Apathy

I've been fighting my own personal battle against apathy for most of my adult life. When I'm disappointed in society and individual people it becomes very difficult to stay passionate and present in my own life. I think it can be so easy to become cynical and bitter. This state of mind leads me directly into feeling apathetic towards life in general.  Just sit down, and forget about the world around me. I find myself asking the questions like "why should I care?" and "what's the point?".

I've been disappointed so many times in the past 5 years here, and I imagine I will be struggling with these feelings throughout the rest of my life. I expect a lot from myself, and so have a tendency to also expect a lot from other people. It's hard for me to keep in mind sometimes that other people aren't me, and they have different values and ideas about what is important to them.

At the same time, I try to maintain the faith that people are inherently good. I've been following the news of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, and in some ways, I'm so disappointed in the Federal governments' decision. But, I'm also really happy that so many people are standing up for their rights and what they want. I watched a pretty interesting Ted Talk recently about apathy and I thought it had a very valuable message.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy?utm_medium=on.ted.com-facebook-share&utm_campaign=&utm_content=awesm-publisher&utm_source=facebook.com&awesm=on.ted.com_stqZ

It's been too long

So I've fallen off track with some of my goals lately. Particularly, calligraphy and blogging. When I made these commitments at the beginning of the year I wasn't cooking for myself because I knew it would be really difficult to manage my free time to maintain these goals. But, since I've had worms, I've started cooking all my own food again, and it's reminded me how sometimes even when you're making simple things, it can take a fair amount of time. If I had proper equipment and a kitchen, I'm sure I could cut this time down, but I don't, so I'm just working with what I've got. Which is basically a paring knife, and a hotplate with wok. It can be interesting sometimes.

So this week I've been trying to reorganize my daily schedule a little bit and I've been able to pick up some of the things I let fall off. We've also been having a fair amount of internet troubles of late, which has thrown off my blogging schedule. I've discovered that I'm really becoming a creature of habit.

My good friend MoMo is back for the summer, so I'm pretty excited about that. We also had a great class yesterday on jump kicks and aerials (which I am far from achieving) but we were actually given some good feedback and also some steps we can work on to possible improve our coordination. When it comes to jumps, it usually ends up being the people that can already do them practicing, and everyone else kind of standing around watching. But this time we split up into two groups and spent some time working on the actual technique. I think I improved more in that one class than I have in the past few years.

Is kung fu fun??

I have had a strange experience several times since coming to train at my school in China. I've heard from many different people, that training isn't fun. It's not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be hard work and grueling, but it's definitely not fun. This always gets me a little bit upset.

Who decided that kung fu shouldn't be fun? Yeah, it's hard, and it's sweaty, and sometimes it's frustrating and difficult, but why can't it be fun too? Someone said to me today, yeah it's fun if you're just taking it easy and not practicing hard. I was a bit insulted. Just because I'm out there sweating my butt off and having fun at the same time, does it mean that you're training harder than I am? Or is there just something strange about me that I really love getting the shaky legs that you have after a really brutal class, or I finish class drenched in sweat but with a smile on my face?

Or is it that to them hard work is something that you're not supposed to enjoy? Is it important that you're forcing yourself to do something that you don't have fun doing? I really just can't understand this...

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I've recently discovered that I have an intestinal parasite. It's nothing serious, mostly just disturbing. I went to the doctor on Friday, and got some medicine. I'm really tired, and the medicine makes me a little nauseous, but all in all I'm physically holding up well.

It's really scary to be a foreign country and have to deal with this stuff. It's more stressful than any of the other stuff I've had to handle here. I know I'm going to be fine, but I still find myself struggling to fall asleep at night. 

Friends

Over the years here I have had the privilege of meeting so many incredible people (and lots of crazy ones). I've met people from all over the world and some of them have become a second family to me. I know that if I were to be in their respective countries, I could always count on them to do whatever they could for me and vice versa. It's amazing that I've had this opportunity and I've learned a lot about other cultures because of all these people.

Sometimes it's really hard to see them go. It's like you've met a person that you have become so close to, in however long they've been here (sometimes a couple of months, sometimes a year or more), and when it's time, they just get up and walk out of your life. And of course I know many of them I will see again, and many of them I keep in touch with. But sometimes there's a question in your mind. You think, I really love this person, but will I ever see them again? I always of course hope the answer is yes, but I imagine there will be people that I won't have the opportunity to see again. We aren't all on the same path.

Three wonderful people left the school this week. They made an important impact on my time here, and I guess all I can do is say thank you. I'm so grateful we got to know one another.

Shoulder Rolls

One of the things I love about our training is the amount of time I get to spend in the open air. Yesterday because it was raining we were stuck training inside. So our coach decided that we should practice rolls, which was cool because I don't get much time to work on them, and I've never been super comfortable with my rolls.

I had an accident when I was younger, and besides a minor neck injury I came out fine physically, but mentally, well not so much. I was so afraid to fall, roll, and be thrown, or even throw another person. Yesterday was fun for me, because although my rolls are a little rusty, I realized that my mind has changed a lot. I'm much less afraid of injury in general. The interesting thing is that since I started training here, I've been injured so many times. And although the recovery period usually really sucks, my body's a lot heartier than I ever gave it credit for when I was younger. I just find ways to be more resourceful.

I also feel like in my time here that my self confidence has really improved. And considering the emotional strain I'm sometimes under, I'm glad that I've come out stronger. Of course I still have my confidence issues sometimes, but I always have, and now I can really see that I've made some changes for the better. Of course as I write this I feel like I'm tempting fate... We shall see.

The Mountain

I had a pretty great birthday weekend. Since Wednesday/Thursday is the time I have off, I went with some friends for a very long hike up the mountain. I'm not sure when the last time I've walked that far is. I can't think of a time I ever have. I'm not sure it exists, it seems so crazy. Myself and three friends left at 5am on Wednesday morning and arrived at the area with the cable car at 2pm. So it ended up being a good 9 hours of walking. Finishing off with a very large number of stairs. Of course that's including a few breaks for food and water, and a good foot soak in the very 'refreshing' stream.

My intention was to sleep at the cable car and climb to the peak the next day, but unfortunately, it was raining and I had a big blister on my foot. So I didn't make it to the peak, but I was pretty happy with the walk I had. The thing about China is, climbing a mountain basically means climbing what feels like a neverending staircase. It was beautiful though. I don't have any pictures because I don't have a camera, but I'm hoping to get some from my friends for a keepsake. All in all, a great time to be had. Welcome 29!