Category: Journal

Traditionally, I’ve had a tremendously reliable stomach. I could eat anything, past its expiration date or not, with or without fungal growths, with or without a heartbeat and cognition, and I would still be fine. Where lesser men would tremble and fall to the ground, clutching their bellies, crying like children and occassionally bleeding from several orifices, I would walk tall, and unaffected.

My stomach lining was made of asbestos, but alas, not no more. Yesterday it started, and it lasted throughout the day, and well into the night. I went to sleep super-early because the occassional jets of pain were making very tired, but in the middle of the night, the pain woke me up. Well, it’s not really even pain, I guess. It’s just more of an occassional serious discomfort. I hope it fades soon.

Kung Fu 4 Kids!
As some of you know, I sort of help out my Kung Fu teacher every once in a while when he’s busy or feeling like he wants to sit at the sideline and just observe everyone. Because of this, I not only am the senior student at our school, but I’m alsoseen as the senior student and “go to guy” for other students. It also has its drawbacks since I’ve now been roped for our Kung Fu 4 Kids program, which teaches Kung Fu to two groups, 5 to 9 year olds and 10 to 15 year olds. It requires a lot of patience – especially the 5 to 9 year olds. Especially this one particular kid; Lorenzo, my 5 year old archnemesis!

Now, usually it’s my teacher who leads the class, and Alwin, another student, and myself who help out and keep the kids in line. Basically what we do is train with them, so that they have someone to look to when they get stuck, and when they don’t know what’s going on anymore, which, sadly, happens quite a bit. It also means we answer questions from both the kids and the parents, do the warming up, do the stretching excercises, and keep the kids in line. Last Saturday my teacher had to perform Kung Fu at a festival, so Alwin and I were left to our own devices to teach the class. We pulled out our playbook and decided upon some activities and strategies. The ole “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine was chosen, me being the designated Bad Cop. I was pretty hard on them, but not cruel, I feel. I’m a benevolent dictator. An enlightened despot, if you will.

I think I might have scared one of the mothers, though.

Sudoku
So Eva introduced me to the concept of Sudoku, the Japanese puzzle-games that are now so immensely popular in the U.K. It’s a really good waste of time during my morning commute, though I have to be careful not to let it interfere with the reading that I want to get done in that time as well. Basically, they’re a cross between logical matrices and crossword-puzzles. Like Eva commented, crossword-puzzles are usually for people with a good sense of language, while these are like crosswords, only you work with numbers. Alpha vs. beta, it seems. :)

In other news; my the ball of my left foot hurts when I put too much weight on it. Either I’m getting too fat for my feet to support my weight, or I hurt it during Kung Fu or something. Neither option seems unlikely to me.

I always thought online roleplaying games sucked as roleplaying games, and I still think so. With so many players interacting in the same environment at once, it only takes one jackass to ruin the roleplaying, so you’re constantly roleplaying on the level of the lowest common denominator. That’s why people quickly forego roleplaying when playing an online roleplaying game. I think “online adventuring game” is a better term for it, since that’s what you’re left with.

There are certain roleplaying elements that are enforced by the game, such as that you can’t access certain storylines because it wouldn’t be according to your race, class or profession. Or the reputation that you build through your actions in the game that has consequences in the way that NPCs will interact with you, or will interact with you at all. But those are all things that define the boundaries of your role and within that created scope you’ll have to do it yourself, but you can’t, because the game just doesn’t lend itself towards roleplaying.

An interesting observation by MooCow on this very subject.

For my mother’s birthday, somewhere in early December, I promised to take her to see a classical piece in the famousConcertgebouw here in Amsterdam, arguably the building in the Netherlands with the best acoustics and home of the Royal Dutch Orchestra. It took me a long time to find something appropriate to go to, and through a stroke of luck, Sam who works for one of the major sponsors for the Concertgebouw could get some free tickets. We went to see three different pieces.

The first piece was very atmospheric music, almost as if written as the score for a movie, by Dutch composer Hans Kox, calledSix One-act Plays. It was directed by American director Dennis Russell Davies. The second piece, again directed by Davies, was a very experimental piece by the American composer Elliott Carter called Dialogues, with a strange but beautiful piano part for Japanese guest pianist Maki Namekawa. I didn’t like that bit so much, too modern, too experimental. Then, after the break, we got Sergej Prokofjev’s really epic, grand and theatrical Sixth Symphony, which was awesome.

My mother loved the music, as well as the dinner we had with Eva and Sam before hand. All in all, it took a while to set it all up, but it was worth it.

The coming few weeks/months are going to be pretty hectic. Going to see Moulsari soon, after that I’ll have to move, just in time for Jim, Tex, Lindsay, Simon and Jan to come over. And then on top of all of that I’ve got some serious contract anxiety issues coming up as well. Somewhere in July my contract runs out, and it’s not entirely sure yet whether I’ll get a permanent position here.

Things have been really very turbulent between Moulsari and I. We’ve been trying to be patient for such a long time now, and we both have the desire to make the next step and live together, but there’s always something that prevents it. At the moment Moulsari has applied for her work visum in the U.S., which means, most likely, that she’s going to be there for at least another year. Considering our circumstances it would be easier for Moulsari to move here, than it would be for me to move to the U.S., or India. Considering she’s from India and they’re on the “oh, you must be here as an economic refugee” list here in Europe, it’s not going to be easy for her to move here, unless we get married. It’s not impossible, mind you, but a bit of a bureaucratic drag.

Anyway, “Dennis’ Issues” in a nutshell. When it rains it pours.