Doing BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) is a dangerous sport, like any other contact sport you can get hurt and/or injured. While at training, we had a guy who broke his arm while wrestling, and amazingly he didn't scream in pain like I would and had to go to the hospital, needless to say I don't think he came back.
I've seen people get choked out to the point of blacking out, which is pretty funny seeing a person go limp, and then recover later not knowing what had happened. I once nearly blacked out, but managed to tap out, leading to the other guy letting go of my head and all the oxygen and blood rushed back to my brain and for a moment I didn't know where I was but regained my composure only to tap out again moments later.
I've seen guys get hurt in their downstairs area, which, as painful as it is, is also amusing. I once accidentally landed right onto a friend I was wrestling and I've never seen a person leap so high from his back in pain before, it reminded me of pro wrestling and how they take bumps, but to see it happen in person was hilarious even though he was in extreme pain. That's why I wear a cup, to avoid these things.
Anyways, last week on Thursday I was wrestling a friend who is better and heavier than me, and while wrestling he wound up on top in mount, which is one of the best positions for him to be in, and worst positions for me to be in. He transferred to what is called "Rodeo Mount" where his legs would extend out so he's fully sitting on you, like a cowboy sits on a bull, trying to control him. I knew I was going to lose pretty soon, but I tried to escape anyway and decided to buck him and try to roll him over, all I succeeded in doing was bucking him up into the air for a second, and like a persistent cowboy came back down on my chest and essentially sat on my ribs, particularly my left side of my ribs. So I was in major pain, following the round I didn't wrestle anymore, went home and iced my chest down.
Come Tuesday my rib is still bothering me, it's sticking out more on my left side (where it hurts) than on my right side, so that's not normal. So I go to see the doctor, but due to the mass amount of other people waiting, I end up going to Wednesday.
The doctor checks out my rib and prescribes an X-Ray for me, which I went to take after seeing the doctor. Getting an X-Ray was interesting, I was expecting to lie down on a bed while a machine X-Ray's me but instead I had to stand up against a wall thing and breathe in, breathe out and even stop breathing for the lady to X-ray me. Having a female do it was slightly awkward for a bit, being a bit self conscious of being topless while some lady takes pictures of your bones, that's going way deep...
Come Friday I pick up my X-Rays and then see the doctor so he can look at them. Fearing a fractured rib, he told me that I was okay, and that it was just tissue damage, or something like that, but having said that he told me "X-ray's may not pick up everything", so I had to keep an eye on it and in two weeks if it's still hurting come back for another X-ray.
Right now my rib hurts, but hopefully it'll heal itself like Wolverine (go go current blockbuster movie reference) very soon. Let's see how I go in two weeks time...now where's that ice pack.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
My Wacom Bamboo
SYC blog will be on pause for now due to not finding adequate time to blog about it and do it justice.
So I'll be continuing random blogging for now until I find such time, hopefully my memory will remember enough of it to blog!
Anyways, I've started my Masters (of Animation) which is very arty in nature and quite different from when I did my IT degree but I'm loving it so far. My brother found a second hand Wacom Bamboo tablet for cheap and I figured it'd be good to get one for the course, and for life!
So I got the Wacom Bamboo MTE-450k, and though that may not mean anything to you in name, it means nothing to me too, so here's a picture to show you what it looks like!
So I'll be continuing random blogging for now until I find such time, hopefully my memory will remember enough of it to blog!
Anyways, I've started my Masters (of Animation) which is very arty in nature and quite different from when I did my IT degree but I'm loving it so far. My brother found a second hand Wacom Bamboo tablet for cheap and I figured it'd be good to get one for the course, and for life!
So I got the Wacom Bamboo MTE-450k, and though that may not mean anything to you in name, it means nothing to me too, so here's a picture to show you what it looks like!
And here's a picture that I rotoscoped to test out my new technical toy!
Lookin' good
Lookin' good
Thursday, February 12, 2009
SYC 09' - Day 1 (Part 1/2)
Bryan's alarm went off at 7am, so he could run in the morning, I'd rather stay asleep, and did so so I don't know if he did go run or not.
Eventually, everyone got up and either showered or went to breakfast, I stayed in bed, resting my eyes for as long as possible before getting up to shower myself. Packed my bag, then had breakfast, I had weetbix with sugar, and milk of course. We then had to move all our luggage out of our rooms so the cleaners could come and clean up before the youth arrive, meaning we slept in dirty rooms/beds...that explains the dirty shower...
We had another meeting, outlining the days events and what was to come, such as who was going to be in our cabins, then had our own little meetings in our groups before mingling around before the youth arrived! I got an sms from my sister saying the bus driver didn't know where our location was, which was both worrying and comforting, because we (leaders) needed time to prepare stuff.
At some time, after 11am, the first bus (from Cabramatta) arrived, with a van leading the way. Once again the leaders rushed onto the balcony to wave our hands, yell at the bus (I don't think they could hear us) and just get excited. We tried to get the bus to honk its horn like last year but that didn't come to fruition, I blame the lack of horn pulling action by us and the driver who didn't like fun (note: he may have liked fun, I just can't confirm). We welcome the kids and have them proceed to register, paying and receiving their name tag. Eventually the second bus (from Hurstville) came, and that bus also failed to honk its horn, meaning we had a SYC with no bus horn!
We mingled with all the kids while they registered, getting to know them and all. I was looking for the kids in my cabin, who were from Hurstville, a change from last year where I had Cabra kids, and things were fairly easy as I had a co-leader with me. But due to the large number of youth this year, many leaders had to go solo, so to say anxious and nervous would be quite a feat for a toddler, and thats what I felt like (anxious and nervous).
I found my youth and had them bring their luggage to our room, thinking about what to say, what they thought of me, suprised I had one more youth than planned and hoping they weren't crazy troublemakers. They turned out fine, or so I thought, but more about that tonight...
We all gathered together to go through the rules of the place as told by our Youthworks friend Tom, then other orientation type things to get through and before you knew it, it was lunch time, which was bread rolls, with either sliced ham or sliced chicken with salad and all that healthy stuff. I had two!
Following lunch was "Get to know you" games, so the youth could get to know each other, the games were "Name Name", where you call out a persons name twice to avoid being whacked with a pillow, "Build-up scissors/paper/rock", where you play until there's two people left to determine the champion, "Big wind blows", a variation of the fruit salad concept, "Bang", a game involving shooting each other, "Get to know your leaders", a game for each cabin to ask their leaders as many questions as they want, the strangest question I got was "Do you own a fridge?" and finally "Name Bingo", a more active version of Bingo involving interests, rather than numbers. Of course there's more to these games than my brief descriptions but I just wanted to keep things short.
Also of note is that Monday was hot, so at some point during these games we took a break so kids wouldn't get suffocated or melt inside the hall. After the "Get to know you" games it was time for Wide Games (the games you play outside), but due to the extreme heat we had to do a bit of re-planning and temporarily cancel Wide Games and play some of our Evening Activity games in its place. We played "Construction!", a game involving a lot of newspaper, we broke up into 8 teams and our aim was to construct a free-standing building made out of newspaper and tape that could fit our team, or as much of our team as possible, and we would be awarded points based on how many people we could fit.
This is an example of how successful you can be with good design, fitting your whole team together, making them feel like part of a refugee camp (their joke, not mine).
Eventually, everyone got up and either showered or went to breakfast, I stayed in bed, resting my eyes for as long as possible before getting up to shower myself. Packed my bag, then had breakfast, I had weetbix with sugar, and milk of course. We then had to move all our luggage out of our rooms so the cleaners could come and clean up before the youth arrive, meaning we slept in dirty rooms/beds...that explains the dirty shower...
We had another meeting, outlining the days events and what was to come, such as who was going to be in our cabins, then had our own little meetings in our groups before mingling around before the youth arrived! I got an sms from my sister saying the bus driver didn't know where our location was, which was both worrying and comforting, because we (leaders) needed time to prepare stuff.
At some time, after 11am, the first bus (from Cabramatta) arrived, with a van leading the way. Once again the leaders rushed onto the balcony to wave our hands, yell at the bus (I don't think they could hear us) and just get excited. We tried to get the bus to honk its horn like last year but that didn't come to fruition, I blame the lack of horn pulling action by us and the driver who didn't like fun (note: he may have liked fun, I just can't confirm). We welcome the kids and have them proceed to register, paying and receiving their name tag. Eventually the second bus (from Hurstville) came, and that bus also failed to honk its horn, meaning we had a SYC with no bus horn!
We mingled with all the kids while they registered, getting to know them and all. I was looking for the kids in my cabin, who were from Hurstville, a change from last year where I had Cabra kids, and things were fairly easy as I had a co-leader with me. But due to the large number of youth this year, many leaders had to go solo, so to say anxious and nervous would be quite a feat for a toddler, and thats what I felt like (anxious and nervous).
I found my youth and had them bring their luggage to our room, thinking about what to say, what they thought of me, suprised I had one more youth than planned and hoping they weren't crazy troublemakers. They turned out fine, or so I thought, but more about that tonight...
We all gathered together to go through the rules of the place as told by our Youthworks friend Tom, then other orientation type things to get through and before you knew it, it was lunch time, which was bread rolls, with either sliced ham or sliced chicken with salad and all that healthy stuff. I had two!
Following lunch was "Get to know you" games, so the youth could get to know each other, the games were "Name Name", where you call out a persons name twice to avoid being whacked with a pillow, "Build-up scissors/paper/rock", where you play until there's two people left to determine the champion, "Big wind blows", a variation of the fruit salad concept, "Bang", a game involving shooting each other, "Get to know your leaders", a game for each cabin to ask their leaders as many questions as they want, the strangest question I got was "Do you own a fridge?" and finally "Name Bingo", a more active version of Bingo involving interests, rather than numbers. Of course there's more to these games than my brief descriptions but I just wanted to keep things short.
Also of note is that Monday was hot, so at some point during these games we took a break so kids wouldn't get suffocated or melt inside the hall. After the "Get to know you" games it was time for Wide Games (the games you play outside), but due to the extreme heat we had to do a bit of re-planning and temporarily cancel Wide Games and play some of our Evening Activity games in its place. We played "Construction!", a game involving a lot of newspaper, we broke up into 8 teams and our aim was to construct a free-standing building made out of newspaper and tape that could fit our team, or as much of our team as possible, and we would be awarded points based on how many people we could fit.
This is an example of how successful you can be with good design, fitting your whole team together, making them feel like part of a refugee camp (their joke, not mine).
And this is an example of what happens when you have bad design, a last minute rush to save it, resulting in an absolute collapse, leaving you to salvage whats left and earning as many points as you possibly now can...
Having now trashed a few rooms with newspaper everywhere we retreated back to the hall to announce the winners, then we had free time until dinner at 6pm. We had chinese food, well, as chinese as Australians can get it...we had some beef dish (mongolian?) or a chicken dish with rice, hard rice though. Being hungry I had beef first, then for seconds got both beef and chicken, and skipped out on dessert because I was too full.
Stay tuned for Part 2, coming when I write it. It's gonna be a looong series....
Stay tuned for Part 2, coming when I write it. It's gonna be a looong series....
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
SYC 09' - Day 0
Another year, another SYC, another blog series! Summer Youth Camp (SYC) is run by Cabramatta Anglican Church and St Georges' Anglican Church Hurstville and a bunch of other leaders we have connections with, and Christians seem to have a lot of connections.
I probably explained back in last years SYC blog series but I'll quickly explain it again.
SYC is a camp for high schoolers, it is primarily an evangelistic camp, meaning you're gonna hear about Jesus and what He did for you, secondarily, it is a fun camp designed to tire out the youth and leaders both physically (youth) and mentally (leaders). It runs for a week, Monday to Friday and this is just my little blog series remembering all that happened from my perspective, giving you a behind the scenes look too of what a leader does for all you youth reading this so without further ado/adieu/achoo lets try and remember...
Day 0 - 4th January 2009 Sunday - My Drive Up
On Sunday the leaders usually head up to the campsite first, to set things up and get a headstart before the highschoolers come. Out meetup point is Cabramatta Anglican Church for half of the leaders. I got to church sometime between 5:30 and 6:00pm to see a few of the leaders there rushing to get the SYC booklets together, people folding, stapling and chatting.
We had to wait until evening service finished at around 6:30 before we could go and grab sound equipment, drum kit and cables to take to SYC, so we waited and waited, chatted to other leaders.
Soon enough we got to load up our cars, I had less luggage this year compared to last year so I didn't have that much to tetris into the car like last year, I had to take the drum kit, pretty much all the microphone stands, cable leads and of course people's luggage.
I'm not sure what time we left, but it was pretty late, either 7pm or sometime past that, we drove to Heathcote McDonalds for dinner, then continued towards the campsite. The theory that after eating food, you often feel sleepy is pretty true I'd say because driving after Macca's I got pretty sleepy and wanted to just nod off, so I had to keep myself up somehow, and I did so by talking to the people in my car, which always helps, to keep my mind buzzing with stuff other than the mundane long stretch of road ahead of me.
Eventually we reach the campsite, the potholes were still there like the year before and the urge to drive onto the grass utilizing my 4WD capabilities was still there like the year before but I resisted, given the darkness and not knowing when a ditch would suprise attack me. All our cars were covered in dust and dirt (mainly dirt), so people proceeded to write on each other's cars, I had DUNG written on my back window, which I left because I was too tired to clean it off. For those who don't know Dung is a sort of nickname I was given, derived from the first letter of my first name and the surname, it also has the same name as a form of feces, unfortunate I know but I've gotten used to it, new people however, aren't used to it, which produces amusing reactions when people see friends calling me "Dung", and I respond casually like its all good.
But I digress, we unloaded our cars, paid our leaders fee, mingled, then had a meeting to get things officially started, we broke up into our groups, be that evening games (games we play in the evening), wide games (games we play during the day), concert night team, music team and I think that was it. I was in the evening games team, and was allocated a "get to know you" game with another leader, trivia night and glow stick game, of which I'll write about as they happen on the corresponding days. Each year we try and play different games and this year was no different, so we had to test some of them, which we did tonight. Some of the leaders played around with straws and paddle pop sticks to protect an egg, Victor (our Evening Games leader) became our balloon sumo and took damage for our entertainment (I'll try get a video of that up when I can, inbetween working on the SYC DVD).
Afterwards, we had music practice for Monday's music, which I used to make the powerpoint for the Monday, I would've made it before but I didn't know the what the projector would be like, and where "screen" would be, but making the powerpoint was fairly quick anyway.
Eventually it got really late, and it was time for sleep, all the leaders had the boys side of the cabins to sleep in, and we could pick any room which is always fun as its the one time we can sleep with the other leaders before the youth invade...anyways, I don't know about the other leaders but the cabra boys stayed up, chatted, got to know each other better, got to know who were the scaredy cats (lame term I know) screaming at the non-ghost, talking about ministry and random stuff when we realise we should really get to sleep, our wake up time was 8am, we slept sometime past 2am...
Note: From here on out, they're gonna get longer, and I'll probably take a long time to get them all done, meaning I'll eventually forget a few more things, so apologies in advance to all those that care.
I probably explained back in last years SYC blog series but I'll quickly explain it again.
SYC is a camp for high schoolers, it is primarily an evangelistic camp, meaning you're gonna hear about Jesus and what He did for you, secondarily, it is a fun camp designed to tire out the youth and leaders both physically (youth) and mentally (leaders). It runs for a week, Monday to Friday and this is just my little blog series remembering all that happened from my perspective, giving you a behind the scenes look too of what a leader does for all you youth reading this so without further ado/adieu/achoo lets try and remember...
Day 0 - 4th January 2009 Sunday - My Drive Up
On Sunday the leaders usually head up to the campsite first, to set things up and get a headstart before the highschoolers come. Out meetup point is Cabramatta Anglican Church for half of the leaders. I got to church sometime between 5:30 and 6:00pm to see a few of the leaders there rushing to get the SYC booklets together, people folding, stapling and chatting.
We had to wait until evening service finished at around 6:30 before we could go and grab sound equipment, drum kit and cables to take to SYC, so we waited and waited, chatted to other leaders.
Soon enough we got to load up our cars, I had less luggage this year compared to last year so I didn't have that much to tetris into the car like last year, I had to take the drum kit, pretty much all the microphone stands, cable leads and of course people's luggage.
I'm not sure what time we left, but it was pretty late, either 7pm or sometime past that, we drove to Heathcote McDonalds for dinner, then continued towards the campsite. The theory that after eating food, you often feel sleepy is pretty true I'd say because driving after Macca's I got pretty sleepy and wanted to just nod off, so I had to keep myself up somehow, and I did so by talking to the people in my car, which always helps, to keep my mind buzzing with stuff other than the mundane long stretch of road ahead of me.
Eventually we reach the campsite, the potholes were still there like the year before and the urge to drive onto the grass utilizing my 4WD capabilities was still there like the year before but I resisted, given the darkness and not knowing when a ditch would suprise attack me. All our cars were covered in dust and dirt (mainly dirt), so people proceeded to write on each other's cars, I had DUNG written on my back window, which I left because I was too tired to clean it off. For those who don't know Dung is a sort of nickname I was given, derived from the first letter of my first name and the surname, it also has the same name as a form of feces, unfortunate I know but I've gotten used to it, new people however, aren't used to it, which produces amusing reactions when people see friends calling me "Dung", and I respond casually like its all good.
But I digress, we unloaded our cars, paid our leaders fee, mingled, then had a meeting to get things officially started, we broke up into our groups, be that evening games (games we play in the evening), wide games (games we play during the day), concert night team, music team and I think that was it. I was in the evening games team, and was allocated a "get to know you" game with another leader, trivia night and glow stick game, of which I'll write about as they happen on the corresponding days. Each year we try and play different games and this year was no different, so we had to test some of them, which we did tonight. Some of the leaders played around with straws and paddle pop sticks to protect an egg, Victor (our Evening Games leader) became our balloon sumo and took damage for our entertainment (I'll try get a video of that up when I can, inbetween working on the SYC DVD).
Afterwards, we had music practice for Monday's music, which I used to make the powerpoint for the Monday, I would've made it before but I didn't know the what the projector would be like, and where "screen" would be, but making the powerpoint was fairly quick anyway.
Eventually it got really late, and it was time for sleep, all the leaders had the boys side of the cabins to sleep in, and we could pick any room which is always fun as its the one time we can sleep with the other leaders before the youth invade...anyways, I don't know about the other leaders but the cabra boys stayed up, chatted, got to know each other better, got to know who were the scaredy cats (lame term I know) screaming at the non-ghost, talking about ministry and random stuff when we realise we should really get to sleep, our wake up time was 8am, we slept sometime past 2am...
Note: From here on out, they're gonna get longer, and I'll probably take a long time to get them all done, meaning I'll eventually forget a few more things, so apologies in advance to all those that care.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My Baptism
On the 14th of December 2008, last year now, Cabramatta Anglican Church had their combined Baptism and Confirmation Service. Combined being both the Chinese and English services combining together.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
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