Osu

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I suspect the other person learned an important lesson about taking one's opponent seriously. 

[Kishi]

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 11:14 AM, Urgan said:

 

 

Yup. Felt the power of the Dark Side on that one.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 11:14 AM, Urgan said:

It happens, but that's where learning to be a good uke applies, too. Uke is partially responsible for protecting himself. Say what you will about Aikido and their punching game, but a black belt with plenty of cross-training experience would have decked me absentmindedly (I think he might have had a couple beers before rolling into class, or something of similar potency....) had I not had my hand against my face with no space between. If you get casual, you get hit. Can't even trust your superiors to always have pitch-perfect restraint. Of course it sucks the guy got hit and hopefully he's not sporting some interesting colors as a result. Next lesson: how to guard against being kicked in the head!

 

Yup. Everyone's training. Uke has to learn to take the technique and take it well. That's a kind of practice all on its own. Still, I managed to cut the guy and make him bleed, and I felt pretty bad for that. It gets into one of those weird responsibility spaces where I'm responsible for hitting him with the technique, and he's responsible for how he got hit by the technique. Who's at fault? I don't really know. But he didn't blame me and that wound up about as well as it was going to, I think.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 12:51 PM, Mistr said:

I agree with @Urgan. My dojo has been putting more emphasis on teaching good ukemi. One of our beginners was moving into an exposed position during my class this week. Of course this is the new person who has done some boxing and is interested in how effective aikido might be. It never occurred to him that he was exposing his ribs to a kick. We don't teach how to kick and only rarely work on dealing with kicks. That doesn't mean we ignore those openings. There are plenty of senior people who have trained in hard styles who will help with that.

 

Yup. That's one of the things about boxing. They have pretty hands and excellent head movement, but the sport allows them to get away with a lot of things that you couldn't get away with if you were taking kicks. Which is a thing that happens.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 12:51 PM, Mistr said:

I'm so glad you are finding good things at your new dojo.

 

Same! I like it there a lot.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 12:51 PM, Mistr said:

Yay for people liking your chili!

 

Yeah. Whew. Was really nervous, especially since it was a new recipe that I'd not made before. But it worked out!

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 5:46 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I suspect the other person learned an important lesson about taking one's opponent seriously. 

 

One hopes. The dude's going out to test for his black belt in Hapkido; you'd think with all The Deadly they're supposed to have that he'd be paranoid and good about taking this kind of stuff. Oh well.

 

*

 

Friday to Sunday. What a weekend. Good stuff, but busy. Okay.

 

Friday was a fight night at the dojo. It was mostly dojo students, but it was open to other schools stopping by and so we did have some additional students from other dojo stopping by.

 

It was a blast. I haven't had a chance to throwdown with people in a harder context like that in years. I went a few round with Ky-sensei, and that man is not soft. He's - and really everyone - are going to be a good opportunity to learn to practice getting off-center and circling out to the side. I let myself get intimidated, though. It's not necessarily his size, although he's a head taller and hard. It's more to do with the fact that I'm used to circling away from the crossing hand, and he was remarkably deceptive, always switching up his cross hand with every move he made.

 

Of course, looking back at it now, I was foolish. This style functions way closer, and the closer you get to an opponent, the more sense it makes to square up, because you don't want to give the opponent your back and it's easier for them to take it if you're already partway turned. He came in square, so every time he took a step, his hands would shift. Which makes sense if you're square. But the thing I should have remembered was, when you're squared up like that, the cross loses power. If you're punching from your feet, then the distance your force is generated over makes a given blow stronger, which is why a bladed stance makes sense at distance. You square up, you get stable, but you trade away some power in the process. Meaning I could have circled any way I wanted and got out of his way. Even if I'd eaten a cross or a hook on the way, I would have glanced or interrupted either one before they could achieve max force and it would have been bearable.

 

Man, so many things.

 

There were kids there too, so I got the chance to catch breathers and practice countering and 'placing' blows rather than just blasting people. Good practice. I have to admit, they're kind of the hardest part, though. Ky-sensei's son in particular is a problem child. He's definitely got ADHD, and while he's medicated, the dosage isn't quite right. Even without that, he's got a real discipline problem, and that's a bad look in a Karate dojo. So you can imagine that Ky-sensei comes down pretty hard on him for it. He wound up decompensating pretty bad, to a degree that I don't know whether or not it's going to lead to him being kicked off the mats or what. Of course, the rest of us fought on, and as for me, I just really felt for them in their situation. I'm selfish enough to think it'd be better if the son didn't come back, but it's not my school and it's not my problem and anyway no school is perfect. I reckon it's better to have one problem student be a small percentage of the body than one problem student who's 33-50% of the body.

 

Went hard for a good hour or so before I felt a twinge in my shoulder and decided to call it. Got some food in me and went to the gym - legs and abs. No bagwork beyond some clinch-knee practice because doggone but I miss that.

 

(but wait, Kishi, didn't you say there was a MT place nearby? Yes, yes I did, but apparently they're more salespeople than they are trainers. They try to drive people toward other programs they have in place instead of the MT program, possibly because there's a fight team there? Idk, but it seems shady to me).

 

Saturday, I went to office hours. We held them in this repurposed warehouse that had been changed into an open office space. It's kept stocked with snacks and coffee and beer, and all you gotta do is pay for hourly usage. I liked it there. So did a bunch of work stuff for some hours. Pushed a new book out to the share services. Found out that the gent I'd trained to do this hadn't been pulling his weight on it. Which I get, because life happens, but it's a bad look on your first week. I tried to be gentle in calling him out on it, but we didn't get the chance to talk  much and he didn't want to deal with it. Which, again. Bad look. He later indicated in group chat that he'd had some RL problems come up, but it struck me as remarkably petty stuff... but it would, given that he's really prone to letting his emotions rule him and I'm not.

 

Finally made it back to Kali, though. It was fun. Found a way to integrate some judo into what we were doing, even throwing a dude w/ sasae. Didn't see that coming. And the dude couldn't duplicate it either, which just made me feel special. :'D Of course, if he comes to judo like he says he will, that'll be something to behold. Of course, if I go back to judo, that'll be something to behold too.

 

Sunday was awesome. It was a friend's birthday, so I took the night off to go attend a murder-mystery party with her. I played a character who wears 'sleeveless shirts' to formal events, so I got my hands on a tank top with a tuxedo print and shaved my chest, shoulders, and back for the part. Feels like I've stepped up my grooming game pretty hard to make this work, and also it feels weird to wear clothes now. But not bad weird. Feels like something I could get used to.

 

The party itself was great. Lots of people I knew alongside people that I didn't. There were two murderers involved, and I got one of them, which was one more than I got the last time I went to something like this. That's a 100% improvement rating.  And, since my character was a gym owner, people came up to me afterward to talk RL fitness, which was pretty great. They've been making good strides on their own - one friend lost 30 lbs all by herself and is able to wear things again that she couldn't before, which is just super-exciting to know about - and I got to plant the seed with another one who likes the way I teach striking. She wants to "get graceful" before she returns to Krav and she thinks I can help her with that. We'll see. I don't mind teaching, but without a black belt or a cert it just feels kind of weird to assume an authority position. But putting my experience to work for others? No problem.

 

Also managed to square things with the booksharing gent. We'll see what happens this week. If it comes out that he can't do this again, I'll probably just take it back and try to float the idea of bringing on a virtual assistant or something like that, because we got people lining up for our services and this is going to get hairy if it winds up that I'm the one person doing all the shares for all the books on all the platforms.

 

But those are problems for later. Right now, Monday, and rest.

[Mistr]

Yay for having a great weekend!

[Kishi]

Monday turned out to be a very restful day. Went out and gamed and had a good time. I dunno if I mentioned this but we've transitioned to playing The Dark Eye, which is Germany's answer to D&D. My character managed to distinguish herself very well and earned lots of xps for that.

 

The only bad part about yesterday is that I overestimated how much time I had to work with things and by the time I got down it was Late O'clock. Meaning I got up at Late O'clock, late enough that I'm not going to make karate tonight. Bugger.  But given how overemphasized training has become in my life, I'm choosing to see this as a blessing instead. Instead of killing myself for OT, I'll leave, gym, hit the heavy bag and record myself, and then work on cleaning up more than just my kitchen.

 

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself.

[Mistr]

5 hours ago, Kishi said:

The only bad part about yesterday is that I overestimated how much time I had to work with things and by the time I got down it was Late O'clock. Meaning I got up at Late O'clock, late enough that I'm not going to make karate tonight. Bugger.  But given how overemphasized training has become in my life, I'm choosing to see this as a blessing instead. Instead of killing myself for OT, I'll leave, gym, hit the heavy bag and record myself, and then work on cleaning up more than just my kitchen.

 

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself.

 

Sounds like a good plan.

[Sloth the Enduring]

German D&D is an awesome concept.

[Kishi]

14 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

German D&D is an awesome concept.

 

It is, and it's fun to play! Setting involves a lot more beer and alcohol, and the character alignment system reminds me more of Wheel of Time than anything else, in that you have an absolute evil and a lot of shades of gray of "good." It's a bit more mathematically demanding in terms of resolving skill checks and such, but once you get the hang of it, things resolve pretty quick.

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

Sounds like a good plan.

 

It was! Sadly, like most plans, this one didn't survive first contact with the enemy...

 

*

 

So the vicious cycle continued. Late to work meant late out of work. I ran some errands afterward that put me way far out before coming back to get to the gym and do my work. Managed kettlebells and skipping rope and the heavy bag, this time focused on chasing and pivot footwork.

 

I did manage to get out of the gym early, but the grocery store was backed up by people at the registers who really didn't know what they were doing, and it was late enough by the time I got back that I needed to focus on getting cleaned up and getting the cooking done before going to bed. I managed to shadow-BJJ for a bit on top of everything else, and that was good, but. Not what I had planned.

 

Oh well.

 

Today's a resting day, beyond the shadowboxing. Should be a sci-fi night, and since The Expanse hasn't dropped yet it looks like we're off to BSG. Cool.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Oh man, I just discovered The Expanse a couple of days ago. It’s incredible.  

[Kishi]

3 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Oh man, I just discovered The Expanse a couple of days ago. It’s incredible.  

 

Yeah man. That first episode is kind of rocky, but it just gets better. Really glad that Overlord Bezos saved it.

[Urgan]

34 minutes ago, Kishi said:

It is, and it's fun to play! Setting involves a lot more beer and alcohol, and the character alignment system reminds me more of Wheel of Time than anything else, in that you have an absolute evil and a lot of shades of gray of "good." It's a bit more mathematically demanding in terms of resolving skill checks and such, but once you get the hang of it, things resolve pretty quick.

 

This does not come as a shock.

 

36 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So the vicious cycle continued. Late to work meant late out of work. I ran some errands afterward that put me way far out before coming back to get to the gym and do my work. Managed kettlebells and skipping rope and the heavy bag, this time focused on chasing and pivot footwork.

 

I did manage to get out of the gym early, but the grocery store was backed up by people at the registers who really didn't know what they were doing, and it was late enough by the time I got back that I needed to focus on getting cleaned up and getting the cooking done before going to bed. I managed to shadow-BJJ for a bit on top of everything else, and that was good, but. Not what I had planned.

 

Oh well.

 

Buying groceries more than once per week seems to be fraught with peril. 

[Kishi]

2 minutes ago, Urgan said:

This does not come as a shock.

 

Yeah. The European systems are so weird, in that they invert the math. So instead of going high, you want low, because they set your ability scores as higher and higher numbers. So when I roll Nat 1s on a D20 in Dark Eye, it's awesome. But you have to roll from three different attributes and roll under each one of them. Then, the skill has a number attached to it. Any time you roll over an attribute, you subtract from that number to get your roll in line with the attribute. At the end, if you succeed, the number you have left over determines the quality of your success.

 

If you roll a Nat 1, you automatically succeed, but you have to roll another success to confirm the crit.

 

It's one of those things that makes sense once you start doing it, but it's definitely more involved than rolling a D20, adding the skill, and trying to overcome a DC.

 

8 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Buying groceries more than once per week seems to be fraught with peril.

 

It is. One of the things I like about going mostly vegan is that just about everything I need is bought in bulk. So I don't really have to go all that often. Definitely makes things easier.

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, Kishi said:

Yeah. The European systems are so weird, in that they invert the math. So instead of going high, you want low, because they set your ability scores as higher and higher numbers. So when I roll Nat 1s on a D20 in Dark Eye, it's awesome. But you have to roll from three different attributes and roll under each one of them. Then, the skill has a number attached to it. Any time you roll over an attribute, you subtract from that number to get your roll in line with the attribute. At the end, if you succeed, the number you have left over determines the quality of your success.

 

If you roll a Nat 1, you automatically succeed, but you have to roll another success to confirm the crit.

 

It's one of those things that makes sense once you start doing it, but it's definitely more involved than rolling a D20, adding the skill, and trying to overcome a DC.

 

Almost like Golf Scoring Plus. It's easy to see how it would appeal to the right people, like the FFVIII battle system/stats management is delightfully convoluted. It does present a certain barrier to entry, with all the things to juggle, but at some point the game starts to work (right up until you realize you've been barking up the wrong tree and cut yourself off from some really cool stuff..... *sadtrombone.com*). German automotive manufacturers build cars in a similar way, philosophically, lol.

[Teirin]

The Expanse is the good shit.  Out of curiosity, did you like the last 2 seasons of BSG?  

[Kishi]

37 minutes ago, Teirin said:

Out of curiosity, did you like the last 2 seasons of BSG?

 

Not sure! I think I recall making some headway into season 3, but I didn't finish it. I've heard that the main issue is that they ran out the show bible by Season 3 and Season 4 they were just winging it.

[Teirin]

3 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

Not sure! I think I recall making some headway into season 3, but I didn't finish it. I've heard that the main issue is that they ran out the show bible by Season 3 and Season 4 they were just winging it.

 

Yeah.  We loved S1 and 2, hated S3 and didn't bother with 4.  Let me know what you think of it later?  

[Mike_KnightofHearts]

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

Almost like Golf Scoring Plus. It's easy to see how it would appeal to the right people, like the FFVIII battle system/stats management is delightfully convoluted. It does present a certain barrier to entry, with all the things to juggle, but at some point the game starts to work (right up until you realize you've been barking up the wrong tree and cut yourself off from some really cool stuff..... *sadtrombone.com*). German automotive manufacturers build cars in a similar way, philosophically, lol.

For all it’s flaws I still get chills when I see FFVIII. It was beautiful. 

[Kishi]

19 hours ago, Mike_KnightofHearts said:

For all it’s flaws I still get chills when I see FFVIII. It was beautiful. 

 

It was definitely pretty. My goto's always been VI, but VIII definitely has its strong points. I've heard that XIV's good too, but man, I just keep running out of time in the week.

 

*

 

Wednesday down. Wednesday was quiet.

 

Started up on S1 of BSG. Forgot how much fun it was, and the other dude's nerding out about the writer and the process and the decisions that went into making each episode made it really fascinating. I kind of wish we could watch the episodes with commentary now. I have a feeling it will be necessary.

 

Tonight would be karate and handstands, but the booksharing gent is doing improv tonight in Raleigh, and he's told us about it in the low key way that men do where they pretend they don't care but they totally do, tho. I'll show up to support him, because that's what I do. Nobody else will. I can't blame them, truthfully; the troupe that he's part of isn't terribly strong or at least hasn't been lately. I'm not sure if that's uncharitable of me or not - on the one hand, I have a friend who's good enough that he teaches classes at the club where this happens, and he steals the show whenever he's on the stage, so I've definitely got a broken standard; OTOH, the troupe has been getting its time cut off early without explanation, and I think their weakness has something to do with it.

 

Of course, that's just me. I don't really have enough information to work off of, and for all I know there's a bunch of extenuating factors that I'm just not considering.

 

Anyway. Bottom line is that there will beer and junkfood, and I'm the kind of person who likes to indulge, so indulge I shall. I ran my measurements beforehand, and they came out interesting in a good way - weight's up, but body fat's about the same and the AI (the measured ratio of my shoulders to my waist) scaled up to 1.32. That might just mean that I've put on a little muscle, which might track with my decision to up my brotein intake a little bit? Not sure.

 

Regardless, seems like I'm right on track to throw off the scale tomorrow or Saturday. Excellent.

 

So. Handstands. Skipping rope. If I can make some time for bagwork and shadowboxing I will.

[Kishi]

Thursday was a mixed bag.

 

On the one hand, I got out early enough to get my handstand work done. In and out and done in no time.

 

On the other hand, wasn't able to skip rope, work the bag, or shadowbox. Not cool.

 

Then again, I was able to go see improv!

 

Then again, the gent wasn't even in the group that night.

 

And I checked to see whether he'd got any work done on the stuff he said he would. He didn't.

 

My oh my. What a wonderful opportunity to test my patience.

 

Still, no reason not to give the benefit of the doubt. I've taken to waiting until Saturday to get things done, and there's talk of office hours being held where he is out in Chapel Hill. I suppose we'll see at the meeting tonight what happens, if he backs out or the location changes or else we wind up going there and he gets his job done then. All the same, though, it's probably not a bad idea to plan to advance the work to someone else. One of the people who's working with us now has signaled that she feels like she's not doing enough, so I might be able to kill two birds with one stone if I give it over to her.

 

I ate a bunch of junkfood last night and I'm sure that's going to throw my numbers on the bloodwork, but that's done and over with now too and we'll see what happens. Kind of debating with myself over whether or not I want to play with going keto. Sisson's done a breakdown on what that looks like, and I don't have a real reason for doing it - as you can see, my present strategy works really well - but I'm always curious about things and what performing on one version of a thing feels like.

 

Anyway. Legs and abs tonight. Let's get it.

[Urgan]

46 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Then again, I was able to go see improv!

 

Then again, the gent wasn't even in the group that night.

 

And I checked to see whether he'd got any work done on the stuff he said he would. He didn't.

 

My oh my. What a wonderful opportunity to test my patience.

 

I was going to post about how it's not wrong to not like something Just Because and for no other reason, nevermind if you're reading the atmosphere and it agrees with you. And how noble it is to support him anyway because he's trying to do something that he clearly ain't a natural at, which up to a point is respectable. But.

But.

 

But it's this guy. 

 

This guy. FLAKE FLACK FARK FARKLE FARQUAD FIE FORTNITE.

 

Also give the work to that girl and tell him to call you guys back when he can scrape all his Fs together into a pile for you to toss a lit match onto. SHEESH AND WHATNOT. I have never seen a more arse-backwards commitment strategy in all my days. Apparently it's a pattern and not even personal, which is the only good thing I can say.

[Kishi]

On ‎2‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 1:45 PM, Urgan said:

I was going to post about how it's not wrong to not like something Just Because and for no other reason, nevermind if you're reading the atmosphere and it agrees with you. And how noble it is to support him anyway because he's trying to do something that he clearly ain't a natural at, which up to a point is respectable. But.

But.

 

But it's this guy. 

 

This guy. FLAKE FLACK FARK FARKLE FARQUAD FIE FORTNITE.

 

Also give the work to that girl and tell him to call you guys back when he can scrape all his Fs together into a pile for you to toss a lit match onto. SHEESH AND WHATNOT. I have never seen a more arse-backwards commitment strategy in all my days. Apparently it's a pattern and not even personal, which is the only good thing I can say.

 

I know. I don't normally care about the improv scene, but I care about my friends who are there and they're the main reason I go, so when they aren't there to even hang with, it feels like a real waste of time. And it's not even because of an underlying disorder so far as I can tell, but rather appears to be the result of an undisciplined approach to emotional management. Don't get me wrong; I respect pathological mental health problems, but there's a difference between a diagnosed disorder that's being treated and genuine weakness.

 

Still...

 

*

 

Weekend's down, and the biggest and most pertinent thing to get out of the way is that the gent did his work. That was what I wanted to see. It is good that he was so, since on Friday he was tasked with a reorg of our spreadsheets to get them ready for taking on more authors. This is something he will have to take point on; I'll be manager for this as far as keeping him to it.

 

So. Cross your fingers, folks.

 

But I digress.

 

Friday, I managed to get the strength training out of the way. That was the main thing I wanted to get done, so get it done I did. Deck Squats have plateau'd a bit, but I'm confident they won't be for long. Hollow Body Tuck Rocks were hard but doable; I think I'm going to spend the next cycle on this step and just cement myself here.

 

The reason I didn't last longer in the gym had to do with a meeting I was due for at 19:30, which I showed up for. I basically didn't need to be there; there wasn't much to report or talk about, but OTOH the nice thing about being in business with your friends is that it's a fine opportunity to hang out and chill. So that's what I did.

 

Saturday I slept past noon and wasn't up in time for judo, but it's been my finding that when I have long sleeps like that that I needed them. No regrets. And kali was good; lots of work integrating judo and knife work again, and multiple approaches to the same thing. I'm kind of getting a hair to add "aliveness" to this again, but that's part of a broader paranoia about my training that I've been dealing with as far as wanting to stay sharp (hah!).

 

And then a surprise! Since the Professor is going to be out of town, he came in to run class on Saturday instead. We exchanged numbers as he'd apparently let the other students know but didn't have mine to keep me in the loop. So we worked on double-leg takedowns and a couple of different chokes. Since Manong had a chance to talk knife stuff with him, I think Professor had a hair to show us some ninja shit; I should mention that he retired out of the army after 20 years in the Rangers and works now as a... consultant for the folks down in Ft. Bragg. So we got into pressure point fighting and what that looks like in an "alive" setting. (For the record, pressure point fighting is totally a thing. Anytime you watch a kickboxing match and someone takes kicks to the leg to the point that they buckle? That's pressure point fighting).

 

I got to talk with the boxing coach and K-sensei's other student as well, and somehow the discussion got to kickboxing, and they were both totally amenable to using kicks in the boxing class, provided it was coach or the student or me. Which was really cool of them to do, as they're basically doing this for my benefit, as they know the situation.

 

I was overjoyed.

 

So naturally I thanked them by not showing up to class on Sunday.

 

In my defense, I had something come up at the last second that really needed to be seen to. My folks went down to FL to visit some friends at the beach as this was the last time that they'd get to do so before the property was sold. And as usual, they didn't want to put their cat up somewhere, so they left it to my bro and I to check up on her. Strangely, they only needed her looked after on one day, and I wasn't told about it until Sunday morning. Bro couldn't go to do it because he was taking care of the livestream for his Sunday D&D group, so it fell to me.

 

And I could have just gone out there, opened the door, seen that she was alive, and been done with it, but I would have felt guilty about that. So I went, cleaned up the hairball, made sure the food and water were topped off, cleaned up the litter box, worked on my writing, and was just gently companionable.

 

I still got some training done - upper body work and later gym work. Push ups and inverted rows aren't plateau'd, exactly - I'm getting more reps before failure - but I'm still stuck in terms of progression. This doesn't bother me, given how my body's doing right now and given that I'm adding reps and grinding closer to progress. But, you know. Sets and reps and elevation are what they are.

 

Later gym work was skipping rope and some quality time with the heavy bag, working on integrating lead hand and side kick from the... side. Also working the Dread Iceberg.

 

Today is a rest day. I skipped out on shadowboxing again yesterday and I really, really want to get this back, so gotta make sure I do it tonight. No excuses. Otherwise, just the gaming. I've already set the alarm for tomorrow morning so I can be up and at work in time to get out and get to Kyokushin.

 

One thing I feel the need to clarify is that the school I go to now isn't exactly Kyokushin, but is rather an offshoot called World Oyama, which was founded by Shigeru Oyama, himself a disciple of Mas Oyama. For all intents and purposes, it is kyokushin; I can't find any differences when I do the research, but I want to be transparent about what I do and it's been bugging me, so.

[Mistr]

It sounds like you are doing all kinds of great stuff, but struggling with logistics and time management. What would your ideal week look like?

 

What are the hurdles you keep hitting that make it not quite meet your ideals?

[Teirin]

I'm sure kitty appreciated your company :-)

[Kishi]

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

It sounds like you are doing all kinds of great stuff, but struggling with logistics and time management. What would your ideal week look like?

 

What are the hurdles you keep hitting that make it not quite meet your ideals?

 

I don't really know what the ideal is except that it probably involves a lot less time spent with people. Ideally, I'd go to work early, get out early enough to do some volitional training, go to dojo, get home early, write and eat, get down early, and repeat.

 

There's no way to make that happen, though, because people keep getting in my way, and at the end of the day I'm the kind of person who chooses to be effective with people even if it comes at an opportunity cost for things I want to do or need to do for myself. Like, I could logistic my way past a lot of my problems pretty easily in the past week, but I kept seeing things in terms of my obligations to people, which in some cases wound up not even being met back. And I guess I'm willing to write a blank check with my time in terms of doing what people need me to do, regardless of whether I get that back or not. Maybe out of a sense of insecurity over what I'm worth to people, especially seeing as when I've asserted myself hard against people it's cost me those connections.

 

I don't know what fixing that looks like.

 

15 hours ago, Teirin said:

I'm sure kitty appreciated your company :-)

 

I sure hope so! I dunno. Cats have emotive range and are affectionate, but they can be a hard read at times.

 

*

 

Monday done. Quiet day. There were some fireworks at the game over one of the players getting semi-triggered over a presentation of domestic violence in the game. Not that the DM handled it poorly, but that she didn't like how the player's character comported himself, and she carried that over to the player. So he took that personally and departed in a huff when things were done and, well, that's that.

 

I've spoken to him and informed him of some of the things she's lived through that set her off like she was, which mollifies him some, but I'm sure this isn't over. Oh well.

 

Tried to leave when the game was done but had to deal with the socially inept gamer again. Tried to soft exit, and he followed me. Tried to soft exit again and he followed me again. He tried to impress me with his martial arts acumen, which was adorable, and it's not like I lost a lot of time, but I was really not interested in sticking around to validate him or hear him gush again over how awesomely he built his characters in this system or his struggles in how he's building his character now.

 

Dunno how to hard exit politely on the dude, and see earlier over prioritizing others over my own problems.

 

Somehow managed to get down early enough to get up early enough to get to work early enough to leave early enough for kyokushin and more tonight. All the logistics that need to be in place to support that are in place. Unless something blows up somewhere that needs my time - which, hey, that could totally happen - everything should be relatively back to normal.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

I don't really know what the ideal is except that it probably involves a lot less time spent with people. Ideally, I'd go to work early, get out early enough to do some volitional training, go to dojo, get home early, write and eat, get down early, and repeat.

 

There's no way to make that happen, though, because people keep getting in my way, and at the end of the day I'm the kind of person who chooses to be effective with people even if it comes at an opportunity cost for things I want to do or need to do for myself. Like, I could logistic my way past a lot of my problems pretty easily in the past week, but I kept seeing things in terms of my obligations to people, which in some cases wound up not even being met back. And I guess I'm willing to write a blank check with my time in terms of doing what people need me to do, regardless of whether I get that back or not. Maybe out of a sense of insecurity over what I'm worth to people, especially seeing as when I've asserted myself hard against people it's cost me those connections.

 

I don't know what fixing that looks like.

 

There's a reason you get this feeling. Being the blank-checks-for-most kind of guy attracts the kind people who make taking advantage of others a way of life--they actually seek out people with healthy boundary issues and dominate that relationship. You randomly try to buck them and be your own person, and they don't take that well because they were living it up before with the status quo. Keep wrestling with the idea of striking a balance between this impulse and the need for self-maintenance. You're better off now that you were before asserting yourself.

[Kishi]

16 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

There's a reason you get this feeling. Being the blank-checks-for-most kind of guy attracts the kind people who make taking advantage of others a way of life--they actually seek out people with healthy boundary issues and dominate that relationship. You randomly try to buck them and be your own person, and they don't take that well because they were living it up before with the status quo. Keep wrestling with the idea of striking a balance between this impulse and the need for self-maintenance. You're better off now that you were before asserting yourself.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head, both with your assessment and with the recommendation. I mean to keep wrestling - part of that is admitting what I don't know.