Wedding Bells are Ringing!

HAPPY WEDDING DAY TO JOHN KAY AND STEPHANIE...uhm...well...it's Kay now, so phew guess it's okay to forget! I wish you all the joys life might carry for a married couple, whatever those are. Dogs, kids, houses, that kinda thing. Sounds tedious! :p Love you John!

Purple Dragon Don Jitsu Ryu

I am a purple dragon student! I have a white belt! (I'm a bottom-feeder!) It's super fun! Except that I can't seem to summersault in a straight line. And my thighs hurt a ton. Like, a TON. Like, I'm walking and afraid they might stop working all together and I'll collapse hurt a ton. The etiquette is hard to get used to. Bowing at all the higher ups, bowing at the floor every time you get on or off of it, bowing several times just to get in the front door. Every time you bow you say "Ush." After nobody could explain this to me and I knew it wasn't the Japanese word for "yes" as they claimed, I googled it. It seems to be a bastardization of the word "osu," or "os" as the 'u' is often silent on the end of Japanese words. One internet source says: " When you enter or leave the dojo, you bow and say "Osu". When you greet a fellow Kyokushin Karateka 空手家, you say "Osu" instead of "hello". When you respond to an instruction or question in class, you say "Osu" instead of "yes" or "I understand". When performing Kihon Waza 基本技 (basic techniques) in class, each technique is often accompanied with a loud "Osu". When practicing Jiyu Kumite 自由組手 (free fighting) in class and your opponent lands a good, hard technique, you say "Osu" to acknowledge your opponent's skill. As a measure of respect, knockdown fighters at a tournament bow and say "Osu" to the front, to the referee and to each other, before and after the fight." (http://www.uskyokushin.com/osu.htm) Another has a similar explanation: "In Japanese the word oss is written as a two-character combination. The first character means “to push,” and the second means “to suffer.” Together they symbolize the importance of pushing, striving and persevering while suffering through whatever difficulties, pains and hindrances are encountered along the way. So, at the literal level, oss is simply an affirmation of the positive attitude, high spirits and refusal to quit that all karate people seek to develop as they train. On a deeper and more general level it might be translated as “keep the faith,” in the sense of karate philosophy and goals. " (http://www.minrec.org/wilson/pdfs/Language%20-%20The%20'oss'%20greeting.pdf)

So basically, every time I walk in the door I have to say "ush professor (his style everyone is learning, runs everything), ush shihans (seconds-in-command), ush sensei (owns/runs individual dojo), ush senpai (sensei's second), ush instructors, and ush san, bowing each time. I hate this, too. First of all, professor in Japanese is kyoju, and hanshi is grand master, so why is he called professor? and why are the black belts called instructor? Can we stick to one language maybe? pet peeve. Other than silly things like that, I really do like it. Even though it makes me work hard. I guess that's the point, a little hard work and discipline are good for me! So wish me luck while I try to ignore the mixing of languages and work my butt off for the yellow belt! Hopefully another month or so!

Seaplane

So for Chris' birthday, we went on a seaplane tour! It was so much fun! Check the pics on my fb page. My favourite things were the mountains from above, the ski hills, ocean and beaches. It was kind of neat seeing the familiar landmarks from the sky. The bridges look a lot cooler from up high, more impressive, I think. Grouse Mountain was neat, like "oh I was up there," and the whole sunshine coast was breathtaking. I was a bit nervous beforehand, and getting onto the 6-seater deHavilland Beaver was odd (I've never been in a seaplane, and it's like getting into a boat). The take-off was a little nerve-wracking as well, but only because I've never been in a plane that takes off from the water. Once we were up it was great! The sun shining on my face relaxed me too, I felt like I was going for a drive or something, but with a better view. Then it was all "oohs" and "ahs" for a while, passing the camera back and forth. We were pretty quiet, both from the shock of the views and the awkwardness of talking over the engine noise. The landing wasn't scary at all, very smooth. By the time we landed I was sad to go. All in all it was a worthwhile adventure!

eyeballses

I was reading Julie's blog and it's black with white type. Somehow, even though this has never happened before, I am now it on my screen still. Like when you look at a light for too long. Also, in response to Julie's waking up on the wrong side of the bed, do you ever get that thing where you wake up in the morning and it's like "huh, that's weird, I'm on the wrong side of the bed," as you stare at your ceiling, then after blinking a couple of times the ceiling spins around and it turns out you're on the right side of the bed after all but your eye-to-brain-sensors forgot to wake up when you did and you were seeing upside down? Coz I hope you have. Otherwise, it's actually me who's crazy. If that made no sense at all then just pretend this post doesn't exist.

Also, trying to figure out who's been reading my blog other than, say, Julie and my parents. "Dee Emm" commented on Julie's post about having learned of her blog from me posting that it should be read. Who's Dee Emm? Who reads this crazy crap I sporadically spout? What does D.M. stand for, or is Dee Emm not initials? You have me puzzled! Tellll Meeeeeeee!!!!!

spring is here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY

I know I've posted this a hundred times before but spring is here, spah-ring is here!
All the wildlife is out and about, eagles and hawks and odd birds you don't see in Ontario. Like the pretend bluejay,

http://www.vancouverisland.com/wildlife/?id=85

for example. Raccoons that are enormous. Like 3 Ontario raccoons in one. All the vermin are about too (cats) now that the rainy season is mostly done. Still had a few days of rain in the last couple weeks, but it's at least 60% sunny now.

Signed up for martial arts lessons. I'm-a gonna be able to kick ass. Human hiney, I mean, not donkey. Who would kick a donkey? A human hiney hole that's who.

Got a big fun day planned for Sunday! Planned a surprise birthday date for Chris. I can't say what it is yet, though, in case he's reading this. (Are you?? huh?? You better read my blog, it's super cool.)

Watched a sweet docu series on the Medici family.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/SW7JPZboRLQjc

I like it because it talks a lot about religion and the art world at the time. I was always a sucker for art/architectural history when it comes to the renaissance era. So I highly recommend this one. It's pretty basic, not too much detail on specific people, but it covers all the main artists of the time. It also made me wonder how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were chosen.

The great artists of the time were all under Medici patronage. Brunelleschi (architect, engineer), Fra Angelico (painter), Donatello (sculptor, bas relief), Michelangelo (sculptor, painter, architect, poet, engineer, snob), Leonardo (mental case), Raphael (painter, architect) and Sandro Botticelli (painter). So how do you break this group down to a mere four turtles? Seriously.

Anyway if you watch the docu and can't find what order they come in, I will tell you. I think. "Birth of a Dynasty" is obv part 1, 2 is the 'Magnificent Medici.' 3 is the 'Pope' and 4 is "Power v. Truth."

AAAnyway hot chocolate time XD

Anything Julie Does I Can Do Better

Soooooo I don't really have much to say today...but Julie's been doing so well keeping up on her blogging and I have...not so much. So I'm sort of just blogging today to say "I blog too!" and not let Julie win. (Her blog is awesome, btw, check out incrediblecrust.blogspot.com ...I guess...Kyle...who reads my blog aside from Julie haha check her blog out, it's awesome!) Anyway, so aside from attempting to one-up Julie, I need to come up with something good to discuss today. So! I will post a photo.

they finally rearranged the shelves at work, but i managed to snag this shot first. ahahha. good placement.

I guess that's all I've got. Oh I got a local phoneline via vonage. that's being mailed out to me and in 5 business days when i receive and install it i will let you all know the number even though my cell phone still works and you all generally text rather than phoning. i am no longer capitalizing my letters in the necessary places. this post is an enormous waste of your time.

Walked along kits beach today with Chris! It's been a beautiful primarily sunny week, and it was nice to "catch some rays." Of course I've been indoors ever since colouring and watching big bang theory, but I did get outside for a couple hours! I need to start exercising again, I let the rain keep me indoors too long. I think the spring has finally arrived here in Vancouver, though. I was overly warm today in my sweater and down vest, except when we were walking along the water when I felt just comfy because of the wind. I think it was a high of about 13. Got some pics of the view which I will post on fb soon. Miss y'all! (I said y'all.) (I'm a cool cat.)

Kyle's Visit

The rest of Kyle's trip was super fun. We didn't get to see Jenny (boo)but that just gives me a reason to get back to Seattle (yay). We also missed the underground tour (come on, people, when I tell you I'm going somewhere can't you tell me what to see while I'm there instead of telling me after I get back??) but we walked around a lot, did the pike place, the first Starbucks (obv I had tea, who wants that coffee), and found a restaurant that Jenny recommended (Machiavelli's, at least that one wasn't an illusive restaurant haha) which was super good. We basically just explored and relaxed. Our hotel was quite nice, we stayed at the Fairmont. I didn't want a dingy cheap hotel (it's vacation!) and I also didn't want something off the charts (but one day I WILL!) and the Fairmont was reasonable. Also, I wanted to be right downtown and it's in a great spot.

Once back in Canada (where there are almost no black people and almost all East Asian people) we went adventuring here, too. Kyle and I went to the Aquarium (obviously) (this is me). I showed him Deep Cove and we climbed the Baden Powell with Chris. Afterwards we went to do the Capilano suspension bridge. That was really cool. The bridge was a little freaky but the view was enormous. Once we reached the safety of the opposite side, I steered us toward the signs that said "Treetops Adventure." It was like an EWOK VILLAGE AND I GOT TO BE AN EWOK AND I HAD SO MUCH FUN AND IT WAS AWESOME! I think the guys liked it, too. Chris was trying to collect the stamps that said he had visited every station (if you catch'em all [blatant Pokemon reference] they give you a certificate at the end) but we didn't figure out until the end that the big metal things everywhere were actually embosser seals and they didn't actually give you stamps, they just suck at English and meant that you need to emboss your paper at each station. So Chris didn't get enough 'stamps.' We also went around the cliff side...hangy...stair...bridge...path. It was really cool but I thought I might die at any moment.

On another day we three plus Eric went atop Grouse and dined at the Observatory. That was quite nice. We made it about half-an-hour before the fog rolled in, so luckily we got all the beautiful view. The food was the best I've had in Vancouver. That's not saying a lot, the food here is terrible generally, but it was pretty delightful food. It wasn't quite worth the cost, but I guess you pay extra for the "free" cable car ride. It was also quite cold and snowy! Except for the fact that we were on a mountaintop with a beautiful view, I felt almost like I was home. (You know, -15 degrees, snowing.) All in all, I had a good Vacation with Kyle! MISS YOU!