So today was a three-borough day with three stops in queens and plenty of mindless data-entry tasks before I ended up in Brooklyn for my last CLEP and then i even managed to make it to kendo for the first time since shinsa. Tired now. Work again tomorrow.

So I've been feeling bad about my kendo of late, and I feel no real confusion over why it is that I fail--I stand by my analysis of yesterday. What troubles me more is how I failed but someone who started after me, and whom I regularly beat in keiko, passed. Now, it's not that that bothers me that much, but what bothers me is that that bothers me at all--that I'm still so tied up in my relative progress that I'm looking at how others do, and petty enough in being annoyed and judgmental of others' technique--it's all the wrong kind of competitive, and I'm off the real path, which is to do better than myself, which is something I've more or less lost sight of since the run up to my first shiai in February. So it's something I should rededicate myself to, which might be a little tricky given my new internship schedule. Or something. The key thing is to keep going.

So somehow I managed to flunk my ikkyu exam, which I guess I should have known in the first place, because at the end of 240 seconds of keiko I still could breathe and keep going--I should have been completely exhausted if I were doing the wright thing--but there's always the next test in December. It's discouraging enough, but I guess I just need to work harder and not feel quite so complacent. Kiai won't get me all that far.

So two CLEP tests on Western civilization later, I feel kind of cheap and used, especially since the questions are so repetitive and the going-back feature is so helpful that I'm not sure if I'm being scammed or the DOE. It's all common sense, this European History business, you just need to know that George Sand was a woman, not a man, and you'll do just fine, and how could you not know that?

It's been an odd week of portfolio presentations, which means that I repeatedly have encountered the massive ignorance of our graduating seniors: for the record, "I like ice cream" is not a simile, King Abdullah is not an expert on democracy, the diagonals of a trapezoid do not bisect each other (not even in an isosceles trapezoid), and calcium carbonate does not dissolve in water to give calcium, carbon, and oxygen ions.

Students are coming back for a couple days, and then I will start my schlepping to Flushing, but perhaps I can swing a visit to the bro and the old Pegasus, before its' too late.

So it's been a while, and I've been up to no good, after my near-all nighter, though I'm still doing a lot better than the help--maybe it's just the influence of Rob Chin and Wifey dining together with me, but we've had far too much spillage, first a bunch of pancit palabok and then an entire two racks of ribs, by near-competent and not-so-apologetic help.

Yesterday's tournament was more than a little disappointing, not only because I kept on getting my men scored on, but more so because I couldn't score anything except for a kote and lots of hansoku on over-runny opponents. That and there was more hikiwaza being given away than at end-of-season clearance sale. Speaking of which, Wifey's anniversary present, which was supposed to be two shirts from hated A&F, turned out to be two women's shirts. They're pretty, but unsuitable.

Meanwhile, my internship is to begin the day after school ends. My kids, at least, all passed their math exam, for once. Either I'm getting better at this, or the test is much easier. How's that for being a sucker for punishment?

So I can only wonder--is my bravado embarrassing?

So why am I up at this hour, about 5 am, working on my resume? Must have been all that green tea, the heat, and the near-end of the schoolyear--I keep on dreaming it's over, but of course it's still not. And again I feel the pain of cutting out entire subcareers in this new version--I just don't get the right to include a second page on my resume quite yet, I don't think, but I do think I should have a more discursive HTML version. Ah, this restlessness... So college

So they were actually working today, this last day for two of my classes, which was odd--just 120 minutes to go!

Tonight's practice was disappointing, as I had no forward momentum, lost ippon-shobu to the other mu-kyu student whom I somewhat resent, and while my kiai was strong, I simply felt off and was told I was raving like a berserker, not a composed kenshi like I ought to have been. Shrimp Sensei has gotten soft, though, insofar as the a/c was actually on today.

At the Vietnamese restaurant where I've gotten accustomed to the shrimp-peanut-greenpapaya salad, a summer roll, a sandwich, and pork for Wifey, the banter with the cashier was:

Cashier: You never cook, do you?
Me: Look at the time. Who has time?
Cashier: Yes. Single....

I didn't correct him, except when he over-credit-carded me by $2, which I got refunded in cash. Ah, the Vietnamese.

So just 330 minutes left in this schoolyear as far as real classroom time goes, and this is a true relief--today was a mess, with mayflies or some other such pest fluttering all around the classroom, and the kids catchin' flies like they were Marcus from two years ago--I've dropped of from then, I think--

But I moan about that enough, and at the very least, I've been too busy to actually blog as I meant to last Thursday about how lonely Samir is--Samir complains all the time of his loneliness, but at least he has somehow figured out that Japan is not quite the place for him what with the married faggery and xenophobia, etc. Somehow he doesn't quite buy my somewhat jaundiced view of fagguery in general, still taking his cue, improbably, from Queer as Folk while passively waiting for some Hunter College boyie to take a fancy to him. So I don't know.

It's time, meanwhile, to bone up on my chemistry and finally learn some economics to get credits through testing... Here's to equilibria....

So today's practice was pretty much as expected--a hot humid mess though the pace was slowed down or otherwise abbreviated by Bigrock Sensei just a little bit--it's just a godawful smell that starts to ooze out of everything after a little while, a sour metallic odor which will take quite some time to wash away--these heat headaches are hard to combat and I really just need to hydrate better, but on Sundays this is especially difficult.

Two more tough days to deal with before the end of the schoolyear. It can't be that bad. If I do one thing different next year, it'll be getting more sleep. Surely.

So I've really fallen off of this blog-horse, which is unfortunate and a deeper problem than my early-morning pre-kendo post can possibly remedy. My dreams of late have been centered on 8% dips in the DJIA and not being on time with various things which I have needed to submit for work, including quite a thick sheaf of paperwork I have characteristically put off until this, the last minute. I am just tired and weary, to the point where Rob Chin notices it and wonders how I can still be tired on a weekend after a week in which I had a day off in the middle. I think my age is getting to me, that or my bitterness and anger of years past has transmuted into just weariness. I really just need a break and a step back, and I'm trying not to take too deeply to heart my para's heated claim that my students have taken away nothing from this year with me. I've actually thought that sometimes, but then again, it's hard building actual conceptual knowledge--I'm trying here to narrow the gaps, and if that means that Chinky McGee doesn't learn as much as she could, well, that's too bad.

So I am just twiddling my thumbs most of the time these days and doing my best to make it through the end of the year though now I think it's going to be okay somehow with just three class-meetings and not that much more time to kill left--it's just a question of what it is that we can use to finish off the rest of the year. And yet I feel like I've been saying things like that for the past two months, which is really rather sad, but at least I get to stay up late tonight with Wifey who has a case tomorrow and to do some casual tanning and catching up on some writing--somehow I don't think that I'll be able to really pick up work on my novel, though.

So today's practice had extra drama, namely when the guy who likes to try tricky-waza beyond his means, got tsuki'd under his tsuki dropped his shinai, turned his back on his opponent, held his back, and walked out of the shiai-jo even though Giggly Sensei insisted that he at least pick up his shinai where it was sadly lying there, somehow he refused and went downstairs. I think there's going to be quite a fallout from that one, as at the very least he ought to sonkyo.

Today was also school elections, which is funny insofar as it's transparent that these poor kids have no chance of really budging the larger system in any real way. But still, it's good to see immigrant kids stand up for themselves and politick, even if none of them are really all that Churchillian. Still, it's amazing how executive our notions of government are.

So as much as Joephet and I are rooting for that vietcutie Jeremy on The Scholar, the show is stupid--the sort of thing which perpetuates all of these foolish Western hegemonies of factual knowledge and "literature" which is on the shelf of every half-decent elementary school. I'm just secretly glad that as meaningless as dates of space race (Ummm, isn't the space race, um, white pretty much?) events are, at least Jeremy isn't some whiny Asian bitch all over Davis.

So the weather has turned, and this has rendered kendo deadly gi heavy and the inside coated with little all balls of sweat commingled with skindirt of the salty squishy variety. Heads ready to explode, and not in the kikentai-ichi sort of way. It's paralyzing, and one of my many excuses for not having much in the way of keeping this poor blog up to date, even missing

Asianboi roundup

Alric has reached a quarter century. The only question now is when he'll reach a quarter million.

Brother has reached Maryland by now. It's a job, at least, and GS9 is not as nice as GZ17 or GX30.

Lostin has reached no real conclusions. Let's hope they don't clone him.

Rob Chin has reached Astoria, if only twice. He shows up, even when inopportune.

Wifey has reached his summer already and new occupation. His swimtrunks, at least, still fit.

So today was just too much, from my morning conference to the usual over-long graduation business and then a final during-year Brooklyn year thingie. It's exciting, the opportunities for departmental PD and the like--I dunno and my mind turns again to real estate and other things rather than the teaching I should be thinking about... And the promotion and shiai.