Today was kind of a light day, but also a very tiring day.
I went into uni for the first time in ages today, to help out with some matlab on one of the students, to catch up with a few people, and to have a group lunch.
The matlab stuff was quite easy in theory to explain, and though I don't want to bag out this student, sometimes his thinking and process ability is a little slow on the uptake. I know matlab can be difficult because I too struggled with it, but more on the programming and matrix components, not how the program and logic works. He was asking which were the main files, and how to change components in the programming files. I showed him the main program file and tried to explain how it called the other .m files in the directories, as well as where the points could be edited for whatever purpose. I had to do this a few times before I think he finally got it.... He lacks quite a bit of confidence in many things. He also recently submitted a paper for Chemeca '08, and hadn't received notification in regards ot the results of the peer review. He didn't actually want to present an oral paper, because he didn't want to talk infront of people.... He wanted to get papers published, which is fair enough, but conference reviewed and presented papers are much easier to get journal published, than those without. It is kind of like a pre-editing, which makes the journal process much easier later on, at least from my experience, having now have seven journal papers published....
We then had lunch at Urban Bites down on King St with half of our research group and our supervisor, the other half had lunch the other week when we couldn't make it. It was a nice relaxing lunch in a way, but some empty silences because there is really only so much you can really talk with your supervisor present, and normal inane gossip just isn't really appropriate like your relationships, or more 'personal' things that tend to get chatted about in the office without the presence of such higher-academic people. We did talk about employment issues in the country, supervisor issues for other students, the problem with taking on too many students and some things going on around the school and other aspects. I had a grilled chicken ceasar salad in my efforts to keep in good nick and losing my weight slowly, which it is working, just very very slowly.
Post lunch, I sent some emails to three people, one to Vic Cherikoff of Vic Cherikoff Foods as I was seeing opportunities in employment with him, one to Gordon Edwards of KSFU, a company that produces sugar cane fibre in edible form, and one to someone in department. Each one of them got my resume, and Gordon said he would pass it on to companies who might be interested in my skills, while the in department person did the same. I didn't get a response from Vic, but he was in meetings so I'm not too surprised if he doesn't reply at all since it was kind of cold calling email. It would be nice if they can provide some openings for employment, and it may be a kick-starter also for Lang Technologies if I get an offer from another company LOL. Oh well.
Then I trundled down to HK Ward Gym for some Kendo training.
Training today was much more in terms of people than before. We had a lot of beginners come today, and only seven non beginners. One person took the beginners as usual, so there was only six of us on rotation in bogu. We also had a visiting photographer from the Glebe local newspaper to do an article on us in regards to Founders Cup competition weekend. The photographer was only interested in the bogu players because obviously they look much more cooler in their armour than beginners in trakkies LOL.
We did our usual kirikaeshi start, then kihon men, kihon kote, then kihon kote-men, then kihon kote-do, short men, short kote, short kote-men, short men-do, and then we did some san-dan waza (three cuts) with kote-men-do, kote-men-men, then the trickier ones, like, men-kote-men, men-men-kote..... Then we did some debana kote, and aiuchi-men before some jigeiko at the end. The photographer actually left in the middle, I did see him checking his watch so I guess he had other places to be for other assignments. It was a little disturbing to be doing a cut with a flash going off from your peripheral vision, so I can fully understand why you aren't allowed flash photography at competitions.
In terms of my progress, the person leading today has been away for a while touring the country, as he is here on a working holiday. He played me last about a two months ago, and today after I played him in jigeiko, he said I had improved a lot and he was very happy to see that. He also told me that I have really good timing on my cuts, but I need a little more on my fumikomi, and I also needed to have more volume on my kiai for zanshin purposes. He suggested that I raise the tone of my kiai from a lower to higher, as it makes it louder and more convincing. I guess this is why I often hear many players with 'screech' style kiai. But, hearing it was really good to know I have improved..... And when I played him in jigeiko, I wasn't afraid of his attacks like I was before, and had much better control of my distance with him as he has a very long attack range. He did shake his head at me in the fact I am still too defensive and I need to attack more. All in due course ^^
I was super tired because last night I stayed up quite late providing some opinion support on someones questions about research methodology, so I was really glad I managed to get a seat on a very crowded train, and slept a little on the ride home. It was a cool and slightly breezy walk home from the station but it was refreshing. Ended up having dinner, watching Burn Notice while I worked on my latest two posts in my new blog with the tablet. It's really cool to play with =P I do hope my skills in drawing slowly improve. I know I have problems with drawing perspective, and also proportions is a big problem for me, but all in due course, all in due course.
I went into uni for the first time in ages today, to help out with some matlab on one of the students, to catch up with a few people, and to have a group lunch.
The matlab stuff was quite easy in theory to explain, and though I don't want to bag out this student, sometimes his thinking and process ability is a little slow on the uptake. I know matlab can be difficult because I too struggled with it, but more on the programming and matrix components, not how the program and logic works. He was asking which were the main files, and how to change components in the programming files. I showed him the main program file and tried to explain how it called the other .m files in the directories, as well as where the points could be edited for whatever purpose. I had to do this a few times before I think he finally got it.... He lacks quite a bit of confidence in many things. He also recently submitted a paper for Chemeca '08, and hadn't received notification in regards ot the results of the peer review. He didn't actually want to present an oral paper, because he didn't want to talk infront of people.... He wanted to get papers published, which is fair enough, but conference reviewed and presented papers are much easier to get journal published, than those without. It is kind of like a pre-editing, which makes the journal process much easier later on, at least from my experience, having now have seven journal papers published....
We then had lunch at Urban Bites down on King St with half of our research group and our supervisor, the other half had lunch the other week when we couldn't make it. It was a nice relaxing lunch in a way, but some empty silences because there is really only so much you can really talk with your supervisor present, and normal inane gossip just isn't really appropriate like your relationships, or more 'personal' things that tend to get chatted about in the office without the presence of such higher-academic people. We did talk about employment issues in the country, supervisor issues for other students, the problem with taking on too many students and some things going on around the school and other aspects. I had a grilled chicken ceasar salad in my efforts to keep in good nick and losing my weight slowly, which it is working, just very very slowly.
Post lunch, I sent some emails to three people, one to Vic Cherikoff of Vic Cherikoff Foods as I was seeing opportunities in employment with him, one to Gordon Edwards of KSFU, a company that produces sugar cane fibre in edible form, and one to someone in department. Each one of them got my resume, and Gordon said he would pass it on to companies who might be interested in my skills, while the in department person did the same. I didn't get a response from Vic, but he was in meetings so I'm not too surprised if he doesn't reply at all since it was kind of cold calling email. It would be nice if they can provide some openings for employment, and it may be a kick-starter also for Lang Technologies if I get an offer from another company LOL. Oh well.
Then I trundled down to HK Ward Gym for some Kendo training.
Training today was much more in terms of people than before. We had a lot of beginners come today, and only seven non beginners. One person took the beginners as usual, so there was only six of us on rotation in bogu. We also had a visiting photographer from the Glebe local newspaper to do an article on us in regards to Founders Cup competition weekend. The photographer was only interested in the bogu players because obviously they look much more cooler in their armour than beginners in trakkies LOL.
We did our usual kirikaeshi start, then kihon men, kihon kote, then kihon kote-men, then kihon kote-do, short men, short kote, short kote-men, short men-do, and then we did some san-dan waza (three cuts) with kote-men-do, kote-men-men, then the trickier ones, like, men-kote-men, men-men-kote..... Then we did some debana kote, and aiuchi-men before some jigeiko at the end. The photographer actually left in the middle, I did see him checking his watch so I guess he had other places to be for other assignments. It was a little disturbing to be doing a cut with a flash going off from your peripheral vision, so I can fully understand why you aren't allowed flash photography at competitions.
In terms of my progress, the person leading today has been away for a while touring the country, as he is here on a working holiday. He played me last about a two months ago, and today after I played him in jigeiko, he said I had improved a lot and he was very happy to see that. He also told me that I have really good timing on my cuts, but I need a little more on my fumikomi, and I also needed to have more volume on my kiai for zanshin purposes. He suggested that I raise the tone of my kiai from a lower to higher, as it makes it louder and more convincing. I guess this is why I often hear many players with 'screech' style kiai. But, hearing it was really good to know I have improved..... And when I played him in jigeiko, I wasn't afraid of his attacks like I was before, and had much better control of my distance with him as he has a very long attack range. He did shake his head at me in the fact I am still too defensive and I need to attack more. All in due course ^^
I was super tired because last night I stayed up quite late providing some opinion support on someones questions about research methodology, so I was really glad I managed to get a seat on a very crowded train, and slept a little on the ride home. It was a cool and slightly breezy walk home from the station but it was refreshing. Ended up having dinner, watching Burn Notice while I worked on my latest two posts in my new blog with the tablet. It's really cool to play with =P I do hope my skills in drawing slowly improve. I know I have problems with drawing perspective, and also proportions is a big problem for me, but all in due course, all in due course.
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