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Diary entry number Twenty two.   

I just remembered that I saw a picture of Mr Che from the old academy
dressed as a shaolin abbott. I'm not sure how things work I China, but Che
is NOT a shaolin abbott, he just owns the seping academy. Why do the shifus
stand for that? Well, I guess they mostly don't.

(God, popups suck.)

I realised that Yantai isn't that good for me. And if something isn't good
for me it instantly becomes depressing. I can honestly say that all I want
to do now is some sit ups, Yantai forces me to eat McDonalds, go to bars and
spend a lot of money.
I REALLY want to just do some sit ups.

The shifus haven't quite delivered everything that we were promised, but I'm
convinced that we will get them eventually. The gymnastic sessions of the
week involve a large soil pit that we jump into launched off of a large
square piece of concrete. Not mats. We've been assured that the mats will
arrive sometime by this week, and it's now Sunday and I'm quite restless.

We've complained about the food, the lacks of weapons, the lack of heating
and the worsening atmosphere. The atmosphere itself is actually quite easy
for the Shifus to fix, all that they have to do is talk to us a little more,
and take us a little more seriously. They don't get attached. Even though in
Wei Shifus class there is only me and two others, Wei doesn't really seem to
hopeful of us. Most lessons he just tells us to practice vaguely, and our
progress is decelerating, or even stopping altogether.

I've always believed that to be any good at martial arts that you have to
take responsibility yourself, and to not be completely dependent on a shifu
or instructor, but at the same time I've become amazingly lazy. Firstly
coming to the Seping academy was de-motivated because I had just had Masa rip
my face apart with a bokken, and in adapting to the new system, I threw out
my own nearly entirely. Secondly being humiliated by Andrew in Chi Sou set
me back, Wing Chun was the martial art that I was most compitant in, and
effectively I realised that I was awful at it. Pointlessly so. And I had
been studying it for a bit longer than him.
But these days things are finally looking more optimistic, or at least not
so crushingly hopeless. I chose to train sometimes instead of being told to.
Obligation drains so much energy. I've started running whilst gripping a
pair of bricks in my hands to improve my grip strength, under Andrew's
suggestion. I made myself do a set of sit ups despite hurting my back by
landing on it, after a feeble attempt at a handless cartwheel. Press ups are non existent in my optional training, or at least they were
last week. But I've made a quite important revelation of how to get good at
them, and how to build up a pattern to make you practice consistently. It
involves music, and it's far too complicated to go into now.

I've been getting pointlessly sentimental, as I'm sure everyone does in
their most pretentious times. Missing the girls I never really knew as if I
feel something for them, but really I'm just not that awake, and I've just
seen too many movies.

"I can't wait to black out,
It's just one less thing to worry about"

I was listening to the Bluetones song "Slight Return" with a three and a
half minute period of forced excitement, but really that doesn't help. It
just wastes time.
I keep hoping that people from school will inadvertently read these stupid
messages and email me, hasn't happened yet. Apart from Jolyean, of course.
But this isn't out of nostalgia as such, more of a want to remember things
from last year before I started here. Can't remember a thing to be honest,
just vague images: Most of which revolve around the pictures saved on my
mobile phone.

I forget that my dog died before I left. I was looking forward to seeing her
again when I got back.

I forgot that I ever felt teenage angst and insecurity and all those
pointless clichés that built up to the prom.

I just have a list of names and faces in my head that I tell myself with a
tenacious tone that I care about. Some more than others. I tell myself that
I want to scar masa, and that I want to look after my friends at home. But I
can't even remember what ehy sound like, or look like, so how can I be
attached?

I've stopped making plans, but I've also stopped worrying.

Forget it. I can't write a thing without wondering what the hell I'm
thinking.
 

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