Skip to main content

Merry Tuesday - July Martial Arts Weekend

[caption id="attachment_4711" align="alignright" width="300"]merry_monday Image created using Bit Strips.[/caption]

I know I'm a day late. My weekend was fantastic and I needed time to recover.

The weekend was spent in the Greater Toronto Area, specifically Oshawa and Etobicoke. It was filled with the merriment that comes with visiting good friends. And we worked hard. The focal point of the trip was an iaido seminar with my idol, Hatakenaka Sensei. She came over from Japan to provide technical corrections and personal insights.

But I took much more from her talks than technical points. We had Q&A sessions where we got to ask questions about who she is as a person and I learned that she and I have some things in common (tenacity, goal-oriented). She is proud of her accomplishments without being boastful and has high standards. She tries to do her part to bring peace to the world through martial arts. I hope to make the world a better place through my writing. I learned so much about why I love my martial art and feel inspired to train harder. I came out of the weekend liking her even more. She is a real life Wonder Woman and I hope to be more like her one day.

It was so wonderful not needing to bring so much food with me. I mainly packed bread.

Several of my friends had made me gluten free treats to celebrate my birthday! I have wonderful friends :)

We also drove out to a store that sells Kawartha Dairy ice cream. It was delicious!

I also played some Pokémon Go. I'm leveling much slower than my friends, but I'm rather busy with writing and iaido, so I don't mind. We found Centennial Park, which had tons of Pokéstops but it was hard to get to them all as the picnic areas were crawling with people. There was a Pikachu *somewhere* but we couldn't find it :(

I'm excited to get back to the dojo tonight and apply the lessons.

I have a short story that needs to get finished before August 1st, so I'll be pretty busy with that over the next while. I got a little bit of writing done on the weekend but need to add about 8000 more words. It's for a Hallowe'en anthology.

Well, I'm off to get ready for work.

Ciao,
R~
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gauntlet That Was October

I had a lot of things happen in October. I watched Frankenstein in the cemetery with friends. I had tea with a friend. I started a new sport: curling. This is really fun and I'm enjoying the level of activity it provides and all the strategic elements. I'll do a separate post on it soon. Unfortunately, soon after my first game, I came down with Covid and so did the friend who I had tea with, so I think we both caught it at the place we went to. That wasn't fun. I already posted about that. I was fortunate to be free of it in time to attend Can-Con where I took in lots of panels, saw some of the wonderful writer community, bought many new books, and volunteered to help out in the rooms. The following weekend, I went to the livestream for Danielle Allard's new album release, followed by the in person release. As part of this, she has a 6 video series that releases every Sunday on her YouTube at 1:15 PM EDT. Video number 2, Falling Into Place, is one that I feel fortunate
Post a Comment
Read more

Under Siege

My city is under attack. I wish I was being facetious.  The so-called "freedom" convoy is here and so far this is what has transpired: 1. They parked on the war memorial. These people who call themselves patriots. This is where the Unknown Soldier rests. This is where Corporal Nathan Cirullo lost his life in October of 2014. The cars were towed, but who knows what actual repercussions they will face. 2. Later, when asked to move away from memorial, one stood and jumped on the tomb itself while others cheered.  3. Despite having port-a-potties provided for by the mayor, they've been defecating on Parliament Hill, in snowbanks, and on streets nearby.  4. Flags being flown include the Confederate flag of the United States, Trump flags, the Quebec equivalent to the Confederate flag, upside down Canada flags, regular Canada flags, Fuck Trudeau flags, libertarian flags, and ones adorned with swastikas. Yeah, this is totally about freedom rather than racism, white su
Post a Comment
Read more

2023 - Week 39

Starting curling season out right with this lovely gift from a friend and Bengal Spice tea. Normally, I work in-office on Mondays, but after such a busy week, I couldn't deal with an environment filled with distraction and socializing. Most of my team wouldn't be in anyway, so there wasn't a lot of point to making the transit trip. I spent the day working, catching up around Tiny Condo, taking in another Scrivener webinar, playing Minecraft, and attending my friend Danielle Allard's studio stream. The webinar was focused on using Scrivener as a tool for academic writing, but he demonstrated some features that are making it easier for me to continue reorganizing my novel into scenes. Later, I set up my Google calendar with the dates for round 1 of Rainbow Rockers (RR) curling. On Tuesday, I pulled the Death card for a second day in a row. I try to do a daily tarot though sometimes I forget. I know it's random and woo, but it's interesting that lately I've pul
Post a Comment
Read more