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Day 727: Actual Usefulness
Feb. 22nd, 2009 05:36 pmNumbers that are palindrome's on my little day calendar title dealie make me irrationally cheerful.
Friday night was simple and peaceful - had a good experience at the temple, talked to Ericka and Chanita on the phone, talked to Daniel on Skype, and then stayed up tatting till an ungodly hour and stabbed myself in the thumb trying one of totusmel's new patterns. The thumb is healed and ready to get back into the tatting action, but still. My right hand is a little sore anyway from writing so many letters.
Saturday was awesome in a very banal way. I slept in till eleven because, well, I wasn't in bed till five. I woke up and cleaned my apartment. Seriously, it's clean now - I can see the floor, things are in their proper places, and people have places to sit when they come visit. After I cleaned I read for Secured, BA, and both of my case files. I did some beta work, got caught up on some online writing, and then went to Amber's birthday party. She loved the stuffed monkey, which makes me happy. The Bluejays also won their game, and that made her happy, and even though I'm not much one for sports or team spirit, I'm still happy when my team wins. I hung out with Will and Amy for most of the evening - we stuck around at the Qwest to buy overpriced stadium junk food for dinner, and it was awesome. I had a hot dog and ice cream for dinner, because it had been a long week. I also talked to Rohit, the pretty Nepalese boy in the other ward. He's too young for me, but talking and enjoying the sights is hardly going all cougar on some kid.
Then I spent the rest of the evening tatting and talking to Daniel and Chanita and Jonathan online. I got one and one half rounds done on that mask, which is going to need ironing but is looking pretty awesome. I need to start on Logan's birthday moogle (in all irony I started on Seirra's first, and her birthday is two weeks after his), but those can get done in a single night if I put my mind to it. All in all, Saturday was cool because I got so much done.
Today was a good Sunday - Amber's last, because she's moving into the other ward's boundaries. I got to talk to Will a lot - we carpooled, as he lives around the corner from me. It was a bit daunting to talk to someone as well read as if not more well-read than me (there are people like that out there, seriously) but it was also fun. I also had a moment of identity satori, which made me pretty happy. See, I pretty much figure I've got a white girl's mind in an Asian girl's skin, and that's that, but today I realized that I don't think on the Western paradigm as much as originally thought. Will said he liked fencing for the chess-like, strategic element, for operating smoothly within a given set of rules (because apparently the rules are bizarre and you have to do weird stuff before you can score points). I decided fencing isn't for me after all, because I do like the more eastern philosophy about kenjutsu and martial arts in general, which is a whole lot more zen. It's not about strategy but about not thinking at all, about being and just reacting. I know I think too much, and I have to seriously meditate to clear my head, but once I get into that zone where I'm not thinking at all, I fight so much better. It seemed completely counterintuitive to him and frankly bizarre, and I realized that, despite shows like Kung Fu and The Karate Kid, a lot of stuff about zen seems like fortune cookie gibberish to most people around here. Zen/void principles made instinctive sense to me growing up, and maybe it's because of where I grew up, but I can't really understand the mindset behind fencing. It feels a little Zero system to me, frankly, and anyone who watched Gundam Wing will understand the horror of that implication. Although it does make sense where at the end, Dorothy and Quatre, the two blondes whose minds were half-eaten by Zero system, were fencing, dueling one on one once the sea of Mobile Dolls had been dispatched by the Gundams. I wasn't sure if it was comforting or disconcerting to realize I'm not as white as I sometimes assume.
I take that back - I've decided, and it was pretty comforting. It's no fun, walking around in the world knowing people assume I'm all cute and 24-karat Asian like Xiao Qian and feeling like a counterfeit the entire time.
At any rate, I still have lots of letters to write, but my sad little hands need a rest.
Maybe I'll tat some.
Friday night was simple and peaceful - had a good experience at the temple, talked to Ericka and Chanita on the phone, talked to Daniel on Skype, and then stayed up tatting till an ungodly hour and stabbed myself in the thumb trying one of totusmel's new patterns. The thumb is healed and ready to get back into the tatting action, but still. My right hand is a little sore anyway from writing so many letters.
Saturday was awesome in a very banal way. I slept in till eleven because, well, I wasn't in bed till five. I woke up and cleaned my apartment. Seriously, it's clean now - I can see the floor, things are in their proper places, and people have places to sit when they come visit. After I cleaned I read for Secured, BA, and both of my case files. I did some beta work, got caught up on some online writing, and then went to Amber's birthday party. She loved the stuffed monkey, which makes me happy. The Bluejays also won their game, and that made her happy, and even though I'm not much one for sports or team spirit, I'm still happy when my team wins. I hung out with Will and Amy for most of the evening - we stuck around at the Qwest to buy overpriced stadium junk food for dinner, and it was awesome. I had a hot dog and ice cream for dinner, because it had been a long week. I also talked to Rohit, the pretty Nepalese boy in the other ward. He's too young for me, but talking and enjoying the sights is hardly going all cougar on some kid.
Then I spent the rest of the evening tatting and talking to Daniel and Chanita and Jonathan online. I got one and one half rounds done on that mask, which is going to need ironing but is looking pretty awesome. I need to start on Logan's birthday moogle (in all irony I started on Seirra's first, and her birthday is two weeks after his), but those can get done in a single night if I put my mind to it. All in all, Saturday was cool because I got so much done.
Today was a good Sunday - Amber's last, because she's moving into the other ward's boundaries. I got to talk to Will a lot - we carpooled, as he lives around the corner from me. It was a bit daunting to talk to someone as well read as if not more well-read than me (there are people like that out there, seriously) but it was also fun. I also had a moment of identity satori, which made me pretty happy. See, I pretty much figure I've got a white girl's mind in an Asian girl's skin, and that's that, but today I realized that I don't think on the Western paradigm as much as originally thought. Will said he liked fencing for the chess-like, strategic element, for operating smoothly within a given set of rules (because apparently the rules are bizarre and you have to do weird stuff before you can score points). I decided fencing isn't for me after all, because I do like the more eastern philosophy about kenjutsu and martial arts in general, which is a whole lot more zen. It's not about strategy but about not thinking at all, about being and just reacting. I know I think too much, and I have to seriously meditate to clear my head, but once I get into that zone where I'm not thinking at all, I fight so much better. It seemed completely counterintuitive to him and frankly bizarre, and I realized that, despite shows like Kung Fu and The Karate Kid, a lot of stuff about zen seems like fortune cookie gibberish to most people around here. Zen/void principles made instinctive sense to me growing up, and maybe it's because of where I grew up, but I can't really understand the mindset behind fencing. It feels a little Zero system to me, frankly, and anyone who watched Gundam Wing will understand the horror of that implication. Although it does make sense where at the end, Dorothy and Quatre, the two blondes whose minds were half-eaten by Zero system, were fencing, dueling one on one once the sea of Mobile Dolls had been dispatched by the Gundams. I wasn't sure if it was comforting or disconcerting to realize I'm not as white as I sometimes assume.
I take that back - I've decided, and it was pretty comforting. It's no fun, walking around in the world knowing people assume I'm all cute and 24-karat Asian like Xiao Qian and feeling like a counterfeit the entire time.
At any rate, I still have lots of letters to write, but my sad little hands need a rest.
Maybe I'll tat some.
