Work means freedom

Hi again, this really is to be a quick one (Heroes is on in 25 minutes!). Had to commit this to pseudo paper though.

Of late I’ve been struggling with the Taekwondo. If I’m on 2-10 shift I can’t go because I’m working, and 6-2 I’m so tired I just can’t drag myself to go. Then there was missing the grading due to my HGV lesson , and I didn’t go to one lesson I could have made last week as it was the final one before grading and we’d have just been going through the stuff we needed for it. Which I do every time I exercise (most days on 2-10).

So all in all I was losing it. I had to force myself to go tonight or I felt I might just quit. And then there was tonight’s lesson. I am buzzing off it. Sure I’m tired now, and will be worse tomorrow (I am too wired to go straight to bed now even if I didn’t want to watch Heroes), but for the first time in what seems like ages I am invigorated, chipper to the point of cheerful and focused again. I want to learn, to strive, to master the damn painful discipline.

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My struggle (mein kampf, as some would say.)

Well, guess what? I failed. Again. 🙁

I had to get up at ungodly o’clock on my days holiday to get to the training place for 7am, and could not get to sleep last night through thinking about my test and worrying.

I made a few mistakes on the way to the test centre, nothing major, but not what you want to be doing on the way to a test. When we pulled up at the centre an instructor from a different school shouted to my instructor to tell him some hot news, the content of which I missed by going to the loo. Then when another instructor from my place pulled in my instructor was straight up to him to tell him the gossip. Apparently someone called M*** B****** was there at the test centre. I wasn’t really paying attention as they discussed it amongst themselves, saying he was a menace, that they had no regard for him, that he was here now because they had got rid of him somewhere else, etc.

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Driving

This really is going to be a quick one, 6-2 tomorrow. However, have to say after me getting all nervous in the interlude, my four hour session today was the most productive to date. I had the older chap, who’s company it appears to be, taking me. If only I’d have had him from the start!

He was, until he retired from the game three years ago, a driving test examiner. So he was telling me what to do as a driver, why I’m doing it (such as having to brake down before a corner to accelerate through it, this transfers the weight of your load backwards onto the rear wheels and you drag it through the corner under control. As opposed to going in too fast, trying to brake, the weight shifting forward and pushing you across the road.) When you understand why you’re doing something you can apply it to every situation that needs it. You don’t have to guess when to apply rules.

Also there are set drills for every situation, pull in to a stop, it’s mirrors, indicate, allow a count of five for following traffic to register and react, brake, stop, handbrake, neutral, (range selector) button down, cancel indicator.

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My Bad

This is going to be a quick one, got hardly any sleep last night and I’ve said I’ll work my day off tomorrow, which means I’ll not get a day off now till next Tuesday.

Anyway, had to write again as I have been dwelling on what I wrote yesterday. I was tired (as ever on the 6-2 shift) and ranting. As pertains to Luke and Mandy (his chick), that is. Been feeling guilty all day.

A more balanced view of the status of quid pro quo of favours earned and used would have to take into account the fact that this computer is one that Mandy gave us / me. This fancy monitor was given to us by Luke, as is an even fancier one he recently left for us. And what little computer literacy I have was learnt from Luke. I feel a bit of a heel in short. Still, I have a natural reserve of guilt so vast you could run a medium sized Catholic country on it, this is just one more drop in that vast ocean.

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Irony is not O’Sullivans autobiography

Another quick one. After swopping my shifts (and escaping the freezer, huzzah!) and effectively working two weeks 2-10, I finally got to go to Taekwondo on Sunday. There we were all practising what we needed to pass our gradings. This should have given me a clue, as on the website it said the grading was the week before, when I’d had to work due to the (bloody) great escape.

After putting me through my paces Sah bum nim said can you make it for the grading on the 29th? I was dead chuffed as I thought I’d missed it, said "oh yes", thought for a minute, then realised, that was the only day they could get me in for a (hopefully) final four hours training before my truck driving test.

Bottoms.

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