The cursor mocks me with its intermittent blinks. "I await your input," it says.
"But I don't know what to write. I don't know what this chapter is about. Somewhere I lost my way," I say. The cursor is unyielding.
"I await your input. I await your input. I await.."
"Enough!" I say as the blinking inspires the dormant madness within me to bubble to the surface. I continually reread the words I've already written, hoping something will jump out at me and tell me the next part of the story.
Editing
You might have guessed that I haven't finished the edits on chapter 7 yet. Do you ever feel like you know it will need more editing when you're not done editing it yet you know you need to get through this revision and leave more for later? I think editing's purpose is partially to ensure that no writer is completely sane. And obviously also to create a product worth reading.
I can't tell if I'm improving at editing or not. It probably takes a few years to get comfortable with it like anything else though.
Training
I was on training earlier this week for project scheduling. The first day was rather dull for me as I've been managing projects since 2009 and the content was on basic project management stuff (triple constraints, relationship types, etc). The second day was better.
The Bus
I took the bus to training because it was in the downtown core. I often have difficulty with the bus system. I'm from a small city with about 10 bus routes and maybe 20 buses total. There's upwards of around 200 bus routes in Ottawa. I try to ask the bus drivers questions, but it seems difficult for me to get answers even when I'm specific. The first day of training was relatively easy to go from my home to the school except I could have gotten off before Rideau Centre to have a shorter walk. That was remedied on Day Two. Going home on Day One, I asked the driver if he stopped in my area. He said yes. There was only one stop in my area he went to, and not realizing this, I missed that stop and had to walk nearly an hour in the rain. At least I had my umbrella with me. On the second day I ended up on the wrong #7, so took a trip to the bowels of the St. Laurent Centre. It was the first time I saw something that seemed like a big city since moving to Ottawa. The downstairs reminds me of a subway station because of the grunge and sketchiness. I'm sure I'll take a visit on purpose for writing inspiration in the future. I then ended up taking the 101 to get where I wanted. The driver only made one stop on Bank Street. Thankfully it was close enough to the spot I needed. After grabbing food, I lugged all of my martial arts gear (oh yeah I was lugging that around the whole time) and my purchases from Steve's music, to my dojo in the hot sun.
Iaido
We reviewed what we learned at the seminar in Guelph. The focuses were on wearing our pants properly; proper sword grip; tweaks to mae, ukenagashi, tsuka ate, kesa giri, morote tsuki, sanpo giri; and saya biki. There's never enough saya biki, so that's not a surprise. For those not in the know, the saya is the sword's sheath and saya biki is how one goes about getting the sword out of the sheath. It's also about using it to create power. Like how pulling one fist back makes the punch on the other first more powerful, we do this with our saya on one hand cuts.
I've registered and booked my vacation for the Bill Mears memorial seminar in July. Next to figure out is where I'm staying.
Guitar
I was really frustrated with guitar the other day. I felt like quitting. I was trying to learn more scales beyond Major C and I couldn't reach most of the notes with my fingers. I thought it was because I have tiny hands and that maybe I need a guitar with a tinier neck than my 3/4 size. It's good I went to Steve's Music. I asked the guitar guy for tips. He had me hold a guitar and the neck was thinner, but we determined I've been putting my thumb in the wrong place. Basically the thumb should almost never be near the fret board unless you need to mute a string with it, but then it doesn't live near there. It should be anchored on the back of the neck to let the fingers reach the strings. It feels weird and uncomfortable, but I have so much reach now. I went from feeling like there was no possibility I could get good to being excited to play again. I knew there had to be a trick as I'm not the first person to learn guitar with tiny hands, though I don't know of a famous guitar player with tiny hands.
To-Do
- Continue plugging away at the edits on chapter 7 and play some guitar.
- Squeeze some housework in too. I'm trying to always have the dishwasher ready to run when I get home. Dishes are that thing that gets quickly out of control for me. I don't know why I hate them so much. Maybe it's the grossness factor. I don't enjoy taking recycling trips to the garbage room either... It smells awful.
- Food: I'm going to make something. Maybe pizza with a spelt, yeast-free crust and no cheese.
- I got a wall mount guitar stand to hang my electric from. I should figure out where to put that.
- Can the cursor blink be turned off? Research this.
Ciao,
R~
"But I don't know what to write. I don't know what this chapter is about. Somewhere I lost my way," I say. The cursor is unyielding.
"I await your input. I await your input. I await.."
"Enough!" I say as the blinking inspires the dormant madness within me to bubble to the surface. I continually reread the words I've already written, hoping something will jump out at me and tell me the next part of the story.
Editing
You might have guessed that I haven't finished the edits on chapter 7 yet. Do you ever feel like you know it will need more editing when you're not done editing it yet you know you need to get through this revision and leave more for later? I think editing's purpose is partially to ensure that no writer is completely sane. And obviously also to create a product worth reading.
I can't tell if I'm improving at editing or not. It probably takes a few years to get comfortable with it like anything else though.
Training
I was on training earlier this week for project scheduling. The first day was rather dull for me as I've been managing projects since 2009 and the content was on basic project management stuff (triple constraints, relationship types, etc). The second day was better.
The Bus
I took the bus to training because it was in the downtown core. I often have difficulty with the bus system. I'm from a small city with about 10 bus routes and maybe 20 buses total. There's upwards of around 200 bus routes in Ottawa. I try to ask the bus drivers questions, but it seems difficult for me to get answers even when I'm specific. The first day of training was relatively easy to go from my home to the school except I could have gotten off before Rideau Centre to have a shorter walk. That was remedied on Day Two. Going home on Day One, I asked the driver if he stopped in my area. He said yes. There was only one stop in my area he went to, and not realizing this, I missed that stop and had to walk nearly an hour in the rain. At least I had my umbrella with me. On the second day I ended up on the wrong #7, so took a trip to the bowels of the St. Laurent Centre. It was the first time I saw something that seemed like a big city since moving to Ottawa. The downstairs reminds me of a subway station because of the grunge and sketchiness. I'm sure I'll take a visit on purpose for writing inspiration in the future. I then ended up taking the 101 to get where I wanted. The driver only made one stop on Bank Street. Thankfully it was close enough to the spot I needed. After grabbing food, I lugged all of my martial arts gear (oh yeah I was lugging that around the whole time) and my purchases from Steve's music, to my dojo in the hot sun.
Iaido
We reviewed what we learned at the seminar in Guelph. The focuses were on wearing our pants properly; proper sword grip; tweaks to mae, ukenagashi, tsuka ate, kesa giri, morote tsuki, sanpo giri; and saya biki. There's never enough saya biki, so that's not a surprise. For those not in the know, the saya is the sword's sheath and saya biki is how one goes about getting the sword out of the sheath. It's also about using it to create power. Like how pulling one fist back makes the punch on the other first more powerful, we do this with our saya on one hand cuts.
I've registered and booked my vacation for the Bill Mears memorial seminar in July. Next to figure out is where I'm staying.
Guitar
I was really frustrated with guitar the other day. I felt like quitting. I was trying to learn more scales beyond Major C and I couldn't reach most of the notes with my fingers. I thought it was because I have tiny hands and that maybe I need a guitar with a tinier neck than my 3/4 size. It's good I went to Steve's Music. I asked the guitar guy for tips. He had me hold a guitar and the neck was thinner, but we determined I've been putting my thumb in the wrong place. Basically the thumb should almost never be near the fret board unless you need to mute a string with it, but then it doesn't live near there. It should be anchored on the back of the neck to let the fingers reach the strings. It feels weird and uncomfortable, but I have so much reach now. I went from feeling like there was no possibility I could get good to being excited to play again. I knew there had to be a trick as I'm not the first person to learn guitar with tiny hands, though I don't know of a famous guitar player with tiny hands.
To-Do
- Continue plugging away at the edits on chapter 7 and play some guitar.
- Squeeze some housework in too. I'm trying to always have the dishwasher ready to run when I get home. Dishes are that thing that gets quickly out of control for me. I don't know why I hate them so much. Maybe it's the grossness factor. I don't enjoy taking recycling trips to the garbage room either... It smells awful.
- Food: I'm going to make something. Maybe pizza with a spelt, yeast-free crust and no cheese.
- I got a wall mount guitar stand to hang my electric from. I should figure out where to put that.
- Can the cursor blink be turned off? Research this.
Ciao,
R~
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