fit

A friend asked me a while ago if I felt comfortable in my body. My answer was easy and quick - no - but it reverberated with me for a little while.

I've never been fully in control of myself. What I mean is that motion in my body is never as smooth and controlled as I'd like it to be. My entire life has been a procession of examples, a parade of my lack of mastery of my own limbs.

My parents enrolled me in all sports as a kid. All kinds of sports. I did gymnastics, played T-ball, baseball, soccer, football, basketball, hockey... I was never good at them. I gave my best effort, but somehow, I usually ended up as the last pick of a good team or something, so my skills didn't quite stand up to everyone else. I think some teammates resented having me on their team. Oh well. That's life, I guess.

I continued to find stuff I liked and suck at it as I advanced through the grades - badminton, tennis, volleyball, track, skiing, wrestling - I tried it all, and never did well. Stumbling, depth perception gone wonky, serious misgivings in the cardiovascular development department (I hated running. Still do) - all the fun that comes with puberty. Except it never really left.

As I grew, I found myself less and less competitive, which makes for more fun, but usually less absolute fitness. Didn't bother me much - I kept up with volleyball and tried a little Ultimate (killed due to running) in university, but kept solidly away from anything that drew those who desired winning above anything else. After graduating, I lost most of my sporting activities, but picked up biking. Living on the cheap, biking gave me exercise and transportation - I did 5000 km in just over four months, and 1000 km in a month that summer.

And that leads me to here. I still do not have control over my body. My balance is way off, and I can't move it at a fast, controlled pace. Yoga has worked out really nicely in that way - it's about staying in one place and bending, for the most part. There are balance exercises, and they have helped. But of the three major body considerations - strength, flexibility, and balance - the last is definitely my worst. One can definitely see it in my kung fu - I don't have flow, I am often off balance, and I'm far from graceful. One can see it in my dancing - African and salsa - for the same reasons. It's frustrating, but it also gives one a goal.

That being said, as of last Saturday, I am now a kung fu yellow belt. I can officially say, "I know kung fu." And what a wonderful feeling that is.

rain rain go away

As I sit here, my clothes have been washed by the rain six separate times in the past twenty-four hours. I haven't had the time to take them down, and, it being the beginning of summer (also known as three months of rain), they've consequently been rewashed so many times you can smell Kaohsiung in them. Most laundry lines are located under an overhang for this exact reason.

Ours isn't. *Sigh*

I really do enjoy the rain here, except on two occasions: laundry and driving. People drive in rain here like they do in snow back in Canada: retardedly. Other than that, there's nothing so calming as a tropical storm pouring down outside and a book in your hand.

a day in a life in Taiwan

A friend of mine recently made up an eight minute video of, well, a summary of life in Kaohsiung. It's fairly generic (though it does feature him and his fiancee, as it was made by him for his family), and it's a window into what it's like here. You've already seen pictures, but there's more. Also, some of my pictures are in it, along with me. It's 137 MB, which is too big for posting, but if you would like to see it, leave a comment with an email and I'll Dropload it to you. Enjoy!

dirrtie

There is so much pollution in the air here. If you think you have been in a polluted city, you have not, unless you have been in Asia. It's just the vicious combination of lots of industry and very few industry regulation that seemingly coats one's soul with crap. Most natives wear a surgeon's mask when they drive on a scooter (some even to walk outside) - you know, the kind that everyone saw during the SARS epidemic. It settles in your home in a black dust/sticky substance that can somewhat be swept, but to be really cleaned, needs to be mopped away. It grows on screens and is nearly impossible to clean off of them.

I comment on this because I was hot and just wiped my neck on my undershirt. There are now two black streaks on my undershirt where I temporarily cleaned the pollution off of my body.

Yuck.

a day in a life in Taiwan UPDATED!

The file was too big for dropload or emailing, so I uploaded it. It's a whopping 140 MB, so it'll take you a while, but if you want to see A Day in a Life in Taiwan, you can find it here. If you watch it, please leave comments - the creator is interested. Enjoy!

let there be light

Remember that rain that happens here?

Today, I saw the sun for the first time in six days. Since Sunday, it has been raining for more than half the day, every day, often in downpours (or Super Downpours, as the paper calls them).

Laundry done on Sunday (this time hanging under a covered roof) still didn't fully dry until day.

The air left one feeling wrinkly all day.

Ah. Sun. Giver of warmth and dryness. I welcome thee. :-)

xtreme writing

Yes, everything these days is lived in the xtreme. Sports, video games, ironing ... a cry for help? A protest against a sedentary, dead-end lifestyle? A distaste for vowels? Whatever it is, it's slowly overtaking our society. Soon we'll have Xtreme dieting, Xtreme Wheel of Fortune, and Xtreme blogging. I shudder at the thought.

However, Xtreme theatre is not that. Well, in the sense that it's a different challenge than normal theatre, it is different. We do love our vowels, though. Anyhoo, I've acted in five Xtremes in the past year, directed in three, and now, I've written for one (whoo! I'm odd!). Friday night I pulled my character, location, and prop/event and was tasked with writing a 7-10 minute play. I immediatly jumped into action by sitting around with a beer and shooting the shit with the other writers for an hour, then aided my creative abilities by watching a couple of episodes of CSI. My creative juices flowing (or maybe just enough caffeine running through my veins), I sat down at my computer and created It's All For Ratings. Take a read, if you'd like (MS Word format), see if you can guess the qualifiers. I liked it.

As a side note, it is harder than you would think to write a 7-10 minute play without using the word 'the'.