You may follow the light now.

When I ride to school I go through one particularly busy intersection. Most mornings there will be two men who control the traffic. One stands at the control box for the traffic lights and one in the intersection itself. The man in the intersection blows a whistle to indicate that the other should push a button that will start the light change. It works fairly well and no reason to find it strange.

But wait! The one with the whistle is waving his arms. He is waving his arms to tell cars to “come”.  But didn't I just say they changed they lights? Why, yes, yes I did.

All I can think is that he somehow things people actually care about his opinion after the lights have changed.  When the lights are red we stop, partly because they are red (this is Korea) and partly because there is someone in uniform. When it is green we go. The fact that some nutter is waving his arms telling me what the lights are already telling me, is just, well, strange.

8/10

Speaking of fitness, my muscles of upper back hurt, oh so good, and I have two stomach muscles now, instead of just one. If I can get my diet right I might just be able to get rid of the Mid Padding and maybe have a shadow of a six-pack

After my work-out tonight it will have been eight weeks without missing a single session. Two more weeks to go and the ten week program will be done.

I will take a week off, but at one point I need to do a test to see if I can move up to a higher level of training. I have to be able to do:

5 unassisted pull-ups, holding 2 seconds at the top and 2 seconds at the bottom (Back and arm test)
24 alternating one leg squats (Leg test)
3 minutes static push up (Chest, arms and core test)
I know I can do the squats. My legs have never been a problem area.
I think I can do the static push-up, but I have never tried it.
I hope I can do the pull-ups. This has always been my weak area. I will just have to concentrate and work my arse off in the sessions where my back muscles are used.

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Fitness Laziness

The school has been working the students hard lately. I am not sure why, but this year they really want to get them fit, and I am happy to see that, especially with the girls.

Today some groups were doing Beep Tests. It is really sad to see how unfit some 12 year old boys are, but it is truly disgusting to see how unfit, and more to the point, lazy most girls are.
A beep test is a test of endurance and aerobic fitness. Two lines are drawn on the ground. Participants have to run between the lines, about 10m apart, continually. At regular intervals a “BEEP” well sound. This is the indication that you have to start the next 10m run. Trick is to start slow because you will be continually running, stopping and turning around and the time between beeps will slowly decrease, making the test progressively more difficult.

Some boys are pretty lazy, but boys keep going until they are told to step off the course. The girls… disgusting. They will run, and after the first 10 meter they start complaining. They will go for a few lengths, never actually falling behind the time, and then just suddenly stop, go sit on the side line and talk non-stop about how that was oh so difficult. Yes, you heard me right. Thy “decide” they are tired. They are SO tired that they cannot take another step. SO tired that they have to stop immediately and go rest while their slightly elevated pulse rate and breathing goes back to it’s sad normal state.

While this was going on other students were doing laps around the ground. Three girls in particular were talking for the whole 30 minutes that I was watching students. At one point they were even walking arm in arm, and at no point did they stop talking. If you are tired then you can’t talk. All you say is ”Water!” or “Rest!”, and the rest of the time you shut up and if you don’t believe me then just watch the other students running.

Is it any wonder I have so much respect for the few girls in this school, and when I was a student myself, who would run their little legs off because they would not be shown to be lazy cows like the other girls.

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I’ma gonna rip your head off.

Someone posted a photo on Facebook that read:

2010: “Come at me bro.”
1800: “Advance towards me brethren.”

It is funny, but I dare say, stupid. The word brethren is used to mean you are a member of my in-group, specifically, my congregation or part of the protestant religion in general. Are you really going to tell a whole church to come at you? Instead I would like to put forth an alternative.

2010: Pulls shirt of and shouts “Come at me Bro!”
1800: Draws sword and declares “Advance towards me, Sir!”

I checked. They still had swords back then because flint lock rifles were not practical to carry around all day. Not so sure if they went about calling each other “Sir” but I am fairly confident they did.

Now I am thinking hooligans in Newcastle (film version) and someone shouting “I’ll fooking kill yah!” Geordies say that, don’t they?

Update:
Someone mentioned that the phrase “Come at me Bro” was uttered my Tybalt in Romeo and Juliette.I was slightly sceptical and thought I would look it up. All roads lead to Jersey Shore, and this:

I’m OK, yea.

When I go through the tedious lesson that covers “How are you?” in which I teach students alternative ways to ask and answer that question, I usually open the class with: “Morning! How are you?!” The near universal answer is the automated “I’m fine thank you and you?”

Boring, but interesting, because I then turn around and write on the board what they just said, i.e “I’m pain tenk you an new?”

I was a bit bored and was wondering how I can write this to be a more accurate version of what they actually say, and this is what I came up with. I present to you the accurate version of student speech…

Me: “How are you?”
Students: “I’m pine 10 Q N new?

I wonder if I can write a book like this?

Burn me baby one more time

My chest and shoulders still hurt, I can now feel my hamstrings pretty well and I think my biceps are tightening up as well. Pain everywhere at once. This is gooooood.

We will see what tonight’s abdominal workout brings and how I deal with the apparent deceptive monster coming up on Friday.

On another subject, I am almost finished with lesson three of Seogang Koreans book 1B. I still miss a lot of words and even a few structures, but it is still moving. I will have to go back to everything soon and practice a bit, but at least I sometimes catch what people are babbling to me when they speak to me like a look Korean. =P

Moar Pain!

I am still going strong with my training program despite the week long interruption. I finished 6 week without missing a single one of my 4 weekly sessions (came close a few times) and added a strength week to make continuing after the break easier. That was 7 successful weeks. Yaah!

Yesterday I started the last 4 week stretch and it was a killer. The final reckoning was just over 60 Chinese Push-ups, about the same for normal push-ups and about 55 close grip push-ups. That was topped off with just over 60 dips.

While getting ready for school this morning I could feel the good pain in my chest muscles and triceps. I did not do everything perfectly, but I never gave up resulting in a great workout. By Friday ever muscle in my body will be sore L

Update:
Keeping my body straight while doing the push-ups seems to have hit my core rather hard. My abbs are starting to hurt now.