aikicherrini

Life has been rather hectic lately for lidl cherrini. I have been trying to work more hours, and to accomplish that I have been getting up earlier. I’m also trying to help myself to be able to get up early by going to bed somewhat earlier. It doesn’t always happen, but I am working on it. I have been practicing aikido in the evening on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Practicing aikido is sometimes a good workout; sometimes it is not so heavy. I have also been working on getting my taxes done for calendar year 2006, and then after I will get the 2007 taxes done. That is just the German taxes, though. I still have to get my taxes done for 2005, 2006 and 2007 for the states. My company supports the tax preparer fees, but it is not enough to cover all the costs. I have been also slowly working on my bike to try to get it back into shape. I bought and mounted a new light generator, and yesterday I fixed the right pedal crank pin. Now my pedal cranks are 180 degrees apart again. I still need to grease the chain and pump up the tires. I have also been working with my therapist and psychiatrist to get my psychological evaluation together for submittal to my health insurance.

I received the psychological evaluation on Friday the 14^th along with a bill for 750 euro. Then yesterday I received another bill from the psychiatrist for 1180 euro. I’m hoping my health insurance will reimburse me for the bills. If not I will be hosed for a couple of months financially. I also paid for translations that cost me 450 euro. I could have bought a used car for that money. oh well. Instead of getting depressed about my finances, I am trying to look at it as a positive that the document is finally finished and in my hands. I will deal with my health insurance tomorrow, and I hope it will go well. I should not be financially so stressed, but I guess the xmas holiday spending is taking its toll finally. After the first of the year all of my insurance and contracts renew, and with that comes the yearly fee. I had always chosen to pay it all at once just to have it out of the way and to not have to think about it anymore. January is always an expensive month.

The practice of aikido is very slowly getting my body into shape. After each practice, the strains and joint pain are becoming less and less. I got up early this morning and spoke with my Kr0k and then I went to the dojo. There was a group of people that were sitting in the lobby of the dojo drinking coffee and chatting. I assume that was the theater group Anita sensei spoke of. I had written a list of warm-up exercises to practice with little stick figures as reminders of how the movement is done. I started by expressing my gratitude to the shrine in the dojo. The first exercise was to run around the tatami three times. Then I went to the sunny end of the tatami and practiced a lot of stretches. I don’t feel that we warm up sufficiently at the regular practice sessions that I go to, and there isn’t any time between the classes to do it. I guess I could try to do it before at home, but I don’t always have time for anything other than grabbing my gi and running out the door.

I have not been practicing katsugen undo much in the past week. The aquanun was here last Sunday thru Thursday. We were able to practice aikido together and then afterwards we did katsugen undo together. I was able to clear my mind so much easier with her there. I sometimes have trouble keeping my mind focused on nothingness and feeling everything when I am alone doing k-u. I practiced some movements that we did in the last week, and then I practiced rolling. I can roll much better forwards than I can backwards. The rolls are simply the reverse of the other, but the body inertia is different somehow. I would have thought the forwards rolls would be difficult because of having to use your arm to direct the line of contact with the tatami. I worked out the line up to the point of my shoulder, but I fall apart after that point.

I will have to ask Anita sensei if she can show me a technique to practice for the backwards roll follow through. I am glad I went to the dojo today. I was alone and able to do the movements at my own pace. I practiced katsugen undo also afterwards. I can’t wait for the next opportunity to go to visit my company’s headquarters in Kyoto. It would make me feel really nice to be able to work as well as practice aikido there. I used to not like the hierarchy and structure of the Japanese working culture, but through practicing aikido my perception of it is not so oppressive anymore. I can somehow understand them a bit better now. I was hoping that I would maybe see some of the Japanese that work here at the dojo, but it is mostly all Germans. There has to be some people at the headquarters that practice. I found a dojo online in Kyoto somewhere, g-earth couldn’t find it though. It is a goal of mine to practice aikido somewhere in Japan in the future. I have been having an obsessive fantasy about getting a position at the headquarters just so I can practice aikido in Japan.

I guess I should not expect to become a samurai overnight. Such things just take time and perseverance. If for nothing else, I am able to go somewhere after working all day where I can shut out everything else and practice movements that make me feel good. I feel more balanced because of it. I feel more peaceful and calm in everyday situations, and therefore the stress doesn’t really get to me as it had in the past.

I wanna bake biscotti today and perhaps also get some sewing going too.

frankreich

I’m on the ICE on the trip back from hamsterdam again. This weekend went by way to fast. I arrived on Friday night at 23.40 and then tracked the KR0c back to her lair and she made some cherrini bait. Cherrini didn’t go for the bait at first, but in the end, her hunger would not go unsatisfied. We finally fell asleep at about 3.30 am. I slept until noon and awoke to find the aquanun slipped away while I slumbered. She had to work, so I found out later when she came back home for a late breakfast. I had an egg with fried cauliflower and saatenbrot toast with almond butter. The kR0C had eggs with some green stuff fried beside it. I’m not sure what to make of her eating habits sometimes.

The nUN0I went back to work and I got showered and put on makeup. I burned the skin around and under my brows. I colored them on Friday morning before work and I think I put either too much developer drops or the skin was too clean. I think that it is recommended to color them in the morning after not washing the skin, so that the natural oils and moisturizers act to protect the skin from irritation. My brow area over both eyes is red and at times really itchy. I have never had this problem before, and it is really bad. I’ll have to be much more careful next time. Just writing about it is making me itch. I finished getting ready and went to do some shopping on the walk to meet the nUnO1 at work. I stopped for a quick coffee and then bought some purple animomi flowers at the bloemenmarkt, and then I went to Lush to get more soak and float shampoo to help with my scalp problems.

I arrived at paradise and the kRoC let me in to wait for her to be finished setting up the vj. We left to go to the vrankrijk to meet anus to set up the beamer and everything for later after the bands were finished. She was invited to vj with the dj after the bands were finished. As we were enjoying a bier and salted almonds, one of the organizers said to me, “so aquanun told me that you wanted to help out tonight?” I said, yeah sure, of course. My fiancé had volunteered me to work without telling me, and I had to find it out from the organizer even. No worries, I didn’t mind, she had to go back to work for a couple of hours anyway. We left and went back home to have some dinner. We both went back to the place and then separated. I was asked to collect glasses for the bar. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first because people were not so easy with letting me through the crowd to get the empties. I eventually got into it and everything went fine. Once the crowd saw what I was doing, they began to let me through easily and also put their empties on the stack. I’m proud of myself since I didn’t break any. I met a great number of the people in the KrOc’s circle of friends. It seemed everyone was having a nice night. I was too. I met lots of people that said they heard of me, but I hadn’t heard of them. She knows so many people. One woman introduced herself to me, and although she looked very familiar, I for sure hadn’t met her before. This morning I found that she was an identical twin of one of the organizers. That kinda tripped me out a bit.

This trip and the last one were both relatively hectic, with the aikido workshop last time and the vrankrijk party this time. The party last night was a benefit for Ladyfest in Rotterdam in the summer. There were four bands and el bandita and her girlfriend spinning in between bands. It was nice to be amongst a lot of feminist women and some were queer too I’m sure. I had to become like a cat to maneuver between all the people in the crowd whilst carrying lots of very breakable glass. I had fun and told the kRoc that it is ok to volunteer me to do stuff there if there is another occasion that I will be in town for.

We have such wonderful lovemaking together and are so into each other. I feel as though I am finally getting my life together, or maybe that things are just fitting better now? It makes me feel good woteva it is. With the aikido practice and katsugen undo together I am able to accomplish both physical and mental conditioning. Both combined have given me a new feeling of vitality and energy. I feel as though that the time was exactly right to begin practicing them both. I am also trying to make an effort to organize all my belongings in my apartment. I began sorting my clothes, and when I am through with that I will work on organizing my shoes. I have bought countless pairs of relatively expensive and good quality shoes that didn’t end up fitting right. I am contemplating selling them on ebay, to at least try to get some of the money that I spent on them back somehow. After the shoes, then I want to tackle my sewing supplies and fabrics. I am planning on making an inventory list in excel so that I can actually know what I have without searching through everything to find what I need. I will also have to contemplate what to do about renovating my apartment in anticipation of eventually moving out. I want to do what I can when I can to prevent having to do everything all at once, not to mention the money outlay.

I feel better now than I have felt for a very long time. I just don’t know how I will get everything done. It seems as though I have very little time to just sit around and do nothing. Work also promises to become a lot more demanding in the next bit of time. I am finishing the first project for vw and the next one has already started. The climate at work is rather bad at the moment, but I am remarkably better able to deal with it and not let it get me down so much as it has in the past. I did notice last week that after standing in between two people arguing and yelling at each other, I couldn’t help but absorb some of their negative energy. I tried to cleanse myself of it after lunch so that it didn’t ruin the rest of my day, but I guess I wasn’t strong enough to be able to do it yet. I felt not so nice that evening, and I should have practiced K-U but I had to work on organizing my paperwork for preparing my taxes. The next day I felt better again, except for learning that others had decided that I should go to Kassel the next day. Management by surprise is the best, trust me, it really keeps one on their toes. I feel much clearer mentally, which is a nice feeling to have. I am trying to use my positive energy to find balance within my life, and between my body and mind.

I am going to attempt to get into bed at a decent time tonight, as I must wash my hair in the morning and vw is supposed to be coming for the entire day to see the machine that I designed for them. The assembly went off without any major problems, and they were able to run it without problem up to 5000 revolutions per minute when I left on friday to go home. I hope they were able to get the rest of the program to run over the weekend. The machine is designed to be run at a maximum speed of 8000 rpm. I will be interested to find out how things went tomorrow. I hope everything stayed together. I am proud of myself that the machine was able to be run at relatively high speed immediately after being final assembled. I feel as though I met the challenge that I was presented with, and the challenge was not only the design itself, but also the negative milieu that I was forced to design it in. I am a strong woman, and I am finally beginning to realize it.