The holidays are gone so quickly, when I looked forward to them for so long.
Now I have to face the new year. I have to decide what to do when I graduate. Do I take out another large loan and stay in school for another degree? Do I continue working at Tequila? What other good choices are there?
Both my sisters are in town. They're both stunningly gorgeous, and both have lost 15lbs since I saw them last. I feel increasingly disgusting, fat, ugly. It's weird the effect...
I got Dance Dance Revolution for Christmas, for Xbox, and it's fun. Fun for now, and a nice distraction.
SGL, 7:55pm
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
NYE plans are difficult. They're made, but not correctly, not with smiles, and now it's too late to back out. Is it really?
Worked all day today. Now nothing for the rest of the week except holiday madness, which is some of my favorite madness in the world. Ali and I will be split up on Christmas Eve, though, for the first time ever. It makes me sad.
Soon Tukong, last class before Christmas. It's weird to train with the weight of the Black Belt now. I feel like everything I do simply must be top notch. I must correct students who don't say "yes sir" or bow correctly, I must put 150% into every kick or punch, and I must no longer laugh and make funny faces and hug the little kids who run up to say "I love you miss shay." Or do I?
I'm hungry and fat.
SGL, 5:52pm
Monday, December 22, 2003
Souvenir (to remember):
Broke 3 boards with a fist, 3 with a sliding side kick, 1 with a turn around kick, and one with a spearhand (fingertips).
Did Ulgi and Sam Kang and moving hard blocking 1-7. Did 1-step sparring with Susie.
Also did nunchucks 1-24, bong sul 1 and 2, and sam gum hyung.
And the belt is thick, and dark, and I don't recognize it as mine yet.
Tonight I'll train for the first time with the new black belt. Exciting. I don't feel the ecstacy I was expecting, but I do feel joy and relief and exhaustion. I guess that's what it's supposed to be.
SGL, 3:13pm
Saturday, December 20, 2003
My biggest fear was that I would cry.
And I did.
But it wasn't so bad. I couldn't take Ali beating himself blue. Watching just made tears stream.
The rest was scary only from outside. I got off easy, with just a bruised finger and foot. Others, like Ali, broke and bruised hands. More boards broke than body parts, though, so I guess overall we won.
And we all passed. Now I and my good training buddies wear black belts.
So the day did come, and tomorrow we'll find out what's beyond.
SGL, 11:45pm
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
People around me are planning for Christmas, for caroling and parties and new year's eve and big dinners. They're so sure that time will pass and Christmas will come and plans will be useful.
And here I sit, so convinced that Saturday will be the end of everything, the black hole into which all else will fall. I can't see beyond it, how can they?
No sleeping anymore. Tossing, turning, going over forms in my head, dreaming about breaking my hands instead of the boards, imagining Master's disappointment in me.
Here's hopin they're right, and there is something beyond Saturday.
-SGL, 12:32pm
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Grade reports come in slowly. So far, 4.0 for last semester. Hopefully that won't change.
Never been this scared. Now I have free time. Have taken the rest of this week off from work to prepare. How can I prepare? How can I make my hands go through boards? I'm so scared I'm going to get hurt. That I'm going to cry. That I'm going to disappoint you.
In this free time I feel all those scary things, and think them all, and hit my hand against hard surfaces to get a little taste of that type of pain. I'm not ready. How can I be a black belt? And if I fail, does that mean jeong shin il do ha sa bul sung is not true for me?
How horrid.
My tea is kicking in. I'll meet susie to train in an hour, and the nerves will mount, and the time will pass, and we will be closer to the day of the test.
SGL, 9:31am
Monday, December 15, 2003
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-T. Roosevelt
Monday, December 08, 2003
I'm surrounded by adults. No, not people like me, who are adult only as needed, but people with life insurance and matching towels and grown up relationships. They are solid. Secure. Set. They know where they are is where they belong and where they will stay.
And I wonder what that would feel like.
To be that solid.
Maybe it would feel as good as eating a good meal.
But without the fat to follow.
Maybe I'll never know.
11:51pm
Things over my head:
Black Belt Test in 12 days
American History test in 4 days
Korean test in 3 days
Law School Admission (pending for months)
Work
Christmas/NYE
Not too bad when I write it all down. So why am I losing composure?
My side kicks are terrible, I forgot Moving Hardblocking 5, I don't know enough self defense, and I don't think my fingertips can really break a board. Yes, that's what underlies this anxiety, the Tukong test. 3 years of training all coming to this. So many people watching.
Everyone else seems to have things figured out. Their houses are neat, their relationships are good, their side kicks are fine, and they have no fear about breaking through 3 boards with their elbows. Where did I get lost?
SGL, 10:12am
Monday, December 01, 2003
Why don't you understand?
Why isn't he good enough for me, if I think he's good enough for me?
Why don't you trust me to make my own decisions?
I know me better than you know me.
Why do I have to move away to become great? Can't I be great right here?
SGL, 11:22am
"Perhaps the essential role of the ego is to mask from consciousness its very spontaneity." - Jean-Paul Sartre
