cindy's world

I’m beat up and have acquired new bruises, swellings and scratches, but I really enjoyed jujitsu today. I find it remarkable that the other white belts (who don’t have blackbelt ego but are advanced enough to have stuff to teach me) can do the whole full-body contact without feeling self-conscious or letting any sort of tension get in the way. One guy who was practicing for a competition this Sunday told me a story after class about how even tho his buddy is bigger and stronger than he is, that despite his injured elbow he was able to get his buddy into a submission hold half the time when they’re wrestling because of his more polished martial arts techniques. He started describing one foothold ‘trick’ that I couldn’t understand, so he showed it to me. He got on his back with his knees up, opened his legs, and told me to get on top of him. This was slightly uncomfortable, but then I’m not as deep into the martial arts mentality as he is. He clearly has no problem with this. So I did it and he demonstrated the leg lock and showed me how if I try to punch him (which I did), he could with very little strength yank me off balance downward (which he did), or push me over (which he did), and there’s nothing I could do about it or to even get up (which I tried to do and failed). He had me turn and look at the hold of his legs wrapped around mine, and the location of his feet around my ankles. And it was purely educational. There’s none of the winks and grins that the blackbelt did to me even on Monday. (Of course, my cold reception toward it on Monday made the blackbelt way more business-oriented around me today. Not stiffly since the whole class still jokes around and stuff, but it’s more platonic.)
As everyone was walking out after class, the instructor said in a year he was going to have me in competitions and I should start practicing now with that goal in mind. I looked dubious and one of the more skilled guys (who had taught me a lot) said that I have nice hip-throws. I was shocked. I said I couldn’t lift anyone in the class. Then they all looked surprised. They said I could, and my positioning on the hip throws is good. Maybe they’re just yanking my chain so I’d continue with the class, I dunno.

I got this joke via email and it’s an oldie but goodie:

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came upon a large, raging violent river. Needing to get on the other side, the first man prayed, “God, please give me the strength to cross the river.” Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice.

After witnessing that, the second man prayed, “God, please give me strength and the tools to cross the river.” Poof! God gave him a rowboat and strong arms and strong legs and he was able to row across in about an hour after almost capsizing once.

Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed, “God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligence to cross the river.” Poof! He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, hiked one hundred yards upstream and walked across the bridge.

I got an email this morning from my cousin requesting volunteers to work the 33rd annual National Down Syndrome Congress. Volunteers will be acting as guides, group leaders, and friends for teens and adults with Down syndrome at their annual conference where they will be participating in workshops and talent shows. It’s going to be at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove on a Sunday at the end of the month.

I immediately wrote back to her telling her I’m in. I’d done a similar volunteer position for the Special Olympics with my then-boyfriend on June 17, 2001 for the Sheriff’s Department (I know the date because I’m looking at a labeled Polaroid of me taken at the event, tacked to the front wall of my desk, among various photos of Dodo). I’d also done a lot of volunteer work in high school for CSF and Key Club. What good times we had back then! My cousin was also in Key Club and I’d see her on occasion at large volunteer events.

There’s something about volunteering for the less fortunate that really opens your eyes and your heart. I can’t wait.

I had one of those dreams this morning (in-between Snooze hits) that from past experience will set the overtone for my mood the next few days. Coincidentally, I watched an episode of “Friends” last nite (Season 9 DVD) wherein Rachel dreamt about Joey and herself in a romantic situation and when she woke up, she couldn’t shake the desire to make out with Joey. That started her Joey crush. Does my dream mean I really DO need romance in my life, as hard as I’m fighting it from all directions, internally and externally? I had been making such progress, too. I woke up late from this dream and expelled so audible a groan-whimper that my cat came running and gave me the quizzical yet comforting “grrrrrr-owl?”.

New on list of things to do:

Make a sandwich board that says “If you’re frustrating and annoying and pig-headed and have victim’s complex, leave me the hell alone.”

And even as I know this, I’m about to drive myself into perhaps a regrettable mistake. Oh well, what else is new? I spent like 15 minutes in a hot spa at the gym today letting the jets pound the knots from my back. Why not put some more back in?

I really dislike judgmental, ignorant, close-minded, conceited people. I can close an eye to someone with one or maybe even two of these features, but all of them together just makes me feel disdainful toward the two bearers of these traits whom I’m thinking of. It’s bad enough that these people are too quick to pass judgment without knowing all the facts and without even the open-mindedness to see that they don’t have all the information, but to have the arrogance to wave the verbal banner that they’re right and that anyone who goes against their judgment is stupid…wow. The attitudes of these two people will be detrimental to their personal growth.
(I may feel more strongly about this presently due to hormonal fluctuations, but hormones don’t alter my opinion – only the level of my response.)

I just realized something about myself. I’d always partly believed it when people say I worry too much about things I have no control over. I was starting to see symptoms of General Anxiety Disorder. But I just realized that I only stress over things that aren’t being taken care of, which means they are things that I can still do something about. However, if a problem exists but something is being done about it, even if it is not yet resolved, I’m fine! Someone I care about may have serious hypertension issues, but if he’s on meds, being monitored by a doctor and is taking steps to take care of himself, I don’t worry about it. We do what we can, and the rest is up to fate/the universe/powers that be/God. If the same person is in denial about his health and is still out there getting drunk and partying it up and not taking his meds, THEN I worry and stress, and try to get him to see the light. I think that’s very reasonable.

I feel lost again, like a leaf that had been torn from a tree. Now that I’m not attached to something large and substantial and rooted, I’m at the mercy of the wind and I feel insecure and scared as I flip and fall and rise arbitrarily. The last time I’d felt this way (10 months ago) and described the blown leaf sensation to someone, he told me, “Or you can choose not to be a leaf. You can be an acorn or a seed, and settle down anywhere you want and grow into your own tree.”
Tonight, those clever words of advice give me little comfort as I grit my teeth against the dread of this weekend.

Visited the ‘rents this evening. Washed my car over there again. Two weekends in a row in which I did laundry and washed my car. I’m too embarrassed to put in writing how often I normally did laundry and washed the car, but if you know me, you should be wiping a tear in pride now. My mom offered to make me a fruit smoothie. She’s been really into the organic healthy stuff, and she makes her own yogurt which she blends into smoothies. I munched on sliced oranges and Fuji apples (smoothie ingredients) as my mom blended, and ended up too full when I got my mug o’ smoothie, so I played with the foam on top while my dad took a sip of his smoothie. He complained it was too sour. My mom said, “Oh, I must’ve used too much tomato.” HUH?

As I worked up the courage to take a sip of…tomato smoothie, I took the mug with me to the living room and decided to practice piano. It’d been a long time. I rummaged in the box of sheet music and music books, and pulled out Claude Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque. I discovered a whole submelody in “Clair de Lune.” I frowned to concentrate through my parents’ Chinese talk show CD, which they had cranked way up so they can hear it over my piano (the radio was in the kitchen and they were sitting in the family room trying to listen to it). Then I started pulling out Chopin and various composers’ Sonatas. It’s interesting to sight-read music I know I’ve played before but have no memory of it, or of the markings made by my former piano teacher. Coming at this music from a “fresh” perspective, then, I was impressed by the composition and light-heartedness of one Sonata which didn’t have a composer’s name under the title. I thought it sounded a lot like Mozart’s style, and it reminded me of the arias in Mozart’s opera “Le Nozze de Figaro,” which I had seen with my ex last year. I flipped to the table of contents which did list the composers, and I was right! Now that I’m older and have more exposure to classical music (as opposed to simply memorizing a given order of notes with no opinion as to the quality of the music, which was how I approached music as a child/teen), I find that I have more appreciation for and understanding of these works. It takes playing music to a whole different level. For example, I examined a chord and wondered why Debussy chose to use an F instead the smoother sounding chord he’d make with E-flat, and then I looked at the measure before and saw his pattern of note ascension. Brilliant. This appreciation bubble burst as my mom interrupted my playing to tell me to hurry up and drink the tomato smoothie before the enzymes die.

I went upstairs to blog about my excitement over my piano playing, and could not get their internet up because their dial-up kept hanging up after the “verifying user name and password” stage. So I played 3-D Pinball for 2 hours until I decided that the computer’s cheating, then I came home.

I found a new PMS emotion! Severe shock. I read in an old friend’s blog that he was LA-bound this weekend, a mere 30 miles away from me, while I was chatting with him online on Instant Messenger. So I instantly wrote to him:

Me (10:58:13 AM): You’re in LA this weekend?! When???
Friend (10:58:26 AM): oh right now!
Me (10:58:41 AM): YOU’RE IN LA RIGHT NOW???
Friend (10:58:46 AM): yeah!
Me (10:58:55 AM): ?!?!
Me (10:58:59 AM): WHERE???
Friend (10:59:06 AM): haha in santa monica
Friend (10:59:20 AM): over at [another friend’s apartment] right now
Me (10:59:24 AM): !!! When’d you get in???
Friend (10:59:54 AM): yesterday afternoon
Me (10:59:58 AM): WHAAAAAT???

And then I thought, “Why am I so SHOCKED??” It’s not like he doesn’t come down semi-regularly, or travel really regularly to even farther places. Then it hit me. PMS. I know from experience that PMS makes all the emotions stronger which causes the roller-coaster effect. But I’ve never been severely SHOCKED before.