You know what? You look like you'd be good at Derby. You should totally play.

I feel like I left it on a slightly bitter note last time. I didn't mean to, but rewriting it to take the tone out seemed like a hassle. Basically I don't have to interact with dropkicks anymore these days because I'm hardly ever doing dropkick activities, so 'writing people off' as I so eloquently put it isn't something that I've done for a long time. I still get burnt by having higher expectations of people than they are able to carry out but I've made my peace with that. Sometimes people rise to the challenge and I like to encourage people to be better.

My favourite thing is encouraging people to think

So about twelve months ago I ran into a girl at a bar and we spent the better part of an evening talking about a little bit of everything. It was an after party for a Derby game and unsurprisingly, Derby came up at some point. She asked why I hadn't joined up - to be honest, ideally I would have joined up way back in 2008 but I was still recently reborn into the big wide world of Doing Things again and hadn't quite gotten my skates on at that point. Fast forward from there: I started going to Learn to Skate classes in mid July, two weeks before the Freshmeat intake started, then passed my WFTDA skills in November.

Almost immediately after passing my skills test I was staring down the barrel of a three month "holiday" from skating. I couldn't cope with that, not so soon after the high of the discovery and achievements in the sport I was so excited about. It felt like we'd been cut loose for the summer. With Derby fever in my blood, I went straight to a source to get a fix.

I had loved my Freshmeat class and had a fire for skating burning in my belly, so skating with an alternative league who couldn't put their skates down either attracted me like a moth to flame. Their training and coaching style was so different, and the dynamic more open and clear to those standing on the outside of the circle, I felt a tug. I thought I had enjoyed Derby before, and I hadn't even known what I was missing! It was like I'd been eating pastry all this time and suddenly discovered that you could actually have pie instead. There was all this delicious filling that rounded it out and made so much sense.

To a certain extent, I felt like they had been waiting for me. I felt wanted and appreciated all of a sudden, which was strange because one of the things I noted most strongly when I started Freshmeat was the sense of community. This was like the next step - not just the sense of community, but an actual thriving community; undeniable, exciting, determined and fun. Back to the pie analogy, it was like everything about Derby was being filled out for me, it was no longer hollow (and I had thought it was pretty damn amazing even then!)

How could I have thought that it would have been any different? Like the start of all good relationships we both cautiously waited for the other to make the first move. Time forced things forward, and I knew what I had to do. I had promised myself to give Derby 150% this year, to see what I could get out of it (you get what you give). Watching the Wonderbolts.... to not throw my chips in with them would have been cutting myself off at the knees. I was never going to be able to find my potential anywhere else.

New Life, New Outlook

It's not really new, but then for the last eighteen months things have been changing so rapidly I've only spent brief moments deeply reflecting on everything that's different now. I almost avoid it as it makes me start to leak eye water, and I already appreciate the change of situation. I have a lot more love and happiness in my life than before, I've become one of those people I used to loathe... those people who seem to know what they're doing, where they're going and are happy about everything that occurs around them.

Just like a triceratops in space. Like you'd question him.

I was pretty angry with myself at the end of 2010. I was angry because I had done nothing since 2008. I was surrounded by people who had done nothing, were going no-where, and spent all their time be-moaning the fact that life was so mean and hard. I let myself get sucked into it, externalising the lack of achievements and brooding internally on failure. I finally snapped, I knew it when I was having thoughts that there was something wrong with me because I wasn't drug-f*cked all the time. Everyone around me was, but at least they had an excuse for being drop kicks! I didn't. So I was mad at myself. Mad at what I'd become. Frustrated that I'd wasted my potential and denied myself a life for so long. I had my reasons and the circumstance was different but.... these are just excuses.

It also put me in the right mindset to become enthralled with Ponies

So I dumped my girlfriend, dumped my waster 'friends', re-established healthy relationships, got the promotion, bought the house, secured travel, returned to martial arts, sold all my furniture, sold the car, bought an adventure van, and just bolted out of the gate.


I felt like I'd been unfettered and all I wanted to do was run, and I still am (metaphorically because I still hugely dislike actual running).


I initially had a lot of things to fix, a lot of things I had put off - my time was filled with rebuilding a life that I could be proud of. It was hard, until I hit breaking point I thought I didn't have the strength or the skills to make it work. But I did, and every step I took pulled me out of the dark and into a world that had been waiting for me all this time. Waiting for me with opportunities, friends, love, fun, adventure and levels of daily awesomeness that I could not have even begun to fathom were accessible to the middle class citizens of the world. Then I realised what had happened, my outlook had changed. Dealing with everyone wasn't a chore anymore, my job wasn't dragging me away from laying in bed all day, going away wasn't an expensive hassle... the further away I got from my old life the more bad habits and poor attitudes I saw I had been indulging in, and it spurred me on faster. I couldn't get far enough away, quick enough. The quickest route away from my old life?

I don't want to be superwoman,
I just want to be a woman and be super.

Up.

And once I was on that trajectory, nothing was gonna stop me.





So now I keep myself surrounded by people I respect and enjoy. For some things my tolerance has been utterly levelled - I will instantly write off some people without consideration. Part of me wishes I could offer more acceptance but at the end of the day, that kind of person isn't worth a second of my time anyway. I've paid my dues, rather unnecessarily, and for my own sake the only people I want to associate with either make me feel good about myself, or I make them feel good about themselves. I don't think it's unreasonable to use those bench marks for drawing a line between "we can be friends," and "get off my porch before I brain you with a spade and do society a favour,"

Unless you're a zombie. Then I'll grab the chainsaw instead

Day Sixty One: You Read It Here First

You either know what I did for the circus,
or whatever you can imagine will be more entertaining

That's right. Day Sixty One. We all know what that means, I haven't back dated and I've missed a few days.


Don't get me wrong, I'm shattered as hell, learnt a basketful of new things, had joys, disappointments, a lot of beer, a cake pop and got to use my aprons for the first time since I worked for the circus. 




I've finally become too busy to be convinced taking time out of my other activities to run the blog every day is worthwhile. I expect things to stay this way, beyond my control, until mid-July. By late July I'll probably have a few things backed up that I've been putting off since March to catch up on. So.... who knows when I'll next be swamped by freetime to do as I please. Pretty sure even then that returning to a daily blog will not be close to the top of the list. Maybe eighth. I have a variety of other seemingly disconnected tasks I want to complete first and it's hard enough finding time to take the desk downstairs and resand/varnish it without wondering if that could be counted as "Fitness": yes, carrying a computer desk down/up two flights of stairs by myself is a good workout.

Instead of going through the 'five tasks of Rachel', I'll just touch on the last three days.

Now, one sleeping panda cub just doesn't seem cute enough

Weekends. They're ruining me for the work week. How dare they.

On Friday night I was feeling decidedly uninspired about skating. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't want to have my feet fail on me during the weekend - plus I was feeling decidedly like having a nap instead (which seems to be happening a lot lately). I managed to drag my sleepy, uninterested arse to the rink after playing around with the van for a while (seems I may have broken another engine mount. This is not representative of my driving ability that I break one every other year). Public skate was fun times, I met someone from Taupo! I feel a bit like an ignorant schmuck that I didn't know Taupo had a league. But then I'm still new to the intricacies of derby myself, even if I've had a passing acquaintance with it for longer than my skating career. There was a bit of discussion about a Zombie Derby movie, as tempting as it all is this is one of those 'When I have some time' projects, which at the moment runs to a few minutes every other Wednesday, and ten minutes on one in four weekends. Anyway, we had a good time at the rink.


Saturday the ARDL hosted an open scrimmage, which I have to admit was a big learning curve. Logically, a large part of me assumes that a scrimmage like that shouldn't be so different from a game, but I'd be hard pressed to say that there was much in common with what we did that day and what we did vs Swamp City. It's great seeing myself and the team in varied situations, I still have a lot to learn just about me, as well as how my skill and attitude interact with the rest of the team on the track. My only concerns are how much I can really take on board and master at a single time, it's like when I know what I want my feet to do but they don't know how yet... learning how everyone deals with the mental side of the game and how to behave appropriately in the middle of a stressful situation is also key. I can certainly adapt that side a lot quicker than I seem to be able to teach my feet what I want them to do. We had a deconstruction on Sunday and during the downtime at the rink we had a bit of a mess around. Nothing wrong with a little jam skating and 'just for show' whips.

Then we threw a Bitchin' Bingo fundraiser on Saturday night almost straight after the scrimmage. We had a great time, I remembered how to be a kitchen wench in short order, then various other trivial events transpired, like chip throwing and general hilarity.

I still get a little misty eyed about the whole thing - I can't believe it's only been a couple of months, I have a lot of pride in myself that I sucked it up and made the right choice. Part of me thought I wasn't ready, the other part of me was intimidated as all hell, a little star struck and could see the ARDL is where I wanted to be. All the little things like being nice to me, having blue and white as their colours and generally being totally awesome were just bits of icing and candy on top of the cake. 

A little like this, but with more drowning

Sunday just kicked off the same again, training was a bit subdued and more reflective, it had already been a long weekend by Sunday morning. That  afternoon we headed over to Special K's place, lured under the promise of a welcome spa only to find the water areas were due for maintenance, so while we couldn't have a spa we did make an eight person whirlpool in the swimming pool. Next time, we gotta aim for eleven at least. We headed back to the Castle for pizza and a movie, which is great because I was highly capable of sitting and not much else by then.




I'll leave how that impacts on my emotional scars from years gone by at a later point. It's a hard trial getting back into work after a weekend like that, that's enough to deal with right now

Day Fifty Seven: Oh, the Monotony...

Every day.

Every single day.

Much like cookie-cutter housing, it makes me want to shoot myself in the face

I'm starting to chaff at the bit about the blog. I'm not even convinced how rigidly I'm holding myself to the goals, especially after failing to eat a proper breakfast at work all week. So the weetbix isn't on my desk as a constant reminder. I don't know how much of it is just that work itself has finally driven me into apathy so any non-fun obligations have become highly abhorrent, or that the p90x in and of itself has run out of steam in this trooper.

I still feel like I've improved. My sleep and diet have really skyrocketed out of the depths of studentdom (finally, four years later...) into something resembling "Acting like a responsible Adult" which yes, we all know helps make you fitter, stronger, faster, better. My mindset has changed in regards to Aikido and Derby - both in my interpretation of my achievements and my behaviour at training.

I feel like I wanted this to shift me into a better position to launch out of the blocks and really own this year. Yes, we're into March already, but I think I've made some fantastic progress and am in the best position to give my everything to all the challenges, adventures, the expected and unexpected that this year is throwing my way.

So. Day Fifty Seven. I'll keep doing this until I know one way or the other, I'm not going to abandon it until it's sure.


Fitness: How times have changed. Seriously. I spend enough time in the dojo and on sports court that finding time outside of that is hard. Like cinder block hard.

Aikido: Thwarted. We were meant to be doing jo work! Anyway, instead we did step-by-step hip throws. I'm atrocious at hip throws so it was good to go through them slowly and broken down. Pity about my whiplash, it made it hard on one side to get the correct arm movement.

Derby: Can not believe I didn't know how to backwards swoop. I'm very comfortable going backwards, even cutting sideways (backwards lateral leaps? yarr) but swoops? Technical deficiency. I'll chalk this up to needing to work on my swoops in general - other than that and dealing a blow to Pow's face (which she returned with a much higher success rate as I leaked blood profusely afterwards) it was an interesting training session. Not sure I really felt like anything really clicked, nor did I feel like I underperformed. It all felt... middling. Which is fine... but... not what I'm aiming for. It all just needs a bit more practice. And get lower. I need to grab one of the league and get them to drill waitressing with me anyway. I think it's a skill I could pick up easily and put to good use.

Diet: Tea, then muesli and pears with syrup for breakfast. I meant to buy some snacks while I was out for lunch but that became a bit skewed so I came home and made prawn fried rice. I wanted a couple of chips before it was ready, and accidently opened a mammoth bag of chips. I thought it was one of those multipacks! Then I exhibited little to no self control and ate significantly more chips than necessary. Then had some prawn fried rice, which I also doubled for dinner after training. A tropical frozen fruit juicie for dessert.

Sleep: Woke up around 8am and waited until my alarm went off at 8.45am (I went and got some tea while I was waiting). Felt a little tired around 5pm but more likely due to my activities and activity level than being actually sleepy. It's just about 12am now, and I want some more sleep now.

I just really like the concept of napping
It suggests a high level of contentment

I really want to change up my activities to supplement the current monotony of my schedule. I'm hopeful several things are coming up that will assist that happening in a big way, with minimal effort. We'll see.

Day Fifty Six: Sick Day

nrrrgggh

If there's anything I enjoy less than being a statistic, it would be being in a lot of pain. I managed through to about 1pm when it occurred to me that I wasn't going to do anything other than sit at my desk and be miserable all afternoon, so I may as well do that in my bed instead.

It was mildly more tolerable once I got home. I feel like I'm wasting my off time by not tidying my room, mostly because I struggle with the concept of being physically incapacitated. Rest and recovery? What now?

Reminder to self: I can tidy my room tomorrow. Or Sunday. Who cares. It was definitely time for a nap this afternoon.







Fitness: Hell no. The worst thing about all of this is actually becoming physically uncoordinated. Like my mind misjudges every movement I attempt to make. I can't even play computer games as my perception becomes too skewed.

Aikido: No training

Derby: No skating

Diet: Banana cake, tea, a biscuit, part of a mammoth sandwich before my body shut down. When I got up around 7pm I had noodles, dumplings and some eggs for dinner. Then I found a stray muesli bar on the floor - double bonus. Don't have to find a home for it tomorrow when I tidy.

Sleep: I felt fine again this morning when I got up. When I got back home around 2pm I curled back up into bed to sleep through the worst of feeling like I'd been hit by a sack of bricks. Napped from around 3pm till 6pm interspersed with some cartoons. Just gone 12.30am now, I want to make a move on Thursday as I have the day off (how convenient) so will need to try and get some real sleep soon. I'm hoping the napping won't have thrown me out too much as I have a lot to get through tomorrow...



Still so much to look forward to. Probably would have felt much better about today if I knew where my pain killers were and had eaten about twenty of them. Ah well, sick leave has to be used somehow, this seems good enough.

Day Fifty Five: Everyone's In the Same Boat

ah huh

The Strikes are actually starting to wear me down. Everything is. I don't often need a break from work but at the moment I'm no longer interested in anything shipping related. I think tomorrow I might tidy my desk instead - it'll be more fun and engaging I'm sure. I feel like even my wit is being compromised by the impact of the MUNZ strikes. Seriously guys. It's a port, it's going to be shift work. All Lines plan their vessel calls months in advance, and ships don't randomly turn up without prior knowledge (they're kinda slow). Plus it's not really "Outsourcing" if Ports of Auckland has contracted an Auckland based, 100% NZ owned company to hire other Aucklanders to run Wiri Inland. Basically, you have it easy. You don't know how easy. But you're pissing it all away because of... what? You don't like shift work and the truckers aren't your friends? One has to ask why on earth you got into dock work in the first place then.  
Rant over.

I'll be quick. 

Fitness: Gotta love Tuesdays and their 16 - 17 hours of go time. An hour in Aikido and two hours skating today.

Aikido: We did an hour of jo work, the first ten suburi. This was made all the more entertaining as I had just read 30 issues of The Walking Dead, and so every strike I was imagining I was attacking zombies. You have got to get your form right then, no second chances. I need to know these ten moves for my next grading and it was great to have a full hour on them.

Derby: Low energy tonight but I am pretty happy with most things. I'm learning more situational / experience things in some of the drills and pushing myself to not let someone go until the bitter end. I was cautious on the hockey stops tonight as the floor seemed a bit gammy and then later in the evening my wheels came away from the floor sideways when I pushed down too hard. I wonder if I should get a full set of 88s to roll on, or maybe they just need a little more breaking in and a clean...

Diet: I cheaped out on tea, biscuits and a fruit smoothie for breakfast, plus some bits of banana cake. I went to lunch early and made a mammoth sandwich, then drank more tea through out the afternoon. I had two chocolate milk, an apple and another mammoth sandwich around training/dinner time. Then more banana cake when I got home. I'll need to make some more banana cake this weekend. Attempting to get the vegan version of it right, I think I know what it needed to turn out better. Trial and error...

Sleep: So surprising levels of up and go today despite being short changed no the sleep side. It's gone 12.30am just now and I can't be arsed doing anything else. Time to put in my contacts and slather some deep heat on my shoulders. 

Did I mention that for some reason we didn't do any warm up or stretching at Aikido? It's only occurred to me now that's why my shoulders/arms hurt (because my form is poor - and we didn't stretch) - pretty sure I'm going to hurt like a mofo tomorrow... which is a shame because my sports massage is on Thursday! Ah well. Better late than never.

Day Fifty Four: Bigger Is Better

Even if it's just sniffing glue.
Hopefully then you won't be capable of interacting with me.

Mondays are never particularly exciting goal-wise, and while they're normally quite enjoyable for myself personally there's very little worth sharing about my schedule. Also the majority of non-derby related people I've interacted with over the last couple of weeks have been passive aggressive to me. What is wrong with these people? Seriously. Get a hobby. I'm making an effort to keep doing non-derby things but if people are rude to me my primary response is to never interact with them again.


Aside from that the old CRT has been replaced by a 50" plasma in the lounge, I hardly ever use the TV but when the CRT died I suddenly wanted to play the wii. Now it's hooked up to this beast of a screen and it's just fantastic. Distractions plus plus, I've also started reading the Walking Dead. Which is why I went to sleep so late last night.



Fitness: Ran up the stairs in Britomart again. It's three flights and if my legs aren't tired from training I can spring up them at speed without feeling a thing. I like to use it to judge how my legs are feeling that day, the same way I banana jump in the corridor doorways at work to check my vertical leap. Other than that I have obligations after work so I don't do any training.

Aikido: No training today

Derby: No skating today

Diet: Tea and banana cake for a early breakfast as we were having a shared morning tea for Dobson's birthday. I'm always keen on free food. Buns with cheese, salami, coleslaw, chip dip, and chips (best 'cheap' sandwiches ever) and a couple of glasses of coke. Dinner consisted of steak, salad and potato bits with processed cheese on them, and then fruit salad for dessert. I then ate several pieces of banana cake with chocolate frosting.

Sleep: I got a passable amount of sleep the night before and (as I'm writing this the next day again) 'tonight' I should have gone to sleep a little earlier. The family only left just after 11pm so I had a few things I needed to do before bed, and then I read a few Walking Dead... the problem with single issue comics is the whole, "Just one more..." if they only take six or seven minutes to read. So it was closer to 1am, realistically 1.30am before I would have fallen asleep. With a 6.30am wake up and a minimum 16 hour day for Tuesdays that probably could have been planned better.



It's not like I have an abundance of free time but I really want to play Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn now that the wii is hooked up to a higher definition screen (and it looks like a modern version of Sukoden, which I loved) and I've gotten a little immersed into The Walking Dead pretty quick. I guess it's all about priorities.I'll find the time no doubt...  I'll only need about a hundred hours for these things.