Last night, Victoria and I went to watch this round of testing over at the Shaolin school. I highly respect everyone’s effort put forth in getting up in front of the Grandmaster to perform their material. It takes a lot to do that and I inherently respect anyone that does.
Testing took a LONG time. There were quite a few people testing this time around. I think there were:
- 2 Green – > 3rd Brown
- 4 3rd Brown – > 2nd Brown
- 16 (I think) 2nd Brown – > 1st Brown
- 8 1st Brown – > 1st Black
- 9 2nd Black – > 3rd Black
- 2 3rd Black – > 4th Black
Actually, whoa, that’s 41 people. Now that I think of it, testing started at 7pm and finished right around 10pm. That’s actually pretty fast for 41 people… never mind. Grand Master Sin, you are the man!
I thought that Hugh looked super drunk during Drunken Straight Sword. That was awesomely done. All of the people that tested for 3rd degree were great. Truly inspiring to watch. I can’t wait until I can do what they can do. I can’t wait to take my test in 6 months so that I can start learning Hsing Ie.
Sifu Cheryl’s test was particularly inspiring. I give her just a ton of respect and my admiration for taking that test. I remember back in February, when Ryon and Lien tested for 4th, all I could think of during their test was “oh god, the humanity… when will it end?!?! they just keep going form after form after form…”. Excellent job, Sifu Cheryl, you are an inspiration.
After testing, we (me and V) went out to eat at Trudy’s with some of the south school people. We primarily hung out with Paul and Sasha which was a lot of fun. I haven’t really gotten a chance to ever hang out with them. We should do it more often.
Now, finally, onto my point and the title of this post. At Trudy’s I ate chips and salsa along with the (why, oh why did I order this) stuffed avocado. Don’t get me wrong, the thing was delicious, but, I feel absolutely horrible today for eating it. I don’t mean horrible as in “beating myself up” horrible, but physically, I feel gross.
I feel like there’s a film inside of my mouth that won’t go away no matter how many times I brush my teeth. It’s nasty. I have been drinking water all morning in an effort to try and rid myself of this stuff.
The up side would be, well, lesson learned. It’s interesting to go back on this blog and see how many times I have written about how something I have eaten has made me feel “ick”. I think the light bulb (DUH, DONT EAT THAT SHIT) has finally illuminated.
Today, my AT&T services are out again. They were actually out last night when we got home. Even though I was absolutely exhausted last night, I did call in to see if I could get the ball rolling on resolving the problem. They, again, advised me that Alcatel was replacing some hardware in the CO and that my services should be restored in the morning.
Sorry, Charlie… incorrect. If anyone out there knows of an address where you can send an invoice to AT&T, my company would LOVE to invoice them for the week of work that I have lost due to their inability to get my service to a steady state (incidentally, everything had been working since Saturday 2/21… they almost made it a week).
Two good things that came out of my conversation with the account retention department today were:
- There is no feel to cancel.
- I will receive a check for any credits that are currently on my account (currently ~$300).
I am thinking that it might be time to take the money and run. The thing that sucks about that is that I don’t really have many options for services. In my area, I have:
- Time Warner Cable – Pros {faster broadband, probably more reliable} Cons {more expensive, absolutely horrible DVR interface}.
- Dish Network/ATT DSL – Pros {Lots of HD channels, I already have a dish} Cons {Not sure if ATT DSL even exists anymore, satellite dish thwarted by clouds, 2 year contract, multiple bills}.
Sucks…
I wish there were more choices.
At any rate, because of this crap with AT&T I know of 4 customers that they have lost (Ryon & Sam as well as my grandparents). As I’m on the phone with AT&T tier 2 support, my grandmother is sitting on my couch saying “no way in hell I’m getting AT&T”.
Tomorrow is the semi-annual tournament for our school. I am really looking forward to it. Although I am not sure if I will yet be sparring (I know, I should, but I don’t know), I am definitely competing in all of the forms areas both internal and external. Here’s what I have decided I am doing:
- External Belt Level – Mad crazy drunkard fist.
- Internal Belt Level – Tai Chi Broadsword and Chen Tai Chi
- External Non-Belt Level – Skewer the Sun (2nd degree straight sword form)
Starting at 7pm I will be involved in the demonstrations. As far as I know, the only part I will be in is the demo of drunken kung fu. I am either doing mad crazy drunkard fist or drunken broadsword. Not sure yet, but I guess I will find out when I get there. If you have ANY interest in martial arts, you should definitely come and check it out. It will be a Munchinson Middle School off Anderson Lane.