June - Top 5

Promotion

Relay For Life made it official. June 5, 2009, is the day I was officially promoted to 2nd degree black belt and received the title of "Deshi," though nobody calls me that.

In all actuality, the Relay was boring this year. I opted not to participate for so long this year, showing up around 1 and leaving around 5:30 or 6. It was mostly an afternoon of deciding I was officially burnt out with karate.

Be that as it may, I decided to suck it up and not get behind on my training. I was rewarded for my efforts.

This day (and week) was also sweet because David was home from the Army.

Learning New Stuff

June wasn't all together an extremely exciting month, though looking back I got excited about learning a new kata (Naihanchi San). This is the third and final installment of what is really O Naihanchi. Black belt classes at Mr. Hawkey's began again, and luckily he had Justin and I work the interpretation for it.

I feel I've gotten a better understanding of this new form than Naihanchi Ni, which I've known for almost 2 years. For some reason, some katas get taught to me real well, and others seem to fall by the wayside and I don't have a great understanding of them.

Plus we've learned two new ippons, and Mr. Hawkey has worked with us on advanced interpretation for different kata and applications that, at this point in time, would never have revealed themselves to me otherwise.

Learning a new weapon (kama) is fun, too.

Finishing a Class

I got an A in my May term. This is exciting. As I write this, we're in the final week of another class. Since the end of last August, I have gotten 2 weeks of break between terms at most. So finishing CIS 300 was a nice milestone - racking up gen ed points and an A.

In other news, Bradley finally switched us over to Interactive Media. Except I have no degree audit, currently, so I don't have anything to look at right now in regards to what classes I've knocked out.

Continuing this stream of consciousness, bollocks to IM 313 not being offered in the fall. Bollocks, I say!

Focusing on the Positive

It has never been my intention to use this blog as a LiveJournal or talk about emotions. I don't think it is right (or necessary) for people to air grievances on public spaces when the issue is personal.

Instead, all I'll say is that I have decided to cut off contact to negative people and negative situations. Initially I was worried this wouldn't work out, but I'm still having fun this summer.

Working Out

I'm working my way up to run some races. I'm not there yet, but close. I've also recently taken up riding my bike, in the hopes to ride to Germantown and back next week without completely feeling like crap afterwards.

Eventually one day, I think it would be sweet to run a marathon, but that is a loooong way away.

Other Notable June Moments

-Leading the Metamora Martial Arts crew in the Old Settler's parade for the fourth year in a row.
-Invision Power Board 3.0 coming out finally.
-Helping out at this arts conference deal at Bradley
-Splashdown with Sarah and her cousins

Death

I asked a few friends what would happen if they were to die tomorrow. They were pretty much horrified about this grave thought. None of them said they were ready.

Oddly enough, while I don't wish that these are my last moments and this isn't my last blog, I would be content with going. I feel I've done a lot in 20 years (especially the past six). I've seen most of the US, been part of an award-winning karate program, headbanged at so, so many shows and concerts, and excelled in school.

Not that I wish death. I've still got plenty left to do here, one day at a time.

Note that this post isn't a suicidal post only for people to discover later. I know nobody reads this so if I was going to want a cry for attention, I'd post it on Facebook or something.

Rather, I just finished reading "Broken Harts," Martha's narrative of her husband Owen Hart's stunt gone wrong. As I went along I got kind of bummed out at the fact that dying, though inevitable, still sucks. But then I thought that I've actually been privileged enough with a score of good friends, a nice place to live, and a few passions peppered in along the way.

Life rules.

Throughout the week I haven't been able to stop listening to "The Balance Theory" by Dead to Fall.

There is a balance: Negativity needs to exist. Pain needs to persist. Otherwise, the moments of joy we experience would lose their relevance.

A Thousand Open Ears and Still Not a Word To Say

The scene boards have posted a Top 5 of May, so I thought I'd take the concept and put some more detail into it.

1. Final Shows / End of an Era

Black the Sky and Devil's Pie's final Peoria shows. May 9 was an awesome headbangin' time at Johnny's Coffee House with them, Black Teeth, and the Serpent Son.

End of an Era in Chicago with DP and Dead to Fall's final shows...the other bands I'd heard of but never really listened to, so I wasn't as into them. DP and DTF played awesome sets, and my throat was super sore the next day from singing along.

Somewhat bittersweet though, because BTS and DP (+TSS) were the reasons I got into local music in the first place. Oh well, life goes on.

2. 20th birthday

Did nothing that day, went to karate, Aztekita, opened some presents and got a bunch of wrestling DVDs, played ultimate frisbee with tons of my best friends, then did our usual BWW run. So much fun.

3. Finishing sophomore year.

This year seemed super long, but I finished school nonetheless. Another successful year, bringing my GPA to 3.75. :)

4. 2nd degree test

I'd hoped to test way sooner than I did, but I still ended up passing my test with "precision" on May 16. Thanks to those who came out and took a beating.

5. WWE in Bloomington

The night I tested, I wanted to see WWE in Bloomington, so I went with Wes, Vince, and Ryan. Nothing super special, but still a fun show. Afterwards Vince and Ryan hit each other with posters of seductive college girls.

So far, so good

Summer so far has been awesome.

In the past week alone...

-passed my nidan test

-saw WWE in Bloomington (these were done the same day...how awesome)

-played frisbee back-to-back nights and I'm improving my game.

-much time spent enjoying swing sets

-chilled in Byram's pool for 3 hours

-getting homework done at my own pace

I'll be in Chicago on Sunday for Dead to Fall / Devil's Pie's final shows...haven't been up there in about 3 years.

My Summer List

So I've seen a few Facebook posts about summer lists, and I wanted to make a list of my own.

-take 2 classes (1 has already started)

-continue working at the IGA and mow to make some scrilllllllllllllllaaaaaaa.

-teach myself to play something on the guitar...I'm thinking the intro to "Seek and Destroy"

-Teach the little kids and help out with the high schoolers. Plus keep up with my own training - refining old stuff and learning new stuff while staying in tip-top shape.

-take up boxing (and potentially Brazilian jiu-jitsu) at the Peoria Athletic Club in Morton

-watch all episodes of South Park in chronological order (currently almost done with Season 1)

-compose a large set of notes on various kata I practice from different books and sources for an all-in-one digital reference.

-re-edit a video to change some things

-shoot/produce a video for green belt requirements (this was supposed to be started last fall but timing was never right)

-redesign the Metamora Martial Arts website. Currently waiting for Invision to release IP.Board v3.0.0.

-head to sweet concerts and shows - Dead to Fall on May 24 and no others currently in line yet.

WWE Supershow - 5/16/09

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Originally uploaded by abockler

Overall, I'd say this show was enjoyable. The main complaint that my friends and I had is that there were a lot of restholds in most of the matches. The best explanation I could give is that there is a PPV tomorrow and they were trying to lessen the chances of injury.

This was WWE's first show at the US Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington, IL.

1. CM Punk d. Shelton Benjamin by pinfall after the Go To Sleep.

Punk was way over and everybody seemed thrilled he was starting the night.

2. Tyson Kidd (w/ Natalya) d. Evan Bourne by pinfall after interference from David Harry Smith.

After the match, the future New Hart Foundation celebrated. No attempt by Evan Bourne for the Shooting Star Press.

3. Sheamus d. Jimmy Wang Yang by pinfall.

Sheamus cut a promo beforehand explaining who he is and the crowd wasn't behind it. We got the cool usual spots of Yang, but Sheamus won. Not sure what the maneuver was because I was trying to snap a picture as it was happening.

4. R Truth d. Dolph Ziggler by pinfall after hitting his spinning shoulder tackle.

Truth did his usual cool entrance through the crowd somewhat close to where we were. Dolph didn't get much heat coming out, but he grabbed a mic and got to, "My name..." before everybody booed him. He never even got it out after trying for a few minutes, getting angry and throwing a tantrum. I thought it was hilarious.

Truth grabbed the mic and said nobody cares his name is Dolph Ziggler. Then he said the soles on Dolph's boots are so thin, he could stand on bubble gum and tell what flavor it is.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.

5. Primo and Carlito d. Priceless by DQ to retain the WWE Unified Tag Team Titles after DiBiase smacked one of them with a chair.

Priceless laid out the champs. The match was pretty much just holding down Carlito until Primo made the hot tag and took control for a few minutes. DiBiase smacked one of them with a chair (can't remember which) and the fans went nuts with the boos.

Intermission.

6. The Bella Twins d. Beth Phoenix and Rosa Mendes after interference from Hornswoggle, who came from under the ring.

Phoenix chased Hornswoggle halfway down the aisle, but was too late to run back to the ring to save Rosa.

7. ECW Champion Christian retained the title after defeating Jack Swagger with the Killswitch.

Swagger cut a promo before the match...nothing memorable, though.

8. John Cena, Jeff Hardy, and Batista d. Big Show, Edge, and Randy Orton when Cena pinned Show.

Nobody talked before this one. Edge and Show hugged as Orton was coming out.

Who's telling Orton to take 5 minutes to walk to the ring anyway?

Triple H was advertised for this match, but was replaced by Jeff Hardy.

Jeff Hardy got beat up for most of the match. It ended up with Show getting the Swanton Bomb from Jeff Hardy followed by the Attitude Adjustment from Cena for the pin.

Paper

http://chikarayokosuka.blogspot.com/2009/05/paper.html

That is the link to a semester-long field research project I did with somebody else.

Essentially, we found how a sense of community is achieved through a virtual world.