, we grabbed some 4 a.m. noodles (SO GOOD) and I said goodbye to my new friends, and returned to my guesthouse to CRASH.

The next day, I just wasn't really that in the mood for sight-seeing, so I was a bit grumpy while walking around.  The major sights to see in Bangkok are temple-style structures, but after Cambodia, everything else seems a little lackluster, so I actually only saw one and opted to skip the rest.  It just really wasn't exciting to me.  

Then my first major scam attempt came.  NEVER take tuk-tuks in Bangkok.  They are just bad news.  Either hop on the back of a motorcycle taxi, or take a full-fledged car with the meter.  Tuk-tuks try to miserably rip you off.  This guy offered me a really good price, so I got in, but....skeptically.  He then proceeded to do the "oh yeah I'll take you where you need to go, but first let's stop at these five shops that my friends all own so I can get kickbacks for bringing you..."  I was NOT pleased, and had to threaten to report him to the tourist police to get him to finish driving me, and even then I cut his fare in half.  Jerkface.  It's amazing how obviously people try to rip you off too!  Taxis HATE using the meter, despite it being the law, and so will try to negotiate a ridiculous price with you beforehand.  I wanted to get back to my guesthouse, and asked a cabbie if he could take me, and responded with "350 baht"  That's almost twelve dollars.....NO fare within the city of Bangkok should be more than 100 baht, or about THREE dollars....it's a shame that some tourists don't know any better and will take the fare, b/c it just encourages them to rip people off more!

Anyways, I spent that day just roaming the city, which was interesting, but it's a bit too crowded/dirty for my taste...Yesterday though, I went to the tiger temple!!  Its where these monks have raised tigers since they were cubs, and so have become so docile that they will just let you walk right up and pet them and whatnot.  It was soooo cool!!  I also got to pet a little tiger cub, which was ADORABLE.  The only frustrating thing about the trip was that the bus from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi province where the temple is located, is apparently not a direct bus.  The reason I say this is that they were essentially dropping off people they knew at stops along the way, causing the whole trip to take about an hour longer than needed.  The trip back was worse, a 2 hour direct drive took about 4 hours!!  But, never fear, I made it back safely, and now have my last day in Bangkok to kill before heading to the airport to go to Egypt!!!

I'm SO excited to get to Egypt and to see Michelle!!!  I've missed her so much!  Ah, my Berkeley partner in crime, it will be a glorious reunion, to be certain....

Today will most likely be spent wandering Chinatown, and then heading out to watch the Muay Thai fights around 6, leaving at 8:30ish for the airport?  I like it....

Onward Babar!!

So lets see, on my second day on Koh Yao Noi, I was essentially a bum. I woke up, did a quick workout, and spent the bulk of the day either lounging on the beach or reading in my hammock, thinking that life was good.

Then around 4 I got ready to head out to MUAY THAI! I walked down the road about 20 minutes to find this tiny gym (basically a ring with some heavy bags) in the back of a hotel. At first I got there only to hear that class was cancelled since they just got back from Bangkok, but as I was walking out, the girl ran out and told me that one of the regulars just showed up, so class was on! Except I was the only person the guy ended up teaching??? This guy is somthing like a 6-time world champion muay thai fighter, has had over 200 fights, etc. So basically a lean-mean-fighting machine.

I was SO excited. Except I realized two things. 1) My sparring timing SUCKS. 2) My sparring distance SUCKS. The distance, at least, can be explained by the fact that in Muay Thai, contact is to be made with the shin, not the foot, so I wasn't used to having to step into each kick so much. It was also SO hard for me to turn off the Taekwondo kicking style of bringing my knee up and then kicking, instead of just swinging my whole leg around. So he kept hitting me every time I did a TKD kick. And by hit, I mean would give me a hard leg kick. Since this guy has been fighting for a quite a while, he knows exactly where the nerve in your leg is to make leg kicks miserable too. It was not fun, and I'm now nursing a nice big bruise :D

It was so cool getting to train with him right on the water as the sun was setting though! Very Karate Kid. So after practice, I was feeling very contented in my tiredness walking home. I then got cleaned up, grabbed dinner, and passed out!

The next morning, I woke up and hopped on the ferry to Krabi, which consisted of me and about 15 old Muslim ladies. That was comfortable. ....And of course in Thailand, they see a white girl, and think I obviously have no clue what I'm doing or where I'm going, and so just herded me onto a generic songathew into Krabi town, which would have been fine. However, once we got into town, I told them where I needed to go, they said "OH OK!" and herded me onto another bus, which didn't seem right.....

Apparently in saying "PRA-nang" they heard "AO-nang"?? I'm not really sure, but the driver let me off, and I was convinced at this point that something was not right, as we were about fifty kilometers outside of Krabi at this point, and I showed him my print out which had written in THAI where I needed to go. He got a semi-guilty look on his face and said..."oh...um...yeah...it's over that way!".....riiiiiight.

At this point I was just too tired and frustrated to argue, so I got a guesthouse in Ao Nang instead, which has actually turned out quite nice since it's right on the beach! I spent yesterday again just chilling and relaxing, and booked myself a kayaking/elephant trekking trip for today, which was AWESOME!

I got picked up in the morning, with 4 other British travelers, who made for some good conversation on the way to the kayak point, paddled around for a while in the mangroves, which was super-neat, etc. Then we swapped off, with them going with a different guide since they were only signed up for the kayaking, and my guide took me and this couple from Malaysia paddling around a little longer before lunch. We stopped out on this sand-bar and got to look at all the starfish hidden under the sand, and there must have been literally thousands! It was so cool!

We then had a great lunch, and headed out to the elephant trekking place! The first part of it was just sitting on a bench on the elephants' backs while they walk through the jungle, but me being....well....me....had to ask to drive the elephant.....oops? So the guide hopped off and we traded places with him on the bench and I rode the elephant! WHEEE! SO FUN!

Afterwards we got to feed them cucumbers and stuff, which they very happily devoured (elephants have very strong trunks....be warned....). Now I'm back, showered, and quite content, and am going to grab some food and probably a cheap bootleg DVD and will be set for the night!

Tomorrow is my long day of traveling, what with having to get from Ao Nang to Krabi, catch the latest boat from Krabi to Phuket, then get from the pier to Phuket Airport where I will randomly wait around for a few HOURS since I don't feel like paying a crazy amount for a taxi into Phuket town and then BACK to the airport, then get on an 11:30 p.m. flight to Bangkok, get into Bangkok at super-late-o-clock, and finally crash in my hostel. *SIGH* It's gonna be a LOOOONG day.

I can't believe my traveling is almost half over!!!

Koh Yao Noi

So after a brief stopover in Phuket, which proved a mild annoyance (my guesthouse was apparently in a very distant suburb, meaning a very expensive cab ride, then another very expensive cab ride back to the pier), I have finally arrived in Koh Yao Noi, and it is incredible.  I don't get why anyone would ever leave this place (I'm thinking about just....never leaving....haha).

I took the ferry from Phuket, which was a long-tail boat, called such because the motors jut out from the boat on a metal shaft, which was fun in and of itself, getting to see all the wonderful limestone cliffs and all on the way.  It helped that the weather cleared up (it rained in Phuket overnight, so I was really hoping it wouldn't rain on the islands, because that's just a bummer).

So I finally made it here and to my guesthouse, and it is so sweet.  I have my own bungalow to myself, with a porch and hammock, and plenty of room to do my weird martial arts things where nobody can see :D  I took a bunch of the floor rugs that were around and tied them to one of the porch posts to make a modified heavy-bag of sorts, which, with my hand-wraps, is actually moderately functional, though I think the other guests are getting concerned about the pounding happening from my kicking and punching....oops?

I'm going to opt to stay here an extra night, and skip Koh Lanta, because I like it here so much, and would rather have more time on this island than pay more to get to another one where I'd just be staying overnight.  So tomorrow will consist of a morning workout since I have the room, possibly renting a bike to ride around, relaxing on the beach, and reading in my hammock.  ALLLLL day.  I'm a happy camper.  Also, there is a muay thai gym taught by a world champ on the island, so I'm probably going to go to one of his classes tomorrow night, which I'm very excited about!

Anyways, time to get dinner, sit on the beach for a while, then read and pass out (in the safety of my mosquito net, of course....)

Farewell Cambodia, Hello Thailand!

So on my last few days in Cambodia, me and the guys went to check out this really awesome temple hidden out on this mountain, requiring an hour-long tuk-tuk ride on a dirt road out there, which was interesting in itself just to get to see the countryside and whatnot.  When we got to the location, we had to hike about 1.5 kms through the jungle to get to the carvings, but it was so worth it!  The carvings were IN the riverbed, with water flowing over it, which was so beautiful!  We then came across this waterfall where the water which is supposedly made sacred by the gods flows, so I naturally had to go stand under it, which was so nice in the heat.  

Afterwards, we grabbed lunch, and our tuk-tuk driver taught us how to play a Cambodian card game that all the tuk-tuk drivers play, which I have now named Angkor, since I have no earthly idea what they called it, but it was really fun to play with him!  Though afterwards our tuk-tuk nearly died since the fuel line wasn't staying attached to the engine, which would have been really bad since we were....in the middle of nowhere....but our driver managed to fix it and we continued onto another temple, which is one of the oldest in the complex, and by far the most ornate, and in most peoples' opinions, the most beautiful, which I sort of agree with.  It was incredible.  

The day before, we had actually gone to check out the war museum just outside the city, which was a VERY sobering experience.  The man who gave us the tour had joined the Cambodian army when he was 14, to be provided with food and clothing, and in the process of fighting in the war, lost part of his leg from the knee down to a land mine, is almost entirely blind due to getting shrapnel blown into his eyes, has part of the bone from his foot in his eye, which was lodged there during the land-mine blast, was shot five different times, still has ball-bearings under his skin from other land-mine blasts, which give him tetanus about 1-2 times every year....WOW.

Apparently in the park, he was showing us the different personnel carriers and whatnot, and apparently one of them still had a skeleton in it from when it was brought in.  I didn't have the nerve to go see, it was just too much.  He showed us different artillery guns that could blow 100 meter wide craters up to 10 miles away.  It was just insane to hear.  

When we asked about the current politics in Cambodia, we were pretty shocked to hear him say that he couldn't talk about it out loud due to the instability that still existed.  I think everyone views the Khmer Rouge and civil war as being a thing of the past, when it is still very much a part of Cambodian culture.

Yesterday Sasha and Seth left for Indonesia, so James and I just had a lazy day.  We went to the National Angkor Museum to learn more about the history of the old empire and whatnot, which was really neat.  Afterwards, we took care of a few errands, then went to this massage place which is only staffed by blind masseuses, which was pretty cool.  We got an awesome 1 hour massage for 5$, and was personally really glad we gave our business to them, since it was both a good massage, and pretty apparent that they needed all the business they could get.

Afterwards was some quick shopping at the night market, then dinner and bedtime, and now it's today.  ARG.  Today has given me some problems.  I was SUPPOSED to fly direct into Phuket, Thailand today, however, the airline thought it'd be a great day to change the time of my flight the NIGHT before, and the internet was down today so I couldn't double-check that my flight was still on, therefore I missed it.  BLEH.  So I had to be routed through Bangkok where I'm waiting to get on a second flight that I had to book into Phuket, where I will crash overnight and go to the islands tomorrow morning instead.  Annoying, but it'll be alright.

I will update (hopefully) from the island tomorrow!

Temples, Temples, and More Temples

Wow.  This is my third day in Cambodia, and it has been AMAZING thus far.  So immediately after my last update at the Singapore airport, I shut my computer, handed in my boarding pass, sit down, and suddenly I hear "HEY EVAN!" and look up to see a roundhouse kick flying at my face.  Given my state of exhaustion, I was too slow to respond in any other way than leaning back slightly and groaning.

Who did I almost get kicked by?  Michelle's boyfriend James!!  How WEIRD is it that I ran into another Yongmudo member in the Singapore airport at five in the morning who is going to the same place I am on the same flight?!  So we both got off in Cambodia, he met up with his friends, I found my guesthouse, and met back up with him and his friends at their place, and we set out!  It's been so awesome having people who are of the same disposition as me to see Cambodia with!

So we set out on the first day to get our 3-day pass to the Angkor temple park, with our super-awesome tuk-tuk driver, who took us to see some really neat places.

Our first stop was a temple called Bayon, which is easily one of the most impressive and incredible sights I have ever seen.  It is a HUGE complex with multiple spires and incredible carvings of reliefs and whatnot where we wandered for a pretty long time just exploring and checking things out.  Words can't really describe the experience, to be honest, it was just so incredible.

We then made our way around a small loop of temples, climbing the steep steps of each one, taking in the views, just enjoying the setting.  We also got to see the Terrace of the Leper King and the Elephant Terrace, which are both impressive.  It's so incredible to think that these things were built about one thousand years ago, and are still standing.  They must have been truly awe-inspiring to see in their prime. 

It was kind of sad that some of them are falling apart so terribly though.  Apparently the Khmers were not such good stone-workers, in that they didn't really choose very good quality stone, and choose very poor binding to join the stones together, leading to a lot of their structures to lose the roofs and other standing pieces.  

We then headed out to Ankor Wat where we explored for a really long time until the sun was setting.  It is an absolutely MASSIVE place, and while we weren't allowed to go up in the main spires, just exploring the outside with all the reliefs was truly great.

Anyways, after day one, we were EXHAUSTED, and were going to get up at 4:30 a.m. to catch the sunset from a mountain about Angkor Wat, so we needed some serious rest, and promptly PASSED OUT.  

Day 2:

Our driver picked us up, and drove us out to Phnom Bakeng, which is another temple that sits on top of a giant hill, where we explored until the sun began to rise.  It was, again, beyond words.  Standing there, overlooking the jungle, and Angkor Wat in the clean light of a new morning, in the air that was warm, but not yet hot.  Unreal.

We came down, got breakfast, and headed to this place called Ta Prom, which is the temple known for all the trees overgrowing it where the roots are spilling over the doorways and whatnot (a.k.a. - what most people remember from the movie Tomb Raider).  Again, the complex was massive and so neat to explore, and we spent a good few hours wandering there, before we were exhausted again, and opted to take an afternoon break to escape the heat.

So after showering and eating, we decided to check out Angkor Wat one last time again in the later afternoon, then headed home to clean up again, eat dinner, then be SO cliche, and watch Tomb Raider, so that we could both provide stimulation for our completely exhausted brains, and so we could go OH OH WE WERE JUST THERE!!!  

Day 3:

Today we woke up around 6 to get breakfast and check out the last few temples before the heat set in.  So we explored around a bunch of places, though the last 2 were probably my favorites, as they were some of the oldest temples we visited, and were a more primitive style, which was neat to see.  

Now we are all exhausted again, and taking a breather before we go to the war museum.  We have been moving non-stop, but it has been such good fun, since the guys I'm with are so easy to travel with :D

This country is so interesting to move through.  It is so much to take in!  Riding in tuk-tuks during the day with no doors, where cars pass on the street close enough that I could reach out and open their door....Constantly being harassed by children outside the temples to buy different souvenirs......Hunting out back-alleys to get cheap and authentic Khmer food (thank god I have my gastro kit for preventative measures against infection).....Hoping I don't get Dengue fever from mosquitos....Enjoying the fact that I can get food for the whole day for about 6$.....

Only 2 full days left in Cambodia, then flying to Phuket to tour the Thai islands!  Might update tomorrow, but I might be too tired.....we shall see.....

Singa-WHAT?

Wow.  Longest day of my life, easily, and it's nowhere close to over!  I landed in Singapore after a four and a half hour flight from Darwin, promptly threw my backpack into storage, and hopped on the train to downtown.  That was a little intimidating at first, given that it was a new currency in a new country with a new transit system, but it was really easy to use.  Singapore is an incredibly easy city to figure out, mainly since everybody speaks English.  This is probably because there are four to five major ethnic groups in Singapore, and none of them speak the same language, so English is the easiest intermediate....

I got off the train in downtown with my small travel backpack on, and set out for.....adventure...I suppose?  I ended up in Little India, and promptly inhaled the BEST curry of my entire life, which was so satisfying given that I hadn't eaten since about 1 o'clock earlier that day.  Though I definitely ate WAY too much, as the thought of roaming the streets was NOT appealing after that....So worth it though :D  

Afterwards, I roamed the streets more, saw the Parliament House, History Museum, and some other cool landmarks before coming across the lone traveler's MECCA.  A 24 hour shopping complex.  YESSSS.  The only thing that was slowing me down was the fact that Singapore is about 2 hours behind Melbourne, which is the time zone I'm still currently stuck on, so by 10 p.m., I felt like it was midnight, and given that I've been going to sleep before 10 p.m. Melbourne time every night.....I was sleepy.  So I headed back to the airport a little after 1 a.m., crashed in a chair for about 2 hours (didn't think I could sleep so long in a chair, but apparently exhaustion will do that to you), and am now preparing to get on my plane to Cambodia.

AH!  I can't believe it's already time for Cambodia!!  This adventure of mine is flying by, but I'm loving every second of it.  I never thought traveling alone could be so satisfying, but I'm really enjoying having time to myself with my own thoughts, not worrying about anybody else, doing things at my pace.  Though it will be REALLY nice to meet up with Michelle in Cairo, since I've missed playing with her a LOT. 

Anyways, I'm super-tired, and I'd rather not pass out and miss check-in for my flight, so I'll update from Cambodia!! 

p.s. - PASSPORT STAMPS ARE SO EXCITING!!

NATE!

You know, I had been thinking that my traveling had been overly uneventful recently. Thankfully, this morning remedied that when the FIRE ALARM went off at my hostel. So I woke up at 7:30 this morning to the wonderful sounds of "wooooOOOOOOOP woooooOOOOOOP"..........*sigh*.....Thanks Darwin. Last night I headed up to the roof deck and watched the fireworks for a bit, which was nice, since it was super-warm outside, and no bugs (probably the last time I'll have that luxury).

I got up today and spent some time lounging by the pool, which was AWESOME since I haven't seen the sun in ages. After that, I went to the post office to find out how much it would be to ship my laptop (which I named Nate) back to the states. Upon hearing the 350$ price-tag, I decided....Nate will be just fine with me, thank you very much.....OUCH.

So now I'm killing time at my hostel reading and putzing around on the internet until my flight to Singapore. Leave for the airport at 1:15, depart at 4:10, land in Singapore around 7:30, binge eat until 4 a.m., depart for Cambodia at 6:00 a.m. Longest day of my life.

Heeeeeeeere we go!

Evolution, Anyone?

So I finally made it to Darwin today, my last destination in Australia. Super-annoying though, is the fact that Jetstar treated the flight like it was international because it was continuing on to Singapore, meaning that I had to be at the airport to check in over 2 hours before the flight left. ARG. So I went to catch the airport shuttle, but got outside much earlier than I needed (I was already awake, meh), and ended up getting on the earlier shuttle.

This would have been good, except it put me at the airport before they started checking people in for my flight, so I spent about an hour watching awkward Japanese people attempt to navigate their way through checking in for their flight back to Japan. I got really concerned for a second after I checked in, because all the flight announcements I kept hearing were in Japanese, and briefly thought they might announce my flight without me knowing, due to my lack of Japanese knowledge. Note to self: learn Japanese.

So the flight left a little late again (I hate discount airlines), but I had a window seat again, so I was happy. It was weird once the plane got over the outback though, b/c there were all these wildfires going on, so there was smoke for MILES. I guess I forgot how dry/hot it can get out there.

Anyways, I am now at my hostel in Darwin, which is alright, and am about to go watch the fireworks on the Esplanade. Apparently they love their fireworks here. I passed at least 5 stores on the way to the hostel. Then bed, then up and time for a trip to the beach for some sun. After that, back to the airport (AGAIN). At least I'm almost to Cambodia, where I will be for longer than 48 hours....

Tomorrow is my night spent hostel-less in Singapore. Wish me luck??

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Today was spent diving on the Great Barrier Reef, which was....in a word.....AWESOME.  It was my first time scuba-diving, and I loved it!  Except it made me feel kind of like the plastic scuba figures people put in fish tanks.  That's what the reef initially felt like for me, was an oversized fish tank that I was swimming in.  I was doing ok sea-sickness-wise until we all had to get our briefing for scuba, meaning that I had to stare at this guy and not at the horizon, which was.....bad.  I held out as long as I could, but had to go outside at the end and try to recover.  Bleh, not fun.  Once I got in the water though, I felt fine.  Cairns is awesome for the fact that it is the middle of the Australian winter and it is 77 degrees outside, with incredibly warm water.  YAY.  

We did all our "learn how to not suck at scuba" exercises when we first got in the water, and then finally set out following our instructor around to look at stuff.  He would occasionally stop us all and tell us to kneel down on the sand to either check our air levels, or to point something out.  At one point he went and kind of shoved some sand over, and a little stingray flew out and swam away!  So cool!  Later this MASSIVE fish came swimming over, that apparently comes over every time this group dives, and was letting everybody touch it and grab its face and steer it around and stuff.  Kind of weird, but cool at the same time??

On my second dive I saw a giant sea turtle that I swam along with, both sort of staring at each other questioningly....Then apparently the Scottish guys I was diving with breathe way too much, so they had to surface early b/c they were out of air, but my guide took my back down solo anyway to check more stuff out.  He took me into this trench and my first thought was "swim OVER the trench, not THROUGH it".  Curse you, Finding Nemo, for permanently altering my perceptions of Australia!!

I did find Nemo!  He was hiding in an anenenememone.  Standard.  So then on the boat ride back, I....passed out.  Look, you can only be in the sun for about 8 hours straight without getting a little sleepy, and when you add in the whole....gently rocking boat....you get bedtime.

Flying to Darwin tomorrow, and apparently have to get to the airport at 11 for my 1 o'clock flight?  I hate JetStar.  Get to Darwin a little after 3, will probably drop my stuff off at the hostel and roam for a while before sleeping again.

Thus far, have been perfectly content traveling alone, and am loving life in general.  I am SO excited to make my way to SE Asia, even though the Bokator master in Cambodia won't email me back.  I'm gonna get his number and call him up.  No joke.....

18 hours.....3 cities.....what?

So my night spent in Sydney was pretty good.  I got relatively lucky in that my hostel roommates just didn't return during the night, so I didn't have to deal with being awoken or awkward introductions or any of that stuff.  I set my stuff down and went to walk around downtown, and surprisingly got my bearings back almost instantly.  My hostel was in a really great location since it was right next to the central train station, and not too far from Darling Harbour/Circular Quay.  Since it was about 9:30 p.m. when I set out, I just decided to pay one last visit to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, which were really beautiful at night, and just enjoyed the vibe of Sydney on a Saturday night.  I then returned to my room, did a short workout and stretched and then passed out.

My sleep was a bit interrupted though as the window wasn't sealed very well, and my blanket wasn't very heavy, so it was pretty chilly, but luckily I had to get up early to catch my flight to Cairns anyway.  I marched my way to the train station, hopped on the train to the airport, and then....got stuck.  For some reason, my flight to Cairns didn't even BOARD until the time it was supposed to leave?  That was annoying....

The flight was pretty good though, and I had some episodes of CSI still loaded on my computer that kept me entertained during the whole thing, then waited a billion years for a taxi from the Cairns airport to my hostel, only to discover that my hostel was closed from 12-4.  I landed at 2.  ARG.  But it was ok, I walked over to the mall and got some food and hijacked internet to keep myself entertained (I didn't want to move too much since I had my pack and backpack).  

And now I'm at my hostel, resting and prepared for the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow!  I'm so excited!  2 introductory scuba dives and snorkeling!  And SUN!  Finally warmth and sun!  It's been so good (except the humidity, but I'm southern, I can deal).

Anyways, time for a much needed shower, and rest before getting food and passing out.  Updates tomorrow! 

A Fond Farewell

I have spent five months in Melbourne.  And it is now over.  Where did the time go?  Someone here put it very well, in saying that they couldn't remember when we went from saying "we still have this much time left" to "we ONLY have this much time".  This is one of the most amazing countries I have had the pleasure to visit, and really hope I can come back soon, possibly to live for good.  

I have met some of the greatest people here, especially from jiujitsu.  I am gonna miss my girls team SO SO much.  I learned so much from them, it's amazing.  Last night, Robyn told me that from the way I was rolling, she would have promoted me to my orange belt if she had the power.  It felt really good to hear that from someone like her, who is a really sharp, really technical fighter.  I feel like my game has completely changed, but I won't really know until I get back to Berkeley and am on the mat again.  July is gonna be really hard to spend so long away from training, so I'm gonna have to really focus to stay sharp on my techniques.  I will always remember what I've learned from everyone at GZ: Carmen, Robyn, Jardi, Ann, Chris, Richard, Carrie.  EVERYONE.  I will miss training.

So after five months in Australia, what have I learned?

1. Everything is better with an Australian accent

2. Pack light

3. If you can survive New Zealand in the winter, you can survive ANYTHING

4. Melbourne weather can change faster than a Vegas showgirl

5. Souvlaki is best consumed at 3 a.m. after a long night out

6. Microbiology is hard no matter where you take it

7. Emus were spawned by pure evil

8. Seeing kangaroos never gets old

9. There is no shame in sleeping for 14 hours straight

10. No worries

Sydney tonight, Cairns tomorrow until the 31st, Darwin on the 1st.

Updates to come

Less than 72 hours left....

I can't believe this is over!!  I have less than 3 days in Melbourne.  And they are ALL going to be BUSY.

In the next 2 days, I have to take my final, run an errand with Stathi, print out my flight itineraries, have my very last jiujitsu, boxing, and kickboxing practices, my farewell dinner with the BJJ girls team & Carmen, my last night clubbing in Melbourne, ship my bags, clean my room, send all the care packages I have accumulated, ARG!!!

At least I'm relatively on top of my traveling?!  I have set up my driver for Cambodia, booked my Great Barrier Reef trip, emailed my Athens couchsurf, and my Thailand kickboxing gym.  *phew*  So much to do!!  I feel like I'm going to be going at hyperspeed for the month of July, and once I return to the states, I will CRASH.

Also on my to-do list, find out if I can get in to the UCMAP summer camp, which starts 1 day after I get back to Berkeley.  I'd hate to have to spend 4-5 days bumming around Berkeley without mat time, since I've been itching to get back to YMD since.....I left?  Also I apparently have to take care of my telebears while.....in Cairo.  Hrm....that'll be interesting.

So much to do, so little time.  Next update will hopefully be before I leave, otherwise.....Sydney, probably.

No More Churrooooos

So I spent pretty much the last week locked in my studying cave o' doom, depressed about life since I couldn't go play in Melbourne :(  My BMB final wasn't too bad, but I definitely could have done better on it.  The bad part came with my neuroscience exam, however.  The questions were pretty vague, and context dependent, so picking the single "correct" answer was pretty hard :/  But now that it's over and done with I just have microbiology to focus on.  I'm hoping if I set a really strict study schedule for myself, I'll be able to both study, go to martial arts, and have some playtime in Melbourne too.  

More and more I'm realizing what an incredible city Melbourne is.  There is just so much to see and do, and I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface....I will definitely miss it.  It was SO weird to have to say goodbye to Christine last night :(  It's finally setting in that my time in Australia is pretty much up, which makes me sad.  I really do love it here, and hope I can move back at some point....

I spent today out with Melissa, Camille, and Nancy, which was good fun.  We wandered around downtown for a bit, then went to check out the Shrine of Remembrance, which is the Victorian state war memorial, which was really really cool.  The Australians have a really huge amount of respect for their soldiers, so it was neat to visit, and watch the police take down the Australian flag at the closing of the shrine to the bugle calls and whatnot.  

We took a quick break to go bundle up in some warmer clothes, and then headed down to the Docklands to check out a fire-festival, but unfortunately we got there too late, but we still had a good time wandering around the area.  Afterwards we headed up to Lygon Street to visit San Churro to get some fresh cinnamon-y churros with melted dark chocolate. mmmmmm

I then said goodbye to Nancy and headed back home where I am now attempting to cram as much clothing into my suitcase as possible, and draw up a tightly-wound study schedule....

11 days left in Australia :(

Traiiiiiiins

The past few days have been hectic, but good fun.  After getting back from New Zealand, I unfortunately had to seal myself in my dorm room to crank out my two papers that were due on thursday, which, despite my best efforts, were complete crap anyways, but they're done, so that felt good.

Everybody went out for a post-first week of finals celebration, which was hilarious, as usual.  We met up with a bunch of Christine's friends from jiujitsu who are CRAZY!  We hopped to 3 different bars, and met....interesting people.  The last bar we went to had several people dressed up in costumes, so I think we missed the memo or something, but seeing some guy dressed up at Hitler was.....awkward?  Not as awkward as the guy wearing the bed-bug outfit though.....he was wearing a MATTRESS.....in a CLUB......weird....

So when we woke up the next morning, we all FINALLY went to an Aussie-rules football game between the Western Bulldogs (WOOO!) and the Brisbane Lions.  It was nice to sit and gossip with the girls while watching the game, and all in all, had a good time watching the Bulldogs whoop up on the Lions BIG TIME.  The score was something like 113 to 68.  Ouch.....

On the way to the game, apparently a bunch of Melbourne Uni students thought it would be hilarious to dress up like ZOMBIES and march around Federation Square, so we got off the tram to what is pretty much my worst nightmare (I constantly worry that I will be caught in the middle of a zombie-horde unprepared).  It was REALLY funny though to see people slowly wandering around and groaning.  This one guy walked onto the tram tracks in his bloody zombie costume and marched up to the front of the tram, grumbling "braiiiiiiiins" at the tram driver.  Classic.

Then as we were walking to the stadium someone pointed at Flinders Street Station (the HUGE train station in Melbourne) and said "TRAIIIIIIIIIINS".  PRICELESS.  I laughed for a good 20 minutes about that one. 

Today was spent at the QV hunting souvenirs etc. to get my last round of shipments out the door before....I'M out the door.  WEIRD.  Have a final tomorrow also, and another on Friday, so it'll be a busy week.....arg!

Land of the Kiwis!!

Oh man, sorry for the lack of updates, but I spent the entire last week in New Zealand, and it was AWESOME!!

Day 1:

Stathi said he'd drive us to the airport, but was convinced we didn't need to be at the airport super early, so he dropped us off about....an HOUR before our flight was supposed to leave, so we had to awkwardly get pulled out of the line to check our bags and sprint to get through customs (apparently you have to go through customs BEFORE getting to NZ, and then again upon arrival, it's weird...)

Then we arrive in NZ, and forgot to print our itinerary for our return ticket, which apparently New Zealand customs didn't believe that we were genuinely planning on leaving after a week, so we had to sit and wait while they called Qantas to check our return flight.  Embarrassing?  Yes....

SO we finally get out into Wellington, and the weather is.....gross.  We picked up our rental car and decided to head up to Taupo that night (about a 5 hours drive) because we were going to go bungy jumping up there, so our night pretty much consisted of getting that far.

Day 2:

When we woke up, we for some reason decided that bungy jumping would be a good way to start our day off, so we drove over to Taupo bungy.  When we got to the bungy place, holy crap nerves set in!  I looked out on the platform which was over this lake, and it finally registered in my brain that I was about to....jump OFF with nothing but a rubber band on my feet pretty much.  

We had to stand around for a while to wait for the weather to clear (theme of the trip), but then we finally headed out to the platform to get ready to jump.  There was this one guy in line in front of us, and he got all strapped in and everything, but as he was ON the platform chickened out and couldn't do it, so I got called up as the FIRST jumper of the day.  EEK!

So I'm standing out on the platform FREAKING OUT as I'm about 150 feet over this river.....

"3....2....1...BUNGY!" My brain couldn't decide if it wanted to keep my legs locked out, or to jump, so I bent my legs to jump as I was leaning forwards, but I guess fear took control of my muscles and I didn't extend the jump, so I sort of just......toppled.....but I made it off the platform!  It was SO scary to feel COMPLETE freefall in your entire body, but it was really fun!

As we left, we were going to drive to Rotorua to Zorb (rolling down a hill in a giant plastic human hamster ball...) but on the way, actually got clipped by another car, which then proceeded to drive off!  Hit and run!  Arg.  Luckily I wasn't driving/liable, but it was still scary, and we had to drive to Rotorua to instead file a police report.  Not as fun as Zorbing I think....

So that sort of killed the Zorb mood, and we just drove up to the northern coast of the island and collected ourselves that night.

Day 3:

We returned to Wellington that day (long drive), got a replacement rental car, and I got to meet up with Courtney!!!  Oh MAN it was so exciting to see a familiar face from home!!  I still can't believe we managed to meet up in NEW ZEALAND!  So we wandered around Wellington for the night, and planned out our next few days.  She wasn't free for a bit of the trip, so we opted to cruise around the North Island to track down sites where they filmed Lord of the Rings, until she was free to come around with us.

Day 4:

We set out the next morning to check out Mount Victoria with Courtney, which is where they filmed the scenes with the hobbits in the woods with the black riders.  The top has an AWESOME view of Wellington, which was so pretty, and after checking that out, we wandered the woods for a bit looking for the sites, but failed to find them :/

We dropped Courtney off in the afternoon since she had interviews to do after checking out the Te Papa museum for a little bit, then we drove off to hunt more LOTR!  We arrived in this place called Otaki where they shot a bunch of scenes with the hobbits fleeing Bree, and saw this really cool canyon in the middle of nowhere, which was pretty sweet, and then drove to Matamata for the night.

Day 5:

We signed up the next morning for a tour of the Hobbiton set in Matamata, which turned out to be super cool!  New Line cinemas apparently required all of the sets to be destroyed as soon as they were done filming, which is why the set only has the frames of the hobbit holes left over, but it was so neat to check it out!  We roamed around there on our tour for a while, then at the end got to watch a sheep-shearing demonstration?  Weird.  Oh New Zealand....

Later that day we made our way to Tongariro National Park where Mount Doom is located, but due to shoddy map-work, were unable to find a way INTO the actual part to get to the base, so we only got pictures from afar.  Curse you Mount Doom!  In our attempt to get into the park, we turned onto this road which apparently lead to a ski-resort, but began as gravel....then rocks.....then deep sand....yeah we opted to turn around before our rental car died....that would have been BAD.

Day 6:

After stopping in Wanganui for the night, we went to check out Rivendell, which was pretty much just woods, but again was really pretty and was neat to hike around in.  On our way back to Wellington, we checked out the park where they filmed Isenguard scenes and where they shot some of the Anduin river scenes too.  SUCH a nerd :D  

Once we got back to Wellington, we met up with Courtney and her friend again and grabbed dinner at this really tasty Indian place before turning in for the night and preparing for SKYDIVING!!

Day 7:

We woke up WAY too early, grabbed Courtney, and drove BACK to Taupo for skydiving, except on getting there, the weather looked.....bad.  REALLY cloudly, going through spurts of rain.  Not what you want to see when you're running out of time and want to jump out of a plane....So we ended up just riding around the Taupo area killing time for a few hours hoping the weather would improve.  We did stop at this glass-blowing place where Courtney and I watched a SUPER cool demonstration and had some good talking time, before heading back to the skydiving place with fingers crossed....

When we got there, they said we could wait around for LONGER to see if the weather cleared up.  We didn't have much other option, since we had come too far to give up at that point, and finally there was a break in the weather and they said we could jump!

SO we got suited up and were tingling with nerves, and climbed into this tiny tin-can of a plane and climbed up to 12000 feet, connected to our tandem instructors.  I AGAIN was the first to have to go, so they slide the door of the plane open, and we are ABOVE the clouds.  EEK!  I shimmeyed over to the edge, gave one last frantic look at the camera, and tumbled out of the plane!  It was really scary at first because you feel yourself in complete free-fall, but once you hit your terminal velocity, you just feel like you're floating, and it was so cool!

Then my instructor pulled the chute and we got to parachute down through the clouds and cruise around on the air currents for a bit checking out the awesome scenery from 4000 feet over Lake Taupo!

A pretty sweet end to the week, I must say.  All in all, New Zealand was great.  It's a beautiful country, and I enjoyed getting to wander around in nature for a week and getting my adrenaline rushes and seeing Courtney :D

Now it's back to the real world of.....papers due on thursday etc. etc.  ARG!

Promotions and Spelunking...

So, I've been going to BJJ a lot recently and whatnot, and on Tuesday night, Carmen announced that one of her friends was going to be running the class.  I see this girl walk in, wearing a judo gi, and got SO excited.  She had been doing judo since she was 8, and had been a black belt for about 8 years, fights on the Australian national team....so...pretty much a badass.  She worked with us a lot on standup, and I learned so much about breaking grips/getting grips, that it was just a really cool class.  I found out that she has trained judo at Yong-In too!  That was so exciting to find another person who has trained there!  And, how convenient, I was wearing my Yong-In t-shirt under my uniform that day :D

After practice, Carmen told everyone to take off their belts and form 2 lines, making a tunnel of people, at the end of which, the black belt (Kit) stood, in front of the crash pad.  Nobody knew what was going on, until suddenly Carmen started calling people to run through the tunnel while getting whipped by belts, only to get thrown by the black belt.  Then at the end, Carmen started tying on new belts.  Suddenly, I hear MY name called!  I got promoted to my next stripe!  So I am currently 2/4 stripes on my white belt, hoping to get my third before I leave :D

As for recent activities, today.....I went spelunking.  Technically they call it caving, but it's not as interesting sounding, so I'm sticking with spelunking.  Now you might think spelunking involves walking through big open spaces in caves?  Not OUR spelunking.  This involves repelling down into the cave with helmets/headlamps, being told by our guides that they weren't going to tell us the way out, and to find it for ourselves......So as we started wandering through, people somehow decided that I should lead the way....

This was freaky, given that I had no idea where I was going, and could only see within the beam of my headlamp, in the otherwise COMPLETE darkness.  The caves also weren't exactly open spaces.  On SEVERAL occasions, the only way to move forward was to squeeze through an opening on your stomach or back or slide down a rock, all of which, were COVERED in mud.  SO needless to say, upon leave the caves....we.....were GROSS.  My pants are completely covered in dirt/mud/cave grime.  And I LOVE it.

41 days, 6 hours, and 52 minutes before the day I leave Melbourne.  Where has the time gone?

BELT TEST!

I officially have the greatest friends ever.  Andrew from YMD brought his laptop to the belt test, and after connecting to the internet, set up a video-chat with me via our macs so that I could watch the test!  It was the coolest thing ever!  It was SO good to get to see everyone again, even though it made me miss them that much more, and I can't believe how awesome Melanie did on her test!!  It just got me even more excited to get back to YMD and train hard.

Though it was pretty funny to be able to hear all the conversations around me, but have nobody be able to hear me.  Did that stop me from audibly cheering and clapping in the downstairs study room of RMIT at 3 a.m.?  NO!

My fighting spirit is renewed (not that it needed renewing in the first place, but you get the point), and I am heading back to kickboxing today to make myself even more tired than I already am, due to my lack of sleep and insomnia.  WOO!

I love my YMDers!

Sore Arm

So not much has been happening in the post-competition week.  School has finally toned back down (though I BOMBED my microbiology exam, but so did everyone else, so I guess it's not just me).  Tuesday's practice was hilarious, as it involved the entire girls team sitting on the crash pad watching the videos of our fights and talking about how massive the other girls at the competition were (Amazons, pretty much...) and drank wine and had pizza while the guys had a legitimate practice.  Standard...

Wednesday Richard made me do a CrossFit workout with him, which was evil, especially since I had inhaled a bunch of ramen immediately prior to said workout.....Afterwards we watched the Family Guy movie, which I now plan on purchasing, given how freakin funny it is :D

Thursday was mostly bumming around and trying to work again before practice, which was no-gi this time, for a change of pace.  We were all in a really weird/giddy mood at practice though, so we blame it on the spandex....Afterwards we went to grab dinner since it was Suzy's last practice, and got Korean (my favorite :/)  During said dinner, Robin and I decided that we're going to make instructional videos for our new pioneering field of martial arts.....cozy-jitsu.....stay tuned for further updates.

Today consisted of me getting multiple needles stuck in my arm :/  I had to go get a bunch of vaccines before my month of traveling in July so I don't die in some SE Asian jungle....Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Influenza, and Polio.  OW.  Also got a "Gastro Kit" for any food poisoning adventures that I might run into....lovely.  

Tonight is bowling with the BJJ team.  Should be....interesting?  I think?  hmmmm

Victorian State Championships

Yesterday was....a tiring experience.  I woke up at 8 just due to sheer nerves, and because I wasn't sure if I was going to make weight, I could have an apple initially for breakfast until after weigh-in, so I was kind of tired and grumpy on the way there :/  I arrive and initially don't feel any nerves, since I was still outside the mat room, but as soon as I crossed inside to drop my bags off, it kicked in HARD.  I tried to just not think about anything, and went to weigh in, and thank god, made weight!  

However, upon checking the fight tree, I saw that my friend Suzie and I were in the same division, and if we each won our fights, we'd have to fight each other for the title :/  I had no earthly idea when I was supposed to fight though, because there was NO fight schedule anywhere to be found, so literally I had put on my uniform to get ready to warm up, and I was called to the ring.  GREAT.  

I then found out that the girl I was supposed to fight was not only almost a blue belt, but was the DAUGHTER of the guy who runs the competition.  Lovely.  This'll go well...So I step onto the mat, heart absolutely POUNDING in my chest, and get ready to fight.

The refs hand drops, and the fight starts, and my brain starts looking for the flying armbar.  I get my sleeve grip, am aiming for the collar grip.....and she tries to pull me into guard.  Plan foiled.  This is the part of the fight that my brain apparently blacked out during because I have NO memory of any of this happening....weird huh?

As she was trying to pull me into guard, I stayed standing and tried to pass from there.  Somewhere during this process I got swept onto my back, but managed to pull her into guard.  This is where she scored her only points during the fight.  The rest of the fight was MINE.  I kept my guard tight and high under her arms, and spent the next 5 minutes of the fighting breaking her down low and going for the choke.  I had to tune out all the screaming from the sides, and only hone in on 2 voices, Carmen's and Rob's (our black belt).  I listened to Carmen, kept my hips tight and right on my opponent, and managed to break her down enough to feed for the choke.  Then I popped her head up with my legs and worked my hand under and the choke was ON.  It was tight, it was precise, and I was cranking it.  This girl's LIPS were turning purple.  But she WOULDN'T tap!  So by this point she managed to feed a hand though and break the choke, so it was back to square one *sigh*.  I was SO close to ending the fight.  I opted to try for the armbar instead, but didn't get her arm tight enough to shoot for it.  By this point, the fight ended, and despite being the technically better fighter, I lost :(

After the fight, Rob came up to me and told me that I fought incredibly well, especially for my first BJJ competition, and that I was a "machine" haha.  I wasn't overall disappointed in my performance, because I know I fought well, but I'm just frustrated that I lost a fight to someone who wasn't as technically sound of a fighter as I am, and that my main issue was nerves getting to me.  So that put me out of the shot for the title, which made me sad, because I really wanted the chance to fight again :(

However, later in the day, we started to realize that the judging at the tournament was.....less than objective.....Apparently referees had been docking points from fighters who spent the entire fight in their opponent's guard, and didn't appear to be trying to pass or anything (EXACTLY what my girl did), yet they didn't dock points from my opponent, which would have caused me to win the fight.  How convenient that the director's daughter doesn't lose points?!  Arg, that was really annoying.  They also apparently broke up MULTIPLE fights of our competitors BEFORE they tapped out, claiming safety reasons, even though they were about to break the submission and keep the fight going.....

However, there were redeeming factors to my loss.  First off, I was talking to the guys, and apparently BECAUSE this girl is the director's daughter, she is pretty much not ALLOWED to tap out of fights, so even if you break her arm or choke her out, she won't submit, and YOU'LL probably get DQ'd for hurting her.  So there really isn't a way to win.....But I did make her cry after our fight.  A combination of her almost losing the fight with me choking her that hard I guess made her sad?  Oops....

Anyway, I did learn a lot from my fight, and now want to improve more than ever, so I guess the training is ON.  Congrats to everyone who fought yesterday, you all did incredibly well.  Though.....let's NEVER stay at a tournament from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. EVER AGAIN

Cheers to being the #3 female white-belt under 55 kg I suppose!

Pre-Fight Jitters

Tonight is the big night.  Tomorrow morning, I will wake up, pack some breakfast (can't eat until after weigh in), and take a taxi down to the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Center to take part in my first ever Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition.  My gi is neatly folded and resting in my gear bag, I have clif bars and powerbars (thanks Michelle), a freshly mixed bottle of powerade is cooling in the fridge, my spare clothes are laid out.  Everything is ready.  Except for ME.  

I am feeling the nerves.  I have that pit in my stomach that I always get right before I fight.  I know I have nothing to prove to anyone, but the standards I have for myself are high.  I want to make Carmen proud, I want to make everyone back in Berkeley proud, and I want to be proud of myself.  But then again, I also want it to be fun and light-hearted and not overly serious competition.  Funny how my brain works, huh?

I think I'm going to go for the armbar.  It's risky and tricky and the timing has to be spot on, and I know I've had this debate a million times, and will probably have it a million more times before tomorrow, but I think I'm just gonna force myself to go for it.  Why not, right? (rhetorical question, don't answer that).

I'm really excited to watch everyone fight.  I'm a little nervous though, b/c my competitive spirit tends to mirror that of my opponent, so I don't want to walk into it thinking it'll be some nice friendly fun and get ROCKED.  That would suck.  Hrm...constant vigilance.  I'm going to mentally go through my game one more time before bed, and then tomorrow I will face the moment I have been directing my training towards for two months.  

Of course, that is assuming that I get sleep.  Which could be hindered by the fact that Shuyen has decided that tonight would be an excellent night to badly play loud, out of tune guitar.  If this keeps up much longer, I will go break that guitar on her FACE.  And THEN flying armbar her for good measure.... 

Wish me luck! (not that I will receive said luck by tomorrow, but who knows, a time change might save me :D)

To any martial artists reading this, I want to say thanks for helping me get this far in my training, you all are the BEST!

Richard! Hike your belt up!

*sigh*  My entire life is currently centered around training.  And midterms.  Both hurt.  I have my microbiology exam on friday, so we'll see how that goes over.  I think it's gonna be pretty hard, so I've been trying to spend the week studying, but it's hard when I have to interrupt to go train for 2-3 hours, and my brain keeps drifting to the competition.  I HAVE to hit the flying armbar.  I just have to.  There is no other option.  

I went up to Rob and asked him for advice, and was told "um.....aim high, and uh....don't fall on your head and get a concussion like I did.  But I slipped.  So don't slip".  Great....Thanks Rob...On a good note, I learned SO much in the past week from Carmen and everybody else on certain techniques, and can actually see the improvement, that it's amazing.  I finally learned how to be really technical and effective in getting an armbar from guard, and how to stabilize mount WITHOUT getting swept, which is awesome.  Whatever, it'll be fun no matter what, and I know the day of the tournament I'll be much more in fighting spirit.  I can't wait until after the comp is over though, and after midterms are done, so I can get back to kickboxing, finally start exploring Melbourne, and train BJJ for technique, rather than having Carmen work us into the ground :/

Here's hoping I don't fail my midterm, and that I don't fail my tournament either!

Kangaroo Assault

Well....today was interesting....We went to Phillip Island, which is pretty much a giant outdoor wildlife sanctuary.  Did the whole "oh look wild koalas" thing, and then we hit up this open-range zoo, where you can walk around with food and feed the wildlife, which was pretty cool/terrifying.  I fed a cassouary, which apparently can be the deadliest bird on earth (HUGE claws).  Those things scare the crap out of me.  They look like giant dinosaur birds (reminiscent of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park).  *shudder*  There was also the generic wallaby feeding, which is always cute, but THEN came the kangaroos.  

It was all fun and games for a while, fed a momma kangaroo and got to pet the joey in her pouch, which was ADORABLE.  But the kangaroos get really excited that you have a bag of food which you're carrying around, so they get really bold and start approaching you and grabbing at the food bag in your hand.  That was fine when the kangaroos were little, but then we found the BIG guy.

This roo was seriously as tall as I am when he would sit upright, and was REALLY strong.  Wanna know how I know that?  The damn thing attacked me for the food bag.  He grabbed onto my jacket and was pulling at me trying to get the food.  Remember how I said my friends from martial arts wanted me to box a roo?  Well today, that in essence happened, since I practically punched the stupid thing to get it to let go.  We all approached with caution after that point, especially when he ate the BAG that the food was in......hrm.....he also started barking and clawing at any smaller kangaroos that would come around us trying to get food.  What a fatass.....

After that, things were fine, and we headed to the beach to watch the penguins!  We got our seats as the sun was setting right on the sand, and waited and sure enough, got to watch loads of little penguins shuffling out of the water to get back to their nests on the shore!!  It was the CUTEST thing I have ever seen.  They would come in groups, and would all wait on the beach until everyone was together so they could run up the dunes in groups for safety.  Funniest thing I've seen in a LONG time. :D

Anyways, other than that, training is eating my life as usual.  Carmen made us do 5 rounds of 5 minutes of sparring back to back nonstop, which destroyed us.  Thank god this week is going to be about technique, not conditioning any more.  I need to get my game strategy up to par.  I spent the entire bus ride back from Phillip Island getting mentally prepared, running through scenarios, so I just hope I can pull things out....

Midterm this friday, 2 papers due monday.  *sigh*  The list grows longer every day...

Climbing (Rocks AND People)

Hello loyal readers, sorry for the lag in updates.

As of Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., I boarded a bus and headed out towards the Grampian mountain range for 3 days of climbing goodness.  After promptly passing out on the bus, I awoke when we arrived at our first climbing location.  Our group was only made up of 7 other people and our 2 guides (Steffan and Will) so we were going to get a lot of climbs in.  We headed up to the wall, and got oriented (re-oriented for me) with knot tying, belaying, general climbing technique, then hit the wall.  It had been a little while since I climbed, so it took me a climb to get my bearings again, but going into the climbs with the mentality of focusing on my footwork and climbing with my feet instead of my arms really helped me not tire out and I got through one pretty tough climb :D

After climbing for about 4 hours, we headed out to our campground to get set up and make some dinner, and promptly proceeded to PASS OUT.  I haven't fallen asleep that fast in a long time, and got some much needed rest.  UNTIL Steff and Will woke us up at 7:00 the next morning to get up and ready for our next bit of climbing.  Our location this time was directly by our camp, so we just walked over and were ready to go.

The climbs were definitely more challenging.  One of them lead up into this cave that I was desperate to get into, but it was an overhand, and I couldn't quite manage the technique needed to get up and over to reach the cave :(  I did manage two pretty hard climbs based around these big cracks in the wall, which was good.  Though I went pretty hard for the 4 hours in the morning, and realized that I still had to climb for the rest of the day :/  My hands were starting to get pretty torn up from digging into the sandstone for so long, so when we got to our second climb for the day, I tried taping up my fingertips, to no avail.

We went up to the top of the ridge to watch Will set up the climb, so we knew what went into holding us up.  By that point, the low-comfort of our harnesses (seat-belt material) and our shoes (the only ones that fit me had holes in the toes which....are kind of critical for gripping) was starting to wear on me.  I did 2 fun climbs, but again, burned out on this one really tough overhang :/  We then headed into town to a pub, then returned to our campground to pass out.

The next morning, we completely took down camp, and headed to our final climb site of the day.  There were entire gradients of climbs from super-easy ones, to one REALLY hard one.  I decided to push myself and try the hardest one, which was just a thin crack in the wall between these two corners, meaning that I had to try to cram my fingers into the crack and plant my feet against opposing walls to stand up.  It was by far the most technical climb I did, but I was the only person to get up it besides out guides!!  I was really proud of myself for that one.

Anyways, now that I'm back today, I got resettled in my classes, and more importantly (obviously) back in BJJ.  Practice was really good, and Carmen definitely put us through the paces.  However, then she decided to host a mock tournament, and paired me against Jo (blue belt, about my same size) to fight for 6 minutes (full minute longer than my fight will be).  Needless to say, we both went pretty all out.  I keep forgetting that in BJJ people can pull guard and gain points, so that's exactly what Jo did.  She nearly got a triangle on me, but I avoided it pretty solidly, and all in all, while she definitely held the advantage the whole fight, I managed a good sweep and lasted NEARLY the entire fight without getting submitted.  She caught me in a choke right near the end, but I was glad I did as well as I did.

I'm still tossing around the flying armbar idea, and I think I'm gonna just do it.  I'm gonna practice more with some of the girl ot get the rhythm of it, and hopefully I'll nail it and win my fight!

Other than that, tonight I'm gonna try to finish up some of my lectures and maybe start on my BMB essays, just to get some busy-work out of the way.  Bleh.  I'm gonna skip TKD for the rest of this week to get some more BJJ mat time.

On a travel note, Phillip Island and surf trips this weekend!  Hooray for surfing!!

Chimp Soccer!

Hmmm....Thursday's practice was....hilarious to say the least.  I got there early to work flying armbars with Richard, but we ended up playing chimp soccer with Carmen's mini-soccer ball.  Probably the best game of all time.  It involves running around on hands and feet like chimps, and then grabbing the ball with your feel, and rolling over backwards, thus hurling the ball across the mat.  Surprisingly entertaining and provides an excellent way to return to childhood feelings of being high energy and kind of stupid :D  

I finally did end up working flying armbars with Richard, just to get back in the swing of it.  I'm ok on the motion itself, but I need more practice on hitting it with a moving target :/  I also need to get a little more height and momentum to physically pull the person down.  I can technically GET the armbar from upside down, but it's a little easier and a more guaranteed submission from the ground.....hmmm

That night, Stathi's mom invited all us international kids over for dinner, and I can't remember the last time I've eaten that much.  Fresh roast beef, salad, shrimp, bread w/feta cheese, seasoned potatoes, HUGE cake. God.  It was the best night of my life.  I officially love Greek people.  His mom was great and was treating us like we were family and inviting us to Greece and all this awesome stuff.  

Tomorrow I leave early early early in the morning for a joyous 3 days rock climbing trip :D  It's gonna suck to wake up that early, but climbing is gonna be amazing.  So needless to say, I will be out of commission for the next three days, but updates to come on monday :D

Other than that, I FINALLY got my neuroscience report done, and Christine is gonna drop it off for me on Monday, which is nice to have off my mind.  However, my Islam assignment is still incomplete, as is my stupid BMB essay.  Argggg.  I might try to crank out some of my essay when I have downtime on my trip, just so I don't have to worry about it.  

Anyways, see you kids in a few days, picture update to come :D

Flying Armbar!

Today was semi-productive.  I woke up and tried to do a little more research for my neuroscience lab report, which turned out to be unsuccessful, then headed to class for BMB, which was boring as usual.  I then had to go downtown to print a bunch of papers I needed for my classes since the stupid printer at RMIT is missing in action.  Thanks, jerks.  

Following that, I had to go make up my neuroscience lab which I missed last week, which upon arriving I realized I didn't even NEED to go to b/c it was stupid.  I sat in a room for an hour clicking through a multimedia file on polysomnography (studying sleep), and learned....nothing.  Great.  I'm really beginning to hate labs here.  Arg.  They're either waaaay too hard, or mind-numbing.  Whatever.

I came back and got ready for my first day back at BJJ, which I was really excited for.  I hopped on the tram and headed down to practice, and was immediately glad I was there.  I had my toe buddy taped and felt good.  Then....warmup started.  Carmen was determined to drill us into the floor.  We got in a circle and proceeded to do drills counting off sets one by one, which is normally fine except when you have FIFTEEN people in the circle and you're trying to do sets of judo pushups.....I DIED.  We then did 200 squats, 200 lunges, psycho ab work, and other painful drills of joy.  However, somewhere during those drills, I managed to tweak my toe, despite it being taped >.<  It hurt REAL bad.  So we then started working some drills from full-mount, which I needed, and managed to get my side-mount a little more solid.

I talked to Carmen for a while about a strategy for my tournament.  I need to work my judo/takedowns a LOT to be ready for the standing portion.  As for the ground part of the fight, I think I'm going to try to either take guard and spend the whole fight attacking from there, and force my opponent to defend, leaving no time for the pass OR I'm gonna let my opponent pull guard, and then spend the fight working my way past guard and trying to get side control, and attack from there.  I really learned a lot from Carmen today about tournament strategy and how to stay more mobile and offensive.

I threw out the idea of possibly attempting a flying armbar during the tournament....see picture below:

Carmen was surprisingly supportive of the idea, telling me that if I could hold myself steady enough to get the technique, that I should go for it.  I've done flying armbars before, so I think I might try for it during the fight.  If I'm fighting another white belt, I might have the surprise factor behind the attack too, and might be able to catch them off-guard enough to pull it out.  Who knows, we'll see.....  But I think I'm gonna practice flying armbars for a while each practice to at least leave it as a viable option.  I might get a spurt of CRAZY during my fight and use it :D

On that note, I have SO much work to do, as usual, so I'm gonna go try to crank out 1000 words on modern interpretations of the Qur'an by Western scholars.  *BLEH*

Suck on THAT, Ocean!!

This weekend was great.  I got up super-early on Saturday for my Great Ocean Road trip with the outdoors program, which was kicked off with 2 hours of surfing goodness :D  At first I was less than enthused about it, both because of my prior surfing toe dislocation, and the fact that the temperature was....low.  But, regardless, I suited up in my wetsuit, felt somewhat like a chubby penguin, and waddled down to the beach carrying boards.  We were surfing at Anglesea beach, which is pretty much perfect for beginning surfers, as the waves are small, not too steep, and don't come in too fast.

So once I got in the water, I awaited my first wave aaaaand........WIPED OUT!  Wooooo.  I'm a champion surfer, I think I'm going to go pro.  Well, after my initial wipeout, I actually started doing pretty well, and managed to paddle into and catch a good number of waves, which was really exciting!! :D  Eventually though, the sun went away, and the water temperature dropped, leaving my toes feeling like artificial appendages on my feet, so I had to keep checking every now and then for dislocations, just to make sure, since I couldn't feel anything.  But, I taped my injured toe up, and it managed to survive the 2.5 hours of surfing, so yay!  

Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch, and headed over to Erskin falls (same waterfall I saw with Stathi) which was nice since there was a little more water this time.  We jumped the rail and walked up to the waterfall itself which is really pretty up close.  Following that adventure, we checked out some little lookout points along this river, and stopped for a couple photo ops.  Before we decided to pass out at our hostel though, we stopped by this place to see if we could spot any wild koalas, and low and behold, there was one that had climbed down and was just chowing down on some eucalyptus right at chest height!  We got so close to it, it was ridiculous!

Then we apparently heard from our guide how koalas are kind of like gremlins, in that they seem super-cute, but if you touch them or get in their face at all, they will turn into crazy hell-beasts.  He said there was one in the road once, and he tried to move it off the road by picking it up in a mattress pad, since poking it failed, and as soon as he picked it up, it went bonkers and started howling and clawing at him >.<  For something so cute, they sure do have big claws....we also learned that the reason koalas sleep so much is that when they metabolize the eucalyptus, it has a narcotic effect on them....so there you go, folks, koalas are the hippie-stoners of the natural world.  They sleep and get high.....wow

OH!  Also as we were driving, we saw a wild echidna in someone's front yard, and a few houses down, there were FOUR kangaroos just chillin in this yard, so we obviously had to back the van up and go take pictures (no the novelty of kangaroos doesn't wear off at any point).  Apparently they're kind of the pets of the guy who lives there.  This kindly old guy came out with roo food and said he rescued them off the road after their mom was hit, and has been taking care of them for over a year now!  They would go right up to him and paw at him for food!  It was so cute/hilarious!!  I officially want a kangaroo as a pet....

Anyways, we got to our hostel, where Christine and I promptly passed out while everybody else went to dinner/pub crawling.  We were so wiped from surfing/insomnia that it just wasn't worth trying to stay conscious.  Though the random people outside our room talking for half the night meant we didn't get much sleep AGAIN.

Today we cruised around and checked out the 12 Apostles, and some other rock formations (the Arch, etc.) which was cool to see again.  Other than that, that's really all today has been made of.  Once I got back to RMIT, it was a sad return to the reality of my assignments :/

I've made SOME progress on my lab report at least.  I've gotten pretty much all the details for it off the website, have done my methods section (which was cut & paste...) and am reading the background experiment at the moment.  It's hard because I get so much more information out of hard copies of things, but the RMIT printer is absent....hmmm....I think tomorrow before class I'm gonna try to print all the materials I need, so I can just crank this bad boy out.  

I have to write 1000 words per day for the next WEEK to give myself breathing room to study for my microbiology exam and to have time to go out again :/  *DOH*

Solid Food? Yes Please!

Today has been the uneasy transition to solid food.  I awoke pretty tired due to a crappy round of insomnia last night (it's getting more frequent :/) and decided it was time to try some solid food again.  So I had a bowl of cereal, which, after not eating for 2 days was super-filling and didn't sit too well at first, but I kept it down and felt a little more energized afterwards. 

I dashed to campus and picked up a book for my Islamic studies class that FINALLY arrived at the bookstore and realized that b/c it's been out for so long, I pretty much have to read....the WHOLE THING.  aw crap.  Add it to the eternal list of things to do....

So once I got back, I decided it was time to get back on the horse in terms of working out, and headed down to the kickboxing gym, but opted to just hit the treatmill instead of trying anything that might torque my toe (which I had safely buddy-taped inside my shoe :D).  Given that I've been completely nutrient-deprived and recovering from food poisoning, I guess I did alright, but I totally gassed out around the 24 (not counting warmup) minute mark.  I managed to push through a super-intense side cramp and make it to almost 4 kms, so I think I'll just have to take it slow for a few days before I'm back up to speed.  My quads were COMPLETELY shot afterwards though, and my whole back got super-tense, I guess from the unexpected work, so I opted out of BJJ for one more day to rest up some more.  

Again, I spent the rest of the day trying to catch up on work.  Even though I was mostly caught up on wednesday, the amount of classes I missed between then and today gave me more stuff to do *sigh*.  I want to have a social life again!!  Because my body responded a little shakily to the cereal in the morning, I switched back to a chicken soup diet for the rest of the day, to stave off any relapses, but I think by tomorrow, I should be back to normal :D

Saturday I leave for 2 days for a group trip to the Great Ocean Road again, but this time with more hiking and surfing!!!  I'm really excited for that, and tomorrow is Thai food with Stathi, so I'm pretty pumped for that too.

Man, I gotta stretch tonight, or TKD tomorrow is gonna suckkkk.....

Recovery

Today has been.....slow.  I woke up still feeling pretty gross, but I managed to make it through the night without another puking spell.....*yay*....it's the little things, really.  I opted to skip class today to recover, as I didn't want to risk exacerbating things and putting myself out for LONGER.  So I spent the day listening to lectures that I've missed and catching up on work, which has actually taken all day.

My appetite still isn't really back yet, which is mildly concerning, given the fact that my only caloric intake for the past 2 days has been gatorade, but I'm hoping by tomorrow my energy will be back up, and hopefully my appetite too.  I was hoping to have a more controlled method of cutting weight for my tournament, but I suppose medically induced fasting works too :/

Tomorrow will be my first day back in the gym, so we'll see how it goes.  I'm not gonna do kickboxing or any bare-foot activities that involve me twisting on my toe to avoid injury, so I think I'm gonna hit the treadmill and try to build up some cardio before doing weights.  I'll head back to BJJ tomorrow night and see how my toe handles things.  I'm definitely not gonna be rolling hard though.  I'll probably just focus more on conditioning and technique than actual sparring.  If my toe is still mad, I'll probably just take Jen's advice and cut it off......hah

Life has significantly slowed down here with the sudden arrival of.....work.  I feel like I'm back in Berkeley again!  It's suddenly normal to not go out every single night of the week.  How odd!  Though I'm sure May will pick back up again :D

Lab report due in 2 weeks, Islam paper due in 3, BMB papers due in 3, micro midterm in 3.  EEK!  Curse you learning!

Screw you, health care!

So the past 2 days have really just consisted of me hating the Australian health care system.  I opted to go to the student health center to make sure my toe was set properly.  So after picking up my insurance card, I got to the desk to make an appointment, and the lady tells me that I could see a nurse right then if I wanted to, which sounded good to me, so I took a seat and waited.....

After an HOUR of waiting, I get called in to see the nurse, at which point (without so much as LOOKING at my toe) tells me that it's probably fine and I need to see a doctor if I really want it looked at.....All I needed was for her to check the alignment of my toe, which as a nurse, she should be qualified to do.....but I was so pissed at that point that I just left and went home, rolling my toe in the process since I had taken my tape off thinking it was going to be examined....

That night, around 3 a.m., things turned UGLY.  I woke up not feeling....good, and spent the next 3 hours in and out of bed, throwing up nonstop.  It was pretty cracking.  I eventually spent the rest of the night/morning in a ball in my bed, throwing up into a bucket for the next few hours.  I was getting pretty concerned since I couldn't keep fluids down (just rinsing my mouth with water would cause another spell of puking :/) so I opted to go to the health center again. 

I took a cab over since I didn't think I could walk that far, and who do I get to see?  The SAME nurse who turned me away for my toe.  She proceeded to tell me that it was just probably some gastric bug, and since they didn't know if it was an infection or not (IT'S FOOD POISONING, THAT IIIIIS AN INFECTION!!) there wasn't anything they could do and nothing they could give me......though I could think of a bunch of things they could have given me....antibiotics....anti-nausea....a sedative even, so I didn't have to spend the rest of the day in agony?  Nope.  I was told to "sleep it off".......it's a bad sign when a Korean hospital takes better care of you than an Australian.....hrm

So needless to say, I've spent the rest of the day alternating between sleeping and desperately trying to rehydrate with gatorade.....bleh.  We'll see if I feel good enough to make it to class tomorrow, given that I missed it today :/

That reminds me of how insanely behind I am in school!  aaahhhh!  Random assignments keep getting talked about on my class websites, but then when I look for more information about it, I can't find it anywhere?!  Is there something I'm just missing?  I hate the way classes are run here, it's so annoying!!!

Anyways, I'm sleepy again, sitting takes too much energy, so it's bedtime......w00t

"Ok Evan, this is where we're going to RACE"

Despite doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on Friday (primarily due to toe immobility), Saturday was pretty incredible.  Ignoring the painfully early 7 a.m. wake-up after a night of insomnia, I met up with Camille and Melissa and a bunch of other uni kids for SEA KAYAKING!  We hopped into the van and headed out for this place called Portsea, and were initially pretty bummed b/c it started raining on the way, and that plus being tired + injured made me not too excited....

However, once we got to the drop point and unloaded the boats and everything, the sun came out!  We paddled around to this place that used to be a quarantine station for boats coming into Melbourne, where they would burn anything they deemed to be contaminated with disease, to try to keep Melbourne clean.  Then we headed over to this really nice quiet beach for lunch, before hitting the water again.  We were about to head around this point when all the sudden we saw wild dolphins in the water!  We promptly turned around and started following them, and next thing I knew, we were in the middle of a pack of at least 10 dolphins that were swimming around our kayaks!

It was so unbelievably awesome!  The dolphins were getting so close I probably could have reached out and touched one if I wanted too, and they kept making passes under our boats, so that at one point I looked over the side to see the white belly of a dolphin passing underneath me!  SO COOL!!!

After we got back to the van though, we were BEAT.  4+ hours of nonstop paddling will do that to you......

That night I didn't really do much, due to being so tired.  Camille came over, and she and I, along with Christine, opted to watch bad horror movies, and watched 30 Days of Night (least scary horror movie I think I've ever seen).....blech

Today has also been uneventful, apart from getting a glorious amount of sleep, and then getting abducted by Stathi.  He picked up me, Christine and Camille and drove us around Melbourne, showing us some of the sights, and took us over to St. Kildas, which was quite possibly one of the coolest places on earth!  It reminded me of a livelier, cleaner version of Berkeley.  It had loads of independent shops and cafes and whatnot, and of course it has Luna Park!  I've been DYING to check out Luna Park, mainly because of the massive face at the entrance to it (google it).

It has such a genius concept for a theme park, since admission is actually free!  You only pay for the rides you want to go on, which is so awesome, because if you don't like it, you're not out 50$ :)  So we wandered around St. Kildas for a while, hitting up the pier, market, and some cafes (got churros w/melted chocolate mmmmmm) before heading home. 

And until now I've just been gathering more information on my assignments and at least PLANNING on getting some work done :/  It's daylight savings here, so we gained an extra hour today, which is awesome, but now I'm super tired and it's only 8:45!

Tomorrow is gonna consist of loads of errands (making a stupid dr.'s appt for my foot being top of the list :/) *grumble grumble hate being injured grumble*

Stirfry and Gi Chokes

Bleh, today was ok.  I got up for BMB discussion (I really don't know why I bother going) and again proceeded to live within minutes of arriving, after learning that we were going to be discussion slides I looked over last night, which consisted of describing what a "population" is, in statistical terms....blech.  So yeah, I headed out again, but I got some postcards mailed (be checking the mailbox!)  Then I peaced out for kickboxing class.  Today was alright, except I felt like I was getting NO power behind my kicks and knees at all!  Hrm....need to somehow get my TKD kicking technique sharp enough that I can borrow some of their power without sacrificing speed.

I ran into Jo (one of my BJJ training partners) after kickboxing and chatted with her for so long I actually ended up missing boxing!  But we had a nice little chat and whatnot, at which point I headed back to RMIT, and did a little more work before heading out to BJJ.

Practice was SO fun today.  Carmen likes to warm us up by playing tag, which is always fun, and makes me feel like such a kid.  Everybody just gets this really playful/childish look on their faces, and it's just great.  Afterwards, Carmen brought out this mini-soccer ball, and made us all get down on our knees and try to toss the ball around to score and whatnot.  That was SUCH a fun game, and I'm definitely bringing it back to YMD.

Afterwards it was down to business with conditioning drills and whatnot, during which I learned a new super-cool gi choke, which I plan on utilizing ASAP.  Need to work on smoothing my transitions to omoplatas (shoulder locks) though, they're pretty lumpy.  However, the end of practice turned a bit ugly for me.  I think I either broke or dislocated part of my 4th toe on my left foot.  I was rolling with this guy, and because the mats have a lot of friction, as I was turning and getting moved, part of my foot moved, and another part....didn't.  So I opted to leave practice a little early, and when I checked my foot as I was leaving, my toe was massively swollen and the tip of it was/is......loose?  Hrm.....am concerned.  I will definitely be doing some preventative taping from now on, as I can't afford to get injured before the tourney.  

Glad I've got my TKD shoes for tomorrow!  Hrm, that reminds me that I need to practice my forms before workout tomorrow.....curse you Jeremy, for making me learn 3 forms!

Um....where's my class?

Today was kind of random.  I got up for Islamic Studies, which was pretty slow today, spaced out through most of it, also spaced out through BMB, what w/learning the various theories of emotion AGAIN.  Some of it I've never learned before, but we're sort of moving out of that material, so it's back to boredom.  Then, however, my day got interesting.  I hiked over to where my microbiology class was....SUPPOSED...to meet.  I just recently found the lecture theatre where they moved the class to, so I was really proud that I got to class on monday, but when I returned to said theatre today....there was some random polisci class in there?  Hrm....I'm positive it was the right theatre, and nothing was mentioned about a room change on the website....did I just miss something?  And the lecture recording is up online, so they apparently had class SOMEWHERE.....*fail*

I returned to RMIT and spent the day putzing around and doing some work until neuroscience at 4:15.  Though on my way to class, I noticed that the weather was kind of freaking out.  The sky was.....brown.  That isn't supposed to happen last time I checked....and the wind apparently maxed out in Melbourne at about 110 km/hr.  For those not on the metric system, that's nearly 70 mph winds......wtf Melbourne.  They're actually debating evacuating downtown due to the weather extremes.  It came on so suddenly, I don't understand.

Luckily for me, I was too busy doing TKD to be outside during the chaos!  I actually wasn't that late for warmup today, which was cool.  We did paddle drill for a bit, and they finally made an intermediate line, so I wasn't feeling totally spastic.  We worked natabans and spin hooks for a good amount of time, which was awesome, since I needed the work.  I need to not start my nataban jump so early so I can actually get enough rotation to land the kick, and I need to wait to extend my spin hooks until I'm closer to my target :(  Other than that, I feel progress is slowly being made :D

Practice then got interesting, as they decided to work forms, which I've never done before.  So back with the white-belts I went.  We learned a "14-step" exercise, which was just basic blocks and punches, and Jeremy was laughing at me for getting bored so easily....oops.  He then attempted to teach us Taeguk Il Jang, the first TKD form, which I already semi-knew just from watching so many belt tests, so at the water break, he pulled me aside and made me learn Taeguk Ee Jang (2nd form) anyways.  Whee for actually being ahead of the learning curve when I get back to Berkeley.  He wants me to learn the 3rd and 4th forms too, just in case I test here, and I could possibly double promote :D  Poomsae (forms) were actually way more entertaining to do than they look, which I was surprised at.

I opted to stay in tonight, and I'm dealing with caffeine withdrawals and possibly staving off a cold and am sore as hell from BJJ, so I'm glad to have a night in.  I'm gonna do a quick stretching session, since I've been horrible about staying on track, and hopefully another one tomorrow morning before class :D