inspired by erikas

hkupa hosted a tournament this weekend where i met my worlds team (force durian) for the first time ever.

hk is pissed at me for not playing with them, but i don't think i owe them any loyalty, given they are a players association and not a team. there were no tryouts, and i hadn't even been assigned to a hk team yet when i commited to play with durians. other reasons hkupa is ridiculous: i would've had absolutley no input on which hk team i got assigned to (they could've put me on the c team); i'm new so it's not like i've been practicing with them forever; i paid hk$ 500 to use their fields, they've paid me nothing. it's not like they've built me up to be this awesome player and just when i'm getting good, i desert them. they have no claim on me.

in any case, durians is awesome. they are such a fun group of people. there's a girl who reminds me a lot of erika. she giggles nonstop (adilene). another girl is CRAZY (fi). she flew in from boston for the weekend. i'm kinda scared of her, but only off the field. she takes a lot of extra strength painkillers and red bull. when she got off her plane, she allegedly said, "i'm so tired, i need some vodka." phew! one of the boys is a 2005 harvard alum (minoa). he yells at me on the field when i screw up :-D! although once he yelled at me to clear out of the cutting lane (he was holding the disc) when i was in the middle of calling a violation on my d (she had caught up three whole steps before the disc was tapped in). i got really flustered and ran whereas i should've just said violation more loudly. sigh.

ok, maybe i need to be less jumbled. i missed most of saturday because i had to take a licensing exam (which i should've taken last month, but i missed it because i can't read military time), but i made it in time for the last game. we played hk's b team, and we creamed them. i started out playing o. they called me as a middle person in their ho stack (making me one of the primary cutters)...my girl was fronting me, and i had a little bit of timing trouble (i've never played with these ppl before), so when john cater got the disc, i just took off deep. i felt like erika. i think i had this huge grin on my face, but the throw was short, and i came in under for it, still beating my girl, but a boy tipped it and i couldn't catch the swill. i don't remember much else about that game except that i caught 2 in the endzone and didn't have any turnovers other than that first one. i was running everywhere, and people said it was cuz i had fresh legs, but secretly, it's cuz i had just finished checking nationals results, and i was totally pumped about brute's performance.

i left the party at 12:30, but i was still one of the first to leave. the team dressed up in bright orange cowboy hats and bright orange boas.

our first game sunday was against bangkok. we should've beat them, but we didn't. we came out really flat and made a lot of execution errors (drops, turfs, etc). i remember one point, where michael su made three turns in a row as the middle handler in a three handler zone. he wouldn't swing the disc; he'd hold it and try to throw through the cup. he's recovering from a badly sprained ankle, so i'll chalk up the suckiness to nerves. they started calling me as the offside handler in the ho/zone, so i didn't do much there. on d, i'm the strongside front wall for the 1-3-3. i did ok, but our marks kept getting broken. i played stellar man d. i mainly covered a handler girl who looks a lot like a certain unbeautiful best friend of nancy's. the first time i was on her, i shut her down for the dump, but they threw to her anyways to turn it on their own endzone. the rest of the game, she'd try cutting once or twice, then give up. they had to bring back another guy to play a three handler set. when she was off the field, i covered this quick little cutter too. her cuts were very textbook, but she got looked off everytime (i was always right on her shoulder). i watched the handler girl in one of her later games, and i saw her make a very good peri cut followed by a huge lefty backhand huck to a guy in the endzone. i had no idea she was a lefty. oh, and after soft cap at 8-5 or something, we scored the next couple to tie at 9-9, when their captain told us that the game was over because hardcap had gone off at 9-8 but no one knew. they were so scared to play the last point, but we forced them into it. they ended up winning off a hospital throw into the endzone where their tallest player skied two of our shortest players. whatever. btw, their tallest player is playing on our team for worlds (but bangkok paid his airfare and tourney fee so that he'd play with them).

we won our consolation game against guangzhou (to whom one of our girls defected--adilene, the giggly one, she's their captain). i made a couple more errors here, altho my man d was still perfect. i turned it twice on the corner of our own endzone (after the first turn i offered not to pick it up, but they made me)...one of the guangzhou guys was poaching. and once i made a really good in cut but threw it away deep (backhand). i realize that i don't have the same deep-shot roll on this team that i did on smite. given the number of boys with huge backhands, they definitely don't need me to take those chances. i asked jim (the captain, a doll) what a good deep percentage is, and he said 80%. hmmm....alright. oh, and i also got footblocked on a backhand break. after the game, we ran sprints.

because of this tournament, nadeem is visiting me from beijing. for those who don't remember him, he's the guy who taught shuangy how to throw (summer league, ODD). saturday, he changed my forehand grip so that my middle finger isn't bent anymore. i don't have as much of a grip on the disc (i definitely can't dent the plastic with my thumb), but i get a lot more spin all of a sudden. my flick goes 5 yards extra without any shoulder or elbow or hip pivot at all. it's amazing. apparently, my middle finger was acting as a spring and absorbing energy from the disc when i had it bent. oh, and i met nat, a boy on my team who plays on red fish blue fish who played with nurit at some point.

critically appreciative (of hong kong)

good:

micky d serves breakfast sandwiches all day long! and kfc has waffle fries! US sports get aired in the morning, so i watch them at work. yeah world series!

bad:

snickers bars are infused with the aura of fried chicken...the caramel is subpar...all around a bad experience. i'm switching to twix.

escalator sightings:

yesterday the skinniest girl ever had a butt the size of my head (turned sideways). the homely girl carrying two bags of food spread her arms happily to a man (if i were the man, i would've given her a hug)...he looked confused and thought she wanted him to carry a bag of food for her (if i were the girl, i would've felt awkward). later, i saw her hurrying on her way.

fwisbee

i'm positively stewing in anticipation of nationals. for the past week, i've been pretending that excel spreadsheets make me grin like mad. i'm not sure why i'm this excited...surely it's unwarranted (for nationals and excel, both), but whenever the thought creeps anywhere near my wrinkly brain, i want to run like a toon (a CARtoon).

frisbee on sunday was muy frustrating...i played on the recreational field because i wanted to do some teaching/coaching...which is not so good for cutting. people cut me off like mad...and i got thrown to at least 3 times when i totally wasn't cutting, like i was behind my defender. looking back, maybe i should've laid out...i need to practice laying out past people. the last point, everyone on my team was pretty tired (some were faking injuries), so i told the team that the plan is to stand in a stack, and just let this one guy cut. i figured if people stopped cutting each other off, we'd conserve a lot of energy. it would be like a cascade. handler to cutter to handler to cutter. i think i would've loved for someone to tell me that i've got the whole field to myself. it didn't go so well. he jogged a lot of it and didn't get open...i should've had more of a reset plan...next time.

i've discovered that i'm quite negative on the field. there are always a million and one things going wrong...i guess most people already know that about me. but i'm not upset about the things, it's just that there are a million things we could be doing better. next time, i will try to focus on one negative thing and a millon positive things. i feel fake giving praise though, when i'm secretly disgusted that someone didn't do x y or z (like keep their pivot foot down!!!). i really need to work on being impressed with small improvements. i gonna channel erika (WWED). on the bright side, i played very good defense, and i did a couple of double juke fakes where my d totally bit (she'd stand in front of me with her hips pointed toward the disc...like she wanted to footrace on the in cut).

they've made me a handler. i'm gonna fight it. the captain tried negotiating with me "well, what if we let you cut during some of the practice points, and you can handle in the tournaments". i think the way to get out of this is to be an unreliable dump and to cut deep on every opportunity. half the problem is the team is inexperienced enough that anyone who can throw upfield reliably handles. the other half is that i'm a crappy crappy deep. anywho. natties soon!!!

S's

well henri, i'm finally busy at work. are you happy now? i enjoy work the way one enjoys gum...it's not ecstasy, but it offers satisfaction without requiring emotional involvement: just keep chewing. i'm picking up more britishisms. does one fancy this or that? i curse with the flippancy of a soulless street child.

a boy invited me to learn scuba diving in the phillipines over xmas...which would be awesome, except i'm afraid of romantic undertones in a commital way, and i find myself rivaling yang in fear of such things. i don't get much time off anyways, so it's a moot point. maybe because i need to ape maturity at work, my innards have shed skins to reveal a slippery seal. that's the best i can do to describe my mental state...like these years will leave no mark, a blank time in my life, so don't get attached, don't let it out...catch me if you can. (you can't--i'm the gingerbread man)

if only i could will myself to sarasota, where things matter, where people are real. giants moving amongst men. listen: your heart pounds within me.

i ran into the homeless woman again. i didn't give her any money this time, because she isn't entitled to the expectation. is she entitled to the hope? when $20 can grant a wish, who am i to refuse it, to judge it? i spent $700 on my bathroom wicker. i spent $300 on the week-long orchids. what is $20 to me? what is it to her? i don't dare address the world's poverty. but she doesn't belong to the world. she belongs to me, my daily commute. she's not dirty, she doesn't do drugs. she could be someone's grandmother. i saw her drinking water the other day. she's real. if $1000 could buy her dignity, i would do it. but who am i to blush at other's misfortune? who is she?

we put her next to the incense

hoping she'd come back with a better smell.

pure genius

Deuteronomy 23:9-14

'When you are in camp, at war with your enemies, you must have a latrine outside the camp and go to it. And you must carry with you a shovel.'
'When you squat outside...'

'...dig a hole with the shovel to cover up what comes out of you.'
'For Yahweh your God moves about the camp to protect you and put your enemies at your mercy. Yahweh must not see anything indecent there or he will desert you.' (found thru parlancheq)

gluttony

the lunch restaurant put 5 pairs of chopsticks into our 2-person lunch, and while we were ordering, they kept cutting us off because they thought we were through. hurrah for big eyes.

by hook or crook

"The intervals of the distant artillery fire grew shorter, as if the big guns were tuning up, choking to get something out. Claude sat up in his bed and listened. The sound of the guns had from the first been pleasant to him, had given him a feeling of confidence and safety; tonight he knew why. What they said was,that men could still die for an idea; and would burn all they had made to keep their dreams. He knew the future of the world was safe; the careful planners would never be able to put it into a strait-jacket,--cunning and prudence would never have it to themselves. Why, that little boy downstairs, with the candlelight in his eyes, when it came to the last cry, as they said, could "carry on" for ever! Ideals were not archaic things, beautiful and impotent; they were the real sources of power among men. As long as that was true, and now he knew it was true--he had come all this way to find out--he had no quarrel with Destiny. Nor did he envy David. He would give his own adventure for no man's. On the edge of sleep it seemed to glimmer, like the clear column ofthe fountain, like the new moon,--alluring, half-averted, the bright face of danger." --Willa Cather, One of Ours

it's set in WWI. i don't think it's true anymore. vietnam war? nixon? the careful planners have got their way. only in ultimate can idealism still trump cunning and prudence.

peanut butter tastes good with anything, including tandoori chicken wraps in spinach pitas. i need to stop binging at night. you'd think with nothing but peanut butter and chocolate in my fridge, that would't be tough to accomplish, but you underestimate me, friend (why are you laughing? because i'm not left handed).

it's decided. i'm going to learn cantonese. disney channel comes in cantonese here, except commercials, which aren't targeted towards the same audience as the shows (?) (luckily, cartoon network is all english, so at least i can understand teen titans, which totally has more plot than totally spies anyways). yeah, so watching totally spies last night, i think i picked up about as much as i normally would've (because i'm so tuned into that show and because most of the communication comes as squeals, which transcend language, duh), but i only learned one word: jerry. jerry in cantonese sounds about as jerry in japanese might sound (which i spent two years studying, so i would know), and without having intimate knowledge of either language, the closest you could come would be the english word jelly (but you'd linger less on the last syllable. imagine saying jet li without the t). there. that's my language exposition of the day. i'm actually kinda pissed that kim possible is in cantonese...that's totally a harder show to understand, and i bet they've lost all the one-liners. i'm also pissed that i get no english sitcom channels. i want friends reruns! i want will and grace and other friendly, bite-sized tv nuggets. i don't want to commit to an hbo movie everytime i wanna relax. jeez. what do you think i am?! i haven't the emotions or the brains. maybe it's time i ponied up to the realization that i'm actually in a foreign country and stop trying to replicate the luxuries of the homeland. sigh. tuesdays.

according to glam.com, i'm a chloe paddington bag (it's my laidback style). i don't see what's laidback about a bag that costs 800 pounds. have they met adidas, patagonia, the chinese vendor down the street?

the saskatchewan doctor just told me i'm from the backwaters because i'm from georgia. wtf? what kind of house do you live in? that's right, put that stone away. and now i'm drowsy...even though i didn't take the sketchy codeine pills he gave me in an unlabeled ziplock bag.

because shuangy is old

hello smite bloggers!

i suspect laura has already done this, but i've registered an rss thingy for us at:

http://feeds.reddit.com
username = smite06
password = 127

click on "mine" to see who's updated recently.

i didn't know the links for xanga users off the top of my head, so honey, henri, add yourselves please (under "subs").

if you want something more akin to ultimatetalk (i.e. pretty), you'll hafta go to someone who actually works in computers (ahem, shuangy!).

in the mean time, everyone post post post!

mushrooms and hair

congrats to brutesquad, nemesis, slow white, and mischief! i'm all aflutter for you.

if i play serious ultimate, if i run, i do it because in my mind, i'm still preparing for some phantom smite spring season. i will be very disappointed come spring. sigh.

pui just asked if there's a term for excessive hair growth. like a medical one. so please, if you know of this condition or have this condition, we are dying to know. this is the weird world in which i work. pui is convinced that a medical term exists because there must be jobs in which you have to state whether you're excessively hairy...like lifeguarding, where excessive hair will impede your ability to...look good? oh no, the extra drag will kill someone. right, pui.

i had congee with chinese mushrooms, but the mushrooms were huge and the congee place didn't cut them up. everytime i tried to eat one, it would slip out of my chopsticks and splash into my soup. when i finally managed to take a bite, i discovered that i hate chinese mushrooms. sigh. mondays.

i am looking forward to a cup of soy hot chocolate from starbucks this afternoon. they have flavors: hazelnut and caramel. twix bar liquefied.

too many things to blog about!

tomorrow is the monkey king's birthday! joy joy and all hail! there's a monkey god shrine in kowloon!

neither here nor there

impressions of the show last night (run by cctv for the midautumn festival...apparently a big deal--i was the only one in tevas, well, except for maybe the cameramen)<-perhaps this should've been the true title of this post:

i've never been entranced by a soprano before. she had the most dignified eyebrows. they'd sit stately above her eyes, flat, solemn, aware that somewhere below, very important (clear, loud, bright) things were bursting out*. her mouth would contort, her cheeks would contort (it must've been like giving birth to induce a voice so large to plop into the room...stately visitors demand pomp). but her eyebrows. flat, a slight effort...i wonder if she has them plucked like that--(like what?) like the scene in little mermaid, where her plucker says, "now sing" and she says "ahhhh ahhh ahhh, ahhh ahhh ahhh..." (you know the song) and then while her face is in song-mode, her plucker sets to work to create the perfect eyebrows.

the rest of her is godmotherish. a plump, galinda chin to match her plump, galinda calves, aswim amidst the background bubbles. the rest of her is petite, skewered atop surgical stilettos (at least 3 inches!). her voice dominated the room, elicited an adrenaline rush...like seeing the pope (a dark pope of yore who held power as a lighthouse holds a lamp: Alexander VI for example, not the sweet smelling old men of present). why fuck with similes? her voice is lucrezia borgia--ruthless, pragmatic, indecent.

there was also a mongolian who could whistle and growl at the same time. it was unearthly...wind vibrating thru alien bamboo. i gotta find his cd. please let him have a cd. chinese minority singers always do a terrific job of wind and horses. not only wind in great expansive places, but also wind in small winding places. his zither is his horses (wtf is a zither?**).

and when old famous chinese singers take the stage to sing old famous chinese marches, i still swell with nationalism, even tho i just spent the afternoon explaining to a hongkong/british girl why i say i'm american when asked and not chinese (because america assimilates much more quickly then england (apparently) and because i'm not fobby enough to be chinese in america). so. the question arises: which do i feel more. and then the question arises: do i really need to choose? how integral to my identity is a national affiliation? both, questions as of yet, unanswered, but i'm leaning towards american (just because i despise too many modern chinese youth...they seem surface, fake, and rude...but wow the culture is dignified*** and maybe the shallowness is just a phase) and towards no, i don't need to choose. but still, the feelings surprised me. the chinese circus makes me proud to be chinese. the chinese popstars made me scornful.

*i hate the word "forth"--it's the sole reason we hafta spell "fourth" like the british. while we're on the topic (or off the topic, depending, i guess on which topic is under discussion), people don't say "falsies" enough. i really like that word. FALSIES.

**i'm sure it's not actually a zither, but i have no idea what mongolian folk instruments are called and i like the way zither sounds. haha, i bet you thought i would provide a link to zithers or something. you have wikipedia, look it up yourself.

***i didn't realize i placed so much value on dignity. huh.

with regards to the mongolian singing: it's called throat singing. wikipedia says, "The overtones are clearly heard when the partials of a sound wave produced by the human voice are selectively amplified by changing the shape of the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx and pharynx. The result of this resonant tuning allows the singer to create more than one pitch at the same time. Generally the sounds created by throat singing are low droning hums and high pitched flutelike melodies. The sound of certain styles of overtone singing may remind one of a Theremin." incidentally, i've been to a theremin recital at the music library (yes, i'm bragging). the tones may be similar, but throat singing is WAY more precise. WAY. dude. way, dude (like heeey, duuuude but different. what an awesome show).

in which i join laura in her klutzy ways

i just fell down an escalator. that's right, full tilt. i've discovered that once you start falling down an escalator, there's no real way to stop falling down an escalator until you're off the escalator. i'm very proud of myself as i managed not to hit my head. the whole fall was very controlled. even the two grocery bags i was carrying sustained minimum damages (to wit, only a dented soymilk carton). i kind of bumped my way down on my bum, and to do that, i had to turn while falling so that i could face upwards. i think my iap snowboarding lessons came into very good use in the don't panic department--familiarity breeds contempt. only the gobbly part at the end worried me because i've seen news stories about people getting scalped by escalators. the whole experience was relatively painless. the focused slow-motion that kicked in reminded me of layout experiences. now my legs are starting to sting though. good thing i'm wearing long pants.

tit for tat

i want to buy a swing for my apartment. it's dark green, but massive. if i got rid of my couch, i could probably fit it. it's impractical to get rid of my couch. instead, perhaps i'll opt for a ladder+thai chest combo. i hope the ladder bears my weight. i also think the ladder will abrogate the need for a stool. the thai chest will be pretty but useless, much as most modern day chests. no succor for the likes of you!

vs

origins

"let me just explain quickly, where i come from." overheard from philipp. he's speaking of correlations and volatilities. the phrase struck my fancy. let me just explain quickly, where i come from. a poem: ice cream, it melted. i forget who owns it...and certainly, by dismantling such a short thing as that, i'm destroying half the poetry (maybe more?). one of the few remembered from ap lit. there was another concerning a fish...

i realize that my blog doesn't say much about me. how shall i remedy that? i can go on and on and not tell ya nothin'. nothing that gives you a hook into me anyways. mostly because i have no shame and certainly because i have no sensitivities. go fish.

cast and crew

rearranging cubby holes is therapeutic. laura, did you say you found a hammer? because i can't find my hammer. i bought orchids for my apartment, so i'm officially moved in. i also killed my first bug. raid really works. for some reason, i'm not as afraid of bugs here...maybe i'm more territorial. either that or i've scaled the fear factor by the gargantuan cockroaches.

i feel like sarah sylvia synthia stout (or whatever her name was) who refused to take the garbage out...but when taking out the garbage involves 5 flights of stairs and a walk down a hill...i really just can't be bothered. happy national day.

i found the best breakfast place ever. it's called the flying pan (instead of the frying pan). 24/7 delicious delicious food. best corned beef hash that i've ever had. and a bottle of ketchup on each table! meryl clan, come on down.

pui, my coworker, has a secret admirer. he (we think) gives her chocolates, but she prefers the macaroons. one week, she got something everyday, and now she complains whenever he misses a day. we've calculated that his love has cost him close to $1000 hkd, upon which she exclaimed that he could've bought her a month of noodle lunches instead. the first week of work, she told me she wasn't fussy, but then it took us 3 hours to decide on and order lunch. she also applies the label "low-maintenance" to herself, but she washes her hair in clinique water or something. that's right, tap water is for the masses, she needs the fancy stuff. she's quite funny and keeps me entertained. today, she spilt a bottle of spring water on my lap. the other day, she sang happy birthday to her brother in a husky voice over the phone. this paragraph is brought to you by the letter pui. pui is very practical. pui is also a scorpio.

brian, my coworker, is a quiet boy who reminds me of atong. his expression is often one of confusion/amusement. i think i secretly horrify him sometimes. he spends a lot of time shooting me or pui quizzical looks. he knows the models inside out, is a very civilized eater, and plays golf and tennis. he spends a lot of time at work, even on days off. brian is also a scorpio.

philipp, my boss, is swiss. he is about to have another baby. instead of saying yadda yadda, he says lalalee lalala (which i've mentioned before, but i find it one of his most endearing traits). he is a watch-snob. when i told him i wanted to buy a watch for $500, he said he couldn't help me...he doesn't move in such low-cost circles. since then, i've given up on watch-fanciness. what time is it? who the fuck cares. philipp is very theoretical-mathy. it's cuz he's almost french. poor guy is married to a scorpio (a pregnant scorpio at that).

adrian, the other guy in philipp's group, plays soccer. he was gone for the last week, so i don't know much more about him. he sits way on the other side of the brian-divide, further contributing to his mystique. i have no idea what sign he is...he was absent for the discussion. i just found out he's a pisces, making him most compatible with scorpio and cancer. almost everyone in this group is a water sign. philipp, the lone capricorn, is most compatible with scorpio as well. we were fated to work together. according to my horoscope, i'm also fated to be obese. sigh.