20070115

Had a pretty good weekend. On friday, after work, I went over to Hoorn, and had a great Kung Fu session. During the first class we did a lot of dives, rolls and flips. I got banged up pretty badly during some botched attempts, but nothing severe. The second hour we continued the staff-form we had been doing on and off over the last several months.

My sifu has been incredibly absent, lately. He’s split up with his long-time girlfriend, got another girlfriend, had difficult shifts at work, and, I think, just hasn’t been so motivated to come and teach lately. For the last two years it’s been going steadily downhill, leaving a lot of the responsibility for teaching on my sihing Frank’s shoulders – who has never been very interested in teaching, he’s more of a behind the scenes guy – or my shoulders. It meant that I’ve not progressed as much as I would’ve liked, in favour of teaching others. The same goes for the Kung Fu 4 Kids class that Alwin and I have been teaching almost exclusively. Luckily, Tristram has now joined us, so we have a bit of flexbility in who teaches the classes from week to week, because I certainly can’t make all of them.

The evening afterwards was nice and peaceful. Spent some time with my family, my brother especially. That night I didn’t sleep so well, which seems to be the standard whenever I go over to Hoorn. I’ve been thinking about not going to the friday/saturday classes anymore, but instead give up teaching the saturday class, and just excercising on Wednesday. Sadly, that would mean that I only get to take a single class in a week, instead of the double class on friday.

On saturday I went to teach the Kung Fu 4 Kids class, which saw an interesting problem arise when a new kid, called Sam, from the U.S. joined the class. He’s five years old so he needs a bit of attention. His Dutch is poor, at best, so he needs to be explained everything in English. This means that we have to split up the class. It was a bit difficult to manage, since we can’t simply tell him to pay attention and try to do everything that’s being explained, since he doesn’t understand. I tried to do as much as possible, but I feel that this is going to end up posing a problem that we won’t be able to solve for him. That reminds me, I should write an e-mail to the others about it.

In the afternoon I had a very frustrating shopping experience. Moulsari was of the opinion that I should have some more jeans, but our finances aren’t fantastic at the moment, partly due to the fact that I’m taking her to Paris on wednesday for her birthday, so we decided to scope out the jeans that were on sale. Three hours later I had a pair of jeans, but not after I went through what I can only describe as an absolutely horrible shopping experience to get it. I won’t go into details, but let me just say that when you’re with five people, and all but one of them has an opinion (my brother) it tends to get a little, eh, much.

Anyway, I have new jeans! They look good. :)

Saturday night proved to be entertaining, as Esther was celebrating her birthday. After Mouls and I came home from Hoorn, we lazed about a bit….no wait; I played computer games while she got ready to go out. Hours and a bottle of prosecco later, we left for the pub we were supposed to meet up at. We managed to grab a very fortunate connection of trams to where we needed to go, gave directions to a group of French hipsters looking for a particular nightclub, after which we saved them from almost certain Death by Tram (lijn 14). We got on the Murder Tram and got out near the pub we were meeting up at. There we found a significantly smaller group of people than we had anticipated, but that proved not to be a problem.

After some later arrivals we headed out to the club we were going to go dancing at, and about 4 hours later, Moulsari was, eh, tipsy (to say the least) and giggling at everything. The evening was great, though the music at the club left a little something to be desired. Mouls and I made our way home, but not before stopping at a local junkfood place and picking up some beaks-n-asses souflé and a beaks-n-asses burger to help settle the alcohol we had consumed.

5:33 am: Sleep!

Woke up way too early. Played computer games. Got ready for gaming. Eva came over, and she, Mouls and I drove over to Dennis’ where we met up with Richard and Robin. We talked, had skittles (thanks Ed!) and played a long, and extremely funny game of Munchkin. After a long war of attrition, Richard ended up winning the game. Dennis played extraordinarily well, keeping pretty much every level 9 from reaching level 10 and winning the game. The funniest part of the game was when Robin was forced to give one item to each of the players. In a fit of anger he said (and I’m paraphrasing): “Alright, you get something you can’t use! You get something completely useless! And you, because you’re a dwarf, get a fake beard, which doesn’t do anything!” The way he said it and his expression was pure comedy gold. :)