Yellow parenting icons
So, I passed my yellow-belt test today, but I'm feeling rather underwhelmed. The test supposedly started at 11am; adults were told not to bother coming until 11:45am as the children go first. This was a relatively small group of testers: four heats. Should've been over, what, by 1pm?
We didn't get home until 3:00pm. When I arrived, the group of tiny-kid white belts was still going on, albeit toward the end of their test. I don't know if they started late (common) or what, because it doesn't normally take more than about half an hour or so for a group like that. The trouble came with the next group: five kids testing for the highest belt - the one below black. Their test went on for nearly 90 mins, no joke. I don't think I've EVER seen a single heat go more than 45 mins or so. Certainly not more than an hour. He just kept having them do and re-do certain things, a girl who had to start late then had to do the stuff the other kids had already done while they were off practicing forms and just ... gah! Then there was one group of mid-range kids, including one who had just tagged along with her photographer father and was told on the spot that she'd be testing. Their session wasn't too bad, timewise. And then - FINALLY - the batch of four-adults-and-one-teen; three of us were testing for yellow, the others for intermediate-level belts.
The test was just ... eh. Squats, punching drill, kicking drills, balance drills, and one form. The higher belts did two forms. We yellow belts had been prepared to do two forms, so this was a bit of a letdown. Nobody sparred - highly unusual, but I think he realized how late it was getting, and just skipped it. We all broke boards - sliding side kick for we peons, back straight kick for the others. The two higher adults (a married couple) had to break stacks of two and three boards, respectively. Nobody had too much trouble; in fact, to my great surprise, I broke my board on the second try. Felt a lot easier than I thought it might, to put my foot through it - and by that, I just mean that the board felt insubstantial to my foot as it gave. I somehow expected it to feel ... weightier. I'm probably not explaining myself well. Anyway, I will admit I was kind of nervous about the board break, not knowing in advance what stunt he might make us do to break it, but having heard four years' worth of coaching and advice helped me focus, I think.
Anyway, that was pretty much it for the test. And although I'm happy to finally be rid of the white belt, I felt kind of ... underwhelmed. Not challenged enough. Except for the board break, I wasn't nervous at all about the test - I knew I could do it. I know the tests do get harder the higher you go, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I got off easy for my first test, but I guess I expected to feel like I'd really earned it, and I just ... didn't. Yeah, yellow belt, yadda yadda yadda, let's finally go home, ok? All that waiting around didn't help, either. There's only so much warming up and practicing you can do in three hours, without wearing yourself out. I wished I could've read a book. Ah well.
Came home, wrapped a few gifts with girls (not THEIR gifts, of course), then we went to church. Afterwards, I essentially shut myself in our bedroom for the next 2+ hours and wrapped more gifts. Not done yet, but at least I made a good dent in it. I was also surprised to see that although, at last count, I'd had more gifts for MiniPlu than Two, somewhere along the line this has reversed so now I need to find a couple more small/modest items for MiniPlu, lest there be wailing about unequal gifts. (There might be wailing, anyway, as some of MiniPlu's gifts are larger in size than Two's, even though they're similar levels of niceness - so Two's likely to be put out that the larger packages under the tree aren't for her. Can't win.)
In fact, the girls were so snippy with each other after church (which was one of the reasons why I gulped down some cereal and a carrot stick with peanut butter as "dinner" and escaped to the bedroom immediately), that Will came in to hide from them for awhile, too. I will confess that although I realized, in hindsight, how much my mother had done for me that I had taken for granted, I never realized - before becoming a parent - just how MUCH head-banging is done in the attempt to turn wild-animal children into semi-civilized adults. Sometimes I feel like giving up. Clearly, they have no interest in being semi-civilized and I'm tired of repeating the same things over and over, and being met with hostility. Why WHY WHY? Why don't they get the message on the one-thousandth repetition? Why doesn't it click? Stop throwing clothes on the floor. Make your bed. Take your dishes to the dishwasher. Putting away means AWAY, not simply throwing it on a different piece of floor. If you are the first one up, put the dogs out and feed them. I might as well be invisible. GAH.
Maybe I should've been a child psychology/child development major. :P Or a wild animal.
In closing, I recently (and very belatedly) participated in an icon meme over at hamsterwoman's.
Step One: Comment here with the phrase "pumpkin spice" and I'll rummage through your userpics and choose five.
Step Two: You'll take those five icons and make a new post with all the rules and information included. Tell me about those icons, why you like them, why you can't delete them, or why you uploaded them in the first place.
Step Three: People will read your post, and think "hey, this is neat." and comment to your post with "pumpkin spice". Then it will be their job to pass it on in a never-ending cycle that will spread across the internet or at least LJ like wildfire!
Since the season has changed, I'm changing the keyword to "hot chocolate" instead of "pumpkin spice". But, anyway - participate or not as you see fit.
This comes from the now-cancelled TV show Numb3rs, wherein the genius mathematician brother of an FBI agent uses math to help the FBI solve crimes. Awesome show. Anyway, I use this one for - as you might guess - "WTF" sorts of moments.
Fandom Puffs (find their comm on LJ) made a bunch of "Powerpuff Girls"-style icons ages ago. Although I dislike the Powerpuff Girls and, generally, the art style, I really like this icon, capturing the moment Luke Skywalker's hand was cut off toward the end of Empire Strikes Back. The tiny print says, "Luke Skywalker is having the worst day ever". A fitting icon for really crappy days - or for commenting on friends' really crappy days.
IIRC, the first place I saw this quote was on a Mutts comic. I love it. It says so much about how important it is to be grateful for the good things in your life. I use it when thanking people for fic feedback, mostly, but sometimes if someone has given me a vgift on LJ, or some other little giftie. It's also the only icon out of this group to be on DW as well.
This is one of my relatively recent icons. I actually no longer remember how I got it, but since I consider myself Hufflepuff, and I like H50 (although I'm about a full season behind now), this seemed appropriate to snag. I don't actually get to use it much, since a lot of people have moved away from the H50 fandom and it's not often one has reason to post about being a badass Hufflepuff, but I still like the icon and, since I have the icon space on LJ, I don't plan to delete it anytime soon.
"Mifu" comes from the LJ comm wrisomifu, the underachiever's answer to NaNoWriMo. Whereas NaNo participants need to churn out at least 3K words per day to reach their 50K word goal, WriSo ("Write Something, you Miserable Fuck!") participants need only write 10 mins per day. Unless something better comes up. :P The comm has a number of in-house icons, and I snagged this one last year. (It replaced my former WriSo icon, which showed a woman - 19th century, maybe? - slumped over, while a scholar of some sort holds a book or tablet of paper in front of her. The caption reads, "You can still write for 10 minutes, madam." Although I use my MiFu icon predominantly for the comm each November, I also like to use it if I'm really having a shitty day and feel very much the miserable fuck.
Will fell asleep on the living room floor over two hours ago. :P Time to haul him up to bed, if I can.
We didn't get home until 3:00pm. When I arrived, the group of tiny-kid white belts was still going on, albeit toward the end of their test. I don't know if they started late (common) or what, because it doesn't normally take more than about half an hour or so for a group like that. The trouble came with the next group: five kids testing for the highest belt - the one below black. Their test went on for nearly 90 mins, no joke. I don't think I've EVER seen a single heat go more than 45 mins or so. Certainly not more than an hour. He just kept having them do and re-do certain things, a girl who had to start late then had to do the stuff the other kids had already done while they were off practicing forms and just ... gah! Then there was one group of mid-range kids, including one who had just tagged along with her photographer father and was told on the spot that she'd be testing. Their session wasn't too bad, timewise. And then - FINALLY - the batch of four-adults-and-one-teen; three of us were testing for yellow, the others for intermediate-level belts.
The test was just ... eh. Squats, punching drill, kicking drills, balance drills, and one form. The higher belts did two forms. We yellow belts had been prepared to do two forms, so this was a bit of a letdown. Nobody sparred - highly unusual, but I think he realized how late it was getting, and just skipped it. We all broke boards - sliding side kick for we peons, back straight kick for the others. The two higher adults (a married couple) had to break stacks of two and three boards, respectively. Nobody had too much trouble; in fact, to my great surprise, I broke my board on the second try. Felt a lot easier than I thought it might, to put my foot through it - and by that, I just mean that the board felt insubstantial to my foot as it gave. I somehow expected it to feel ... weightier. I'm probably not explaining myself well. Anyway, I will admit I was kind of nervous about the board break, not knowing in advance what stunt he might make us do to break it, but having heard four years' worth of coaching and advice helped me focus, I think.
Anyway, that was pretty much it for the test. And although I'm happy to finally be rid of the white belt, I felt kind of ... underwhelmed. Not challenged enough. Except for the board break, I wasn't nervous at all about the test - I knew I could do it. I know the tests do get harder the higher you go, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I got off easy for my first test, but I guess I expected to feel like I'd really earned it, and I just ... didn't. Yeah, yellow belt, yadda yadda yadda, let's finally go home, ok? All that waiting around didn't help, either. There's only so much warming up and practicing you can do in three hours, without wearing yourself out. I wished I could've read a book. Ah well.
Came home, wrapped a few gifts with girls (not THEIR gifts, of course), then we went to church. Afterwards, I essentially shut myself in our bedroom for the next 2+ hours and wrapped more gifts. Not done yet, but at least I made a good dent in it. I was also surprised to see that although, at last count, I'd had more gifts for MiniPlu than Two, somewhere along the line this has reversed so now I need to find a couple more small/modest items for MiniPlu, lest there be wailing about unequal gifts. (There might be wailing, anyway, as some of MiniPlu's gifts are larger in size than Two's, even though they're similar levels of niceness - so Two's likely to be put out that the larger packages under the tree aren't for her. Can't win.)
In fact, the girls were so snippy with each other after church (which was one of the reasons why I gulped down some cereal and a carrot stick with peanut butter as "dinner" and escaped to the bedroom immediately), that Will came in to hide from them for awhile, too. I will confess that although I realized, in hindsight, how much my mother had done for me that I had taken for granted, I never realized - before becoming a parent - just how MUCH head-banging is done in the attempt to turn wild-animal children into semi-civilized adults. Sometimes I feel like giving up. Clearly, they have no interest in being semi-civilized and I'm tired of repeating the same things over and over, and being met with hostility. Why WHY WHY? Why don't they get the message on the one-thousandth repetition? Why doesn't it click? Stop throwing clothes on the floor. Make your bed. Take your dishes to the dishwasher. Putting away means AWAY, not simply throwing it on a different piece of floor. If you are the first one up, put the dogs out and feed them. I might as well be invisible. GAH.
Maybe I should've been a child psychology/child development major. :P Or a wild animal.
In closing, I recently (and very belatedly) participated in an icon meme over at hamsterwoman's.
Step One: Comment here with the phrase "pumpkin spice" and I'll rummage through your userpics and choose five.
Step Two: You'll take those five icons and make a new post with all the rules and information included. Tell me about those icons, why you like them, why you can't delete them, or why you uploaded them in the first place.
Step Three: People will read your post, and think "hey, this is neat." and comment to your post with "pumpkin spice". Then it will be their job to pass it on in a never-ending cycle that will spread across the internet or at least LJ like wildfire!
Since the season has changed, I'm changing the keyword to "hot chocolate" instead of "pumpkin spice". But, anyway - participate or not as you see fit.
This comes from the now-cancelled TV show Numb3rs, wherein the genius mathematician brother of an FBI agent uses math to help the FBI solve crimes. Awesome show. Anyway, I use this one for - as you might guess - "WTF" sorts of moments.
Fandom Puffs (find their comm on LJ) made a bunch of "Powerpuff Girls"-style icons ages ago. Although I dislike the Powerpuff Girls and, generally, the art style, I really like this icon, capturing the moment Luke Skywalker's hand was cut off toward the end of Empire Strikes Back. The tiny print says, "Luke Skywalker is having the worst day ever". A fitting icon for really crappy days - or for commenting on friends' really crappy days.
IIRC, the first place I saw this quote was on a Mutts comic. I love it. It says so much about how important it is to be grateful for the good things in your life. I use it when thanking people for fic feedback, mostly, but sometimes if someone has given me a vgift on LJ, or some other little giftie. It's also the only icon out of this group to be on DW as well.
This is one of my relatively recent icons. I actually no longer remember how I got it, but since I consider myself Hufflepuff, and I like H50 (although I'm about a full season behind now), this seemed appropriate to snag. I don't actually get to use it much, since a lot of people have moved away from the H50 fandom and it's not often one has reason to post about being a badass Hufflepuff, but I still like the icon and, since I have the icon space on LJ, I don't plan to delete it anytime soon.
"Mifu" comes from the LJ comm wrisomifu, the underachiever's answer to NaNoWriMo. Whereas NaNo participants need to churn out at least 3K words per day to reach their 50K word goal, WriSo ("Write Something, you Miserable Fuck!") participants need only write 10 mins per day. Unless something better comes up. :P The comm has a number of in-house icons, and I snagged this one last year. (It replaced my former WriSo icon, which showed a woman - 19th century, maybe? - slumped over, while a scholar of some sort holds a book or tablet of paper in front of her. The caption reads, "You can still write for 10 minutes, madam." Although I use my MiFu icon predominantly for the comm each November, I also like to use it if I'm really having a shitty day and feel very much the miserable fuck.
Will fell asleep on the living room floor over two hours ago. :P Time to haul him up to bed, if I can.