Everything All the Time

At the end of this Thursday, I have to just let out a huge sigh. Thursdays used to be one of my favorite days of the week, but in the last couple years, they've been just long and exhausting. The kids were pretty good today, and that always makes things a lot better.

Tomorrow I get the wires put all over my head. I have no idea how this is going to work.

Those Accursed Birds

My buddy Doug sent me this. Looks like a Pixar short to me. Very cool.



Oddly enough, I've had situations like this with a bird not once, but twice.

Like Cattle Through the Shoot

Today the kids all went down and got their H1N1 shots at school. Well, not all of them, but most of them. A few of the kids didn't get it done, and that's fine, but it was kind of interesting seeing the kids come out, talking about how it didn't hurt, holding their arms, and sucking on their Dum-Dums.

It was pajama day at school, so it was kind of funny to see everyone in their jammies and nursing sore arms. Kind of creates a surreal feeling to the day.

Dig That Sweet Chin Music

A little karate humor for you this Monday evening.



For more funnies that I can't embed here for some reason, go to Dog Judo. I love this site.

Some Call Me the Space Cowboy

• Okay, so the Colts somehow just won a game that they'd been losing all along. Incomplete passes. Gotta love 'em.
• Why does a fifty dollar bill say "Legal Tender" on the back if no one will accept them?
  
• I am so thankful to the people who helped me out last week. I have received food, e-mails, and phone calls ever since Wednesday night. I'm so much more...forgetful. I need to make a habit of being more in-tune with the people who are in need of my help.
• Tonight on my way home from watching the Colts, I pulled onto a road to head toward my house. There was a guy--I kid you not--dressed in all black, doing push-ups beside a junker minivan with the flashers going. He stood up, looked directly at me, and started walking toward me like a robot. I was freaking out. I did the Homer Simpson squeal and then backed out and took an alternate route home. My heart was pounding.
• The other day while I was in the emergency room, the vice principal and the school nurse were in my room, and the vice principal was talking rather loudly. It didn't bother me, but the nurse came in and told her that I needed to remain calm, and that she needed to quiet down.
  
• A kid I tutor is in a choir which went to sing at a prison this weekend. I love that.
  

The Comfort Food of Saturdays

Today I went to Josh's house to watch the Purdue game (The less said the better--by the way, it's now illegal to hug a player who just made a touchdown if you're Purdue Pete. It's considered unsportsmanlike conduct.). Anyway, it was still good to see him, Elicia, and their 14-month old Jacoby. It's good to just chill and watch a game with friends without papers needing to be graded within arm's reach.

When that was over, I went to my mom and dad's house. Kim and Paige came over because David was with his nephew, and we ate Chinese food and watched The Lawrence Welk Show (and understood the irony, by the way...we weren't getting sincere enjoyment out of it, we were making fun of it. Just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about my family.). What's hilarious is that Paige was watching so intently and with real interest. I mean, she's fourteen months, so it's not something to be concerned about yet, but it was funny watching her dance and get into it, rocking out to Lawrence Welk.

And as always, it ended up being one of those perfect nights where you can just be completely uninhibited and hang out with the family. The fact that it topped off a great afternoon, you can't ask for much more than that.

Murmur Study

Good news for today: The "incident" had nothing to do with my heart. Nothing at all. The doctor (at the Heart Center of Indiana) said I have one of the healthiest hearts he's heard in a long time. This brought huge amounts of comfort to me. I know the ER guy said the same thing the other day, but this isn't the same as having one of the big-time heart doctors tell me the same thing. He said to meet him back in a year. Woohooo!

The bad news: The neurologist, even though he's 95% sure it's just a pinched nerve (as all indications would say right now), he wants me to go through a whole battery of tests. One would have me with wires attached to my head the whole weekend next weekend. So next weekend I'm going to be planning on staying home the whole time, and just reading and watching movies. After thinking about this for awhile, I'm actually looking forward to it in a way. This won't be my first time to be wired up for three days--it will actually be my third. But it will be the first that the wires have been going to my head. This could be really interesting trying to sleep.

Anyway, I can do karate again, I can live like a normal human again. I'm still going to try to skip the caffeine for the most part, though. It can't be good for me--not the amount I drink, anyway.

These Guys Just Don't Get It

I went ahead and taught karate tonight, but I made sure not to actually do anything. I utilized my helpers to do all the demonstrations, and during my class tonight I only did breathing exercises. Of course, it would have been more fun if I'd had someone to do the breathing exercises with, but sometimes it's enough to just be surrounded by like-minded people that I know well.

People at school didn't want me to go to karate tonight because they thought I'd get too "stressed out" which could make my blood pressure go up. I think these people don't actually know what goes on at karate. It's not all just a bunch of fighting and bruising and assault and battery (although, my post earlier this week may indicate otherwise--that was just one night!). When I bow onto the karate mat, it actually calms me way down. I never leave the mat feeling more stressed than when I bowed on. Not even when I've been annihilated during kumite, not even when I didn't get anything checked off on my kata, not ever.

Sometimes hitting a punching bag is exactly what I need to do. Sometimes strength training (I could use more) is just what I need to do. Sometimes what I need to do is kata (where you're in command and aware of your whole mind and body at once). Sometimes I just go in--like tonight--and breathe.

Michael--the kid I've been helping out with his karate after school--said the other day, "These guys just don't get it." This was in response to kids who were making "Hoowaaaah!" noises and striking monkey poses when he and I were talking karate. It's kind of funny in a way.