Been a while

So I haven't blogged in quite some time now. To be honest, I hate blogging and I stopped after UBBT. Lately, however, I've come to the realization that blogging has it's uses. I've always heard it said that blogging/journaling is great for motivational purposes, but to be honest, I never really bought into it. After reading Sihing Lindstrom's blog (or more accuratly reading the impact it had on others), I began to see the light (so-to-speak).
I want to be able to look back later and read about all of the struggles I overcame, all the places I visited, all of the things I learned. My blogging gap represents a knowledge gap...a gap in records that I think is significant.
Lets see if I can do a little better record keeping in the future.

Ego-less training

I've been noticing, in the last couple of weeks since my promotion to second degree, a problem begining to arise in my training.

It's very apparent to me, especially when I teach. My ego is starting to rear its head in the back of my head and that's not good.

Now I don't consider myself to be necessarily full of myself, but a small voice has been sounding in my mind saying "Well I'm a second degree now, so I know everything!"

I need to get a grasp on that.

My rational mind knows it's not true, but there is still that part of me that secretly wants to sit on a special chair and wear a big hat.

Even though I didn't morph into a magical martial arts goddess when I put my stripes on, I'm finding it hard to come back down to humble reality. That's part of the pitfalls of promotion I guess...becoming too big for your uniform.

I still have a lot to learn. A LOT to learn and I need to keep that in mind.

Ego-less training is important, otherwise you miss opportunities to learn and I don't want that to happen.

Guess I need to take a second and eat some humble pie....time enough later for the special chair and big hat!

Have five minutes...

So I have a spare five minutes to blog...

It's been a crazy busy couple of weeks (is it ever not so?). Right now I'm waiting on some samples in an oven. We ground up some rock, added some sodium peroxide and set the samples to bake. Kinda cool.....

Another girl and I are training how to digest our samples for microprobe analysis. By dissolving the rock in acid and sending it through the microprobe, you can get information on the specific chemical make up of the rock and trace chemical changes through time. This is useful when your trying to figure out the paleoclimate/paleogeography/sea level etc. of your study area.

Down side:

Takes at least 5 hours to prepare 11 samples....sucky!

Oh well....back to the grindstone (pardon the pun:)

Not the best start...

So, the new year has started and, although not in the UBBT again this year, I made a list of fitness goals on PHYSOUT for myself. I have to say though, that I am not doing as well on them as I did last year. In a way, I'm glad because that means I've made them more challenging, but the fact remains I need to get my butt in gear.

So I was all stoked to play catch up and pushed myself on Tues and injured myself. I hurt my back doing knuckle pushups so I had to take yesterday off working out and have been hobbling around the house ever since. Pretty pathetic!

This year is not starting out how I had planned! Bah!

It's hard when I know I'm falling farther and farther behind on my goals, but I know if I push too hard, it will set me back farther. Ah patience and progressing wisely....it's a fine line that's for sure!

Grad school is sssssooooo fun! I get to sit all day in my own office (that I share with two other guys, but still total awesomeness) and read about the coolest stuff! Right now I'm reading a paper on the Permian-Triassic (about 251 million years ago) mass extinction during which they think over 90% of all Earth's species went extinct. I suggest you google it if you haven't heard of it...pretty amazing. The formation I'm going to be working on is from this time period.

Ok so some of you (probably most) don't find that to be fantastically interesting but still....

I'm really enjoying it so far.

So ya, ups and downs...that's how life goes I guess eh?

End of the year....and the ubbt

So I have to admit, I've been done exams for almost 2 weeks now and I have not been blogging. Funny how you can keep putting things off and time just slips by.

The Ubbt is coming to an end for me quickly and I'm kind of sad in a way. The Ubbt experience has done a lot of good for me. It taught me to hold myself acountable for my goals and progress and I've accomplished things I didn't think were possible.

I can now do 50 pushups without batting an eye, something I would have thought impossible, especially with my back issues. That, for me, is a major accomplishment.

The Ubbt also helped my leadership skills. I ran my leadership seminar as well as the kwoon renovations. I learned alot about organisation and running something. They definatly were learning experiences!

I also managed to accomplish my goal of getting into grad school. I'm so happy it worked out!

I practiced my fan form and tested for second degree as well. Check and check on my list...

However, I didn't manage to get everything done that I wanted to.

My 1000 reps of Kempo....not even close, and that was an important one. And I can't do the splits...once again, not even close:)

But the ubbt has taught me how to set goals and accomplish them, it has introduced me to people all over the world and most of all, has given me an excuse to train.

So although this year I'm not participating again, I have a list of goals to get done...including tackling Kempo!

Thanks Sifu Brinker and ubbt guys! You made this year awesome!