market-ing

So I was out with La the other night and she mentioned that the reason she wasn't staying with me that night (I live forever away from everyone so a fair number of weekend plans involve sleepovers) was because she and S were taking their mothers to the Irene Village market the next day. I invited myself along immediately, with the disclaimer that I tend to go nuts at markets.

As much as I am trying really really hard to not be a hoarder (my parents house is cluttered and just gets worse all the time and I am trying very hard to keep my new home a sanctuary, and that sanctuary nature partly depends on it being relatively empty and clutter free. That and having the dishes washed, which is harder than I expected). I have been practicing restraint by going to thrift stores and not buying armloads of random junk.

Anyway I met them out there early (they swear by getting there at opening time, and seeing the state of the place at 11am I understand why) and we went off shopping. I got two new 'children' for my burgeoning jungle (I have a tulip names Petunia, some daffodils named Gary, 2 cacti with a rather inappropriate name as they are the love-ferns of a particularly vindictive person, an african violet (Violet) and now tw more plants, Basil and Rosemary (named appropriately if not inventively).

I also managed to pick up some chandelier button earings (yesm they are a thing), another set of earrings that are a fork and a spoon (everyone except P1 loves them) and a filligree heart necklace that is cheesy but I've wanted one forever.

kind of like this (not my picture)

After that I limited myself to gifts for the impending baby shower season, managed to walk away from an awesome lampshade that I don't have a lamp for and a pewter lizard doorstop (I do need a doorstop but it's the principle or something) and got accused of haggling by an artist until I admitted that I have a small place and I only have space on my walls for things I really like. As much as smiley elephants are cool, I would end up stabbing one after a bad day at work.

After a while La folded from shoppers-fatigue and an impending appointment and left me with the other three, who really do believe in going through every. single. item. at. every. single. stall., and I passed the time wandering around until S and I stopped at a funny little stall with canvas paintings. I fell in love with a simple little painting and thought about it for a while. It helped that the artist was not pushy, but happy to discuss his motivation for painting it and what it meant to him and I was able to see it, but still know what it was that spoke to me.

At that point S's mother decided that I clearly had no decorating ability, and I couldn't possible have only one bright blue painting, and bought me matching one to make a set. I took them off to a framer and now I am waiting for the quote and the paintings. I can't post a photo because I don't have one, but I will as soon as I get them back.

I also loved a HUGE mosaic that I can't afford, but the artist promised to make another one for me when I have saved up, if the original one has been sold by then. So instead of painting light grey stripes on my yellow living room wall, I'll wait until I can get the mosaic and then paint the whole wall grey to go with the multicoloured amazingness (once again, should have had the presence of mind to take a picture).

so all in all a successful day that has left little by way of regret except some rather stiff legs from walking so much (getting unfit). Next up, exploring the Braamfontein markets I think!

SHINEEEEEEE!

So Tai Chi last night was AWESOME! Not in the learning-a-lot sense necessarily, but in the all-out fun and awesomeness sense it was one of the best lessons I've ever had! I'm officially learning my first sword form and it's insanely difficult as I'm not really used to having a long sword in one hand.

Believe it or not it's amazingly easy to forget that you have a long shiny thing to hold on to and I ended up scraping the floor, hitting pillars, holding it at the wrong angle and so on. And there's SO much to remember!

It was also made slightly more difficult for two reasons: firstly my teacher (or his Dad at this stage) isn't going to be there on Thursday because my teacher is going in for surgery and the whole family is going to be staying with him, so we'll have the sub again. I like her, but I think he was slightly stressed at leaving us to do more than just practise. Also I seem to have acquired a reputation for earning amazingly quickly - which is OK for the hand forms - I generally understand the motivation behind things (because they're explained really well) and so I go home and practise so that my arms and legs can catch up with my brain. This was made slightly difficult by my not having too many swords lying around at home...

Either way he was pushing us to learn more and more and more last night and I was totally lost and confused! There's one step that I found particularly difficult until the guy I practise with told me to pretend I was spin-bowling a cricket ball with a sword in my hand. Then it was much better! And the teacher was getting frustrated that we couldn't learn half the form in an evening...

Secondly the guy I practise with got mildly.... sword-happy. I understand, it's very very cool to wave a sword around, but there were moments when I was convinced I was going to lose appendages by the end of the lesson (the swords aren't sharp, but they can probably inflict a nasty injury if wielded at speed...). He's also done wushu before and so knows some sword-wielding and so every now and then hes start windmilling the thing around without checking how far away I was... and I would screech and jump out of the way while the rest of the class watched and giggled (we were the only young ones last night and I think they all feel vaguely parental towards us and find us highly amusing! I think they have had bets running as to the time before first blood). It's also difficult because we're used to practising a certain distance from each other and now we have to readjust so we don't hit each other while still being able to see each other and the teacher properly...

After the milliont near-miss I did what any self-preserving individual would do - I stole his sword and ran off with it! And then I tried to point both at hm but it didn't work... I need to learn more!

All the while the advanced people were advancing from the other direction doing the more complicated form. And the beginners were practising their stuff in front of us. I'm getting good at backpedal-hopping without missing too many steps or losing posture! I think we need a bigger studio!

Despite all this, there's something amazing about learning to use a sword. I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. It feels almost... right... in a way to have it while you do stuff. And a lot of the steps involve standing up with one knee brought us and leg bent at an angle while you hold it horizontally over your head like this:

image from here


and it feels amazing! I can't describe it! It's so much fun!

Anyway i stopped on my way in to the lab this morning and got my very own shiny sword! And I can't wait to get home and practise! I'm not ever that sore from the TOD (as long as I don't move my arms too much...)

the joy of all things shiny!

So it's been a pretty good 24 hours! Leia finished teaching so we OD-ed on sugar to celebrate, Candice came for tea (not in a semi-comatose state this time) and the stretching really really helped with my soreness, there was a mega thunderstorm which was really exciting and I had to get home early to do something for my mom so I got to take a nap!

The nap plus a generous dose of painkillers meant that I managed to almost walk into my tai chi class! Sadly enough the people I usually chat to weren't there, but it was actually quite nice to get to know the others - they were all really awesome! And once we'd done a few warm-ups and group activities (while dodging the pools of sweat from the aerobics class) we split off and I went with the advanced group to practise the form I've been working on (there is beginner; me and advanced at the moment...).

Once we were done, instead of the group giving me feedback and the teacher leading me off to work on things he said "So you're happy?" and I said that I know some of it needs work, but it's in my head now and it's just a case of needing arms and legs to catch up and I can do that at home. So he asked me (get this!!!!!) if I wanted to start on sword work!!!!!!!

I got the biggest smile on my face and bounced around in total excitement (so much so that most of the group started grinning) and about three different people started showing me warm-ups while I tried to avoid stabbing anyone all the while babbling about the shiny-ness! The teacher (the father of the usual teacher this time) just laughed at the whole situation and said that we're a class of many teachers. They didn't seem to mind.

And so I got to stumble through the form a few times and end up with my word the wrong way or hitting people or whatever (they had been very kind and made sure I had someone to watch at all times - it's hard to follow something when you're turning all the time) and the amazing thing is that even though I had no idea WHAT I was doing it felt really really cool!

After all that the substitute teacher from last week, who has been helping out since the mom and the usual teacher aren't around at the moment took me aside and taught me the first couple of steps, how to hold the sword and that sort of thing. It was SO much fun!

So of course when I finished to find that TOD had come to find me to schedule training for today I was not impressed at all. On the plus side even though I will be in a lot of pain tomorrow, I'm mostly ok today (gotta love arnica!) and he's got me a pair of boxing gloves so I get to hit him! Which is awesome considering the amount of pain he has been inflicting on me over the last week!

Must go and finish running now, wish me luck!