Rae Roy's Blog, page 54

Warrior Wednesday – Crazy Busy Life

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So, I definitely meant to post something yesterday. It didn’t happen. When I got up, I didn’t have anything to say. Later, when I did, I fell asleep. Between school and martial arts, I was exhausted. 

I’m glad I managed to make it to iaido yesterday. Swinging my sword about was exactly what I needed. It’s been a tough week. I learned a former member of my high school drama club, who became a sweet and beautiful woman, died suddenly due to a suspected Fentanyl overdose. And my s.o. and I decided to take a break for now. We’re both too busy to be there for each other at this time, so despite how we feel about each other, we’re just doing the friend thing for now. All of that sucks.

It looks like everything is in order for the seminar this weekend. I’m looking forward to training and hanging with iaido folks. I’m happy the weather is getting a little more seasonal. That’ll make training better. Some big things have happened in the iai world in Canada as one of our main sensei has decided to retire. This has meant changes to the grading panel and I don’t know what else yet, but it’s exciting. I need to decide if I’m going to challenge nidan rank again. If I do, I know I won’t do the seminar before it. It made me extra nervous and I want to go in feeling confident. 

 Class was tiring but also really fun yesterday. We grouped up as if in a writers room and came up with TV show ideas for our network. Once we found the idea the upper management liked, we had a ball coming up with storylines. I don’t know if we’ll be continuing that, but we wanted to actually write the show after. It was awkward at first trying to feel out the new group members, but it wasn’t too long before we found a rhythym and got things going. 

I have a meeting before school today, but the person I’m meeting seems to be running late…

Off to start my day.

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

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Filed under: Martial Arts, Musings Tagged: Compassion, Iaido, Personal Loss

Merry Monday – Decisions

Some decisions are easy like stopping off at Wal-Mart to buy deodorant when you’re running early for class and are pretty sure you forgot to put some on this morning. Having some in your locker is handy anyway and if you need something else you’ve been meaning to pick up, you might as well grab that too.

Other decisions we put off for various reasons. Sometimes it’s hope that things will change or maybe we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. And sometimes we don’t want to come off as insensitive, heartless, or selfish. Maybe we just don’t want to admit some harsh truths to ourselves. 

All this to say that I had to admit to myself that something wasn’t working and put and end to it.  I’m a little sad about it, but ultimately I think it’ll lead to happier days overall. 

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

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Filed under: Musings Tagged: Compassion, Courage

Symphonic Saturday – Mute

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Filed under: Music

Frisky Friday – Observations

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This morning, I’m off to the Canadian equivalent of the DMV. I’m overdue on renewing my license plate stickers and I figure I better do it before I get a ticket. It’ll be a decent time to read for school.  I’m planning to see IT this afternoon because most people should be at work and it’ll be the hottest part of the day. It might be hard to focus on reading after this though:

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I’m not sure if those facts are true, but it’ll make for fun observations and as a writer, I need to keep my eyes open

Thoughtful Thursday – My First Tablet

[image error]I got my first tablet. It’s a Surface Pro 3. I had a lot of difficulty setting it up as it would overheat and turn off in the middle of Windows Updates. It’s a known issue and now that I’m done installing things, I can turn off the thing that causes it, which is the Microsoft installer. I also had trouble because the battery was at zero percent and the cord is made to disconnect easily rather than drag it to the floor and smash it.

I’m also gifted at misplacing the pen that goes with it … In my lap.

I don’t have a case yet, so I will have to be really careful with it. It’s coming. Hopefully I can keep it safe in the meantime.

There are some settings that I need to find like keyboard sound because I really don’t need that on. It’s warm right now doing WordPress, so I’m off to find that windows installer and turn that off.

Once I have the kinks worked out, I think it’s going to revolutionize my writing life.

Guide cheerio the nou,

R~

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Filed under: Musings Tagged: technology, Tools

Warrior Wednesday – Health & Fitness Update

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Image created using Bitmoji

Between the posture wedge and just carting less things around campus, my neck is doing a lot better. On Tuesday of last week I was crying and wondering how the hell I was going to make it through two semesters in so much pain. Now I feel like I need to become one with the virtual world and set up residence inside Blackboard, but my pain has drastically reduced. My tablet is here, but I can’t use it yet as I’m not allowed to pick it up until after 1PM and I’m in class until 3PM.  I checked with First Draft and I’m good to go on installing it on a second device, so yay

Theatrical Tuesday – Writing Exercises

[image error]In the class where we write for the stage, we often have writing exercises. Yesterday’s exercise was to draw inspiration from one of four photos presented to us. None of them inspired me at the time. The concept is solid though.

I chose the photo involving a kiss, not knowing we’d end up working in pairs on the scene when presenting to the class later.

I learned that it’s really hard to write a kissing scene for stage and if I had to do it again, I would take a page out of Daniel MacIvor’s play and have the dialogue be funny descriptions of the kiss and everything that surrounds it. I may rewrite it later for my portfolio just because.

Today, I’m off to learn more about film/media in Canada and writing for television. We had a mix up on an assignment for one of those classes and I had to redo mine. I think I’ve done it properly now. We had to write an episode of currently running show. There are only a small handful I keep up with because I’m often too busy to watch them when they’re airing.

I chose to write a 2-part South Park episode. I think I handled the material in a respectful way while keeping true to the South Park style. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I’m not usually a fan fic type of author.

I hope I have time to see IT this weekend.

Anyway, I’m off to shower and catch a bus.

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

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Filed under: Musings Tagged: Plays, TV Shows

Merry Monday – New Toys

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Image created using Bit Strips.

I have received a new toy, well, it’s more of a medical device, but it’s like a toy for my neck because it brings feelings of not pain. It’s this dense foam wedge that I put under my neck for 10 minutes and after one use, I already feel loads better without pain killers. It wasn’t fun to use as it’s not entirely comfortable to put a bulging disc against it, but after a bit I began to feel things I didn’t expect like a reduction in abdominal discomfort and reduced jaw tension. What a wonderful tool! It’s called the Posture Wedge.

I never thought a bunch of my problems could be connected to my neck and posture. It was after I hurt my neck the first time that things like food allergies and teeth grinding began to appear in my life. What if the inflammation in my body is in part because of this one thing? Seems crazy. I’m not going to get my hopes up, but I’ll definitely keep using the thing and see what happens.

My MS Surface 3 is supposed to come sometime this week. They estimate Friday. I hope it comes sooner, so I can get it set up and stop lugging a heavy bag around.

I’m not bringing much with me today. I think it’s a good idea to use my phone and a small notebook rather than lug a heavy laptop around. It’ll give my neck a break. I wonder if I can try this all this week? I should check with my other teachers.

My parents dug out our old LEGOs for me. I need to figure out how to clean them, but I have a much larger collection now. Not that I have anytime to play with them anyway, but I’m looking forward to it eventually.

Part of my Halloween costume is here. The rest I have to make. If I can ever get the time to…

I snagged an old Walkman from my mom on the weekend to use because I have a couple of books on cassette that I’d like to listen to on the bus at some point from now until Christmas.

Anyway, I need to go learn stuff about writing plays.

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

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Filed under: Musings Tagged: technology, Tools

Symphonic Saturday – Weddings

Weddings are one of those events where we hear a lot of the same music we’ve heard for decades and yet they are different and enjoyable because of the people. Certain songs get most of the room up and dancing like Footloose. 

Today, my cousin married the love of his life and though I don’t yet know her well, she seems wonderful and funny. Most importantly, I’ve never seen him happier. I’m looking forward to getting to know her better in the years to come. We both like dancing.

I had a challenging time getting to this wedding. I forgot my dress in Ottawa and had to hunt for a new one. Luckily for me, Sears has a sale on right now and I picked one up for $20, which was regularly $80. Go there if you need one! Here’s a selfie:

[image error]I’m really glad I made it. 

Now I need to do some homework. This is my life until April.

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

Filed under: Musings

Frisky Friday – Sex Drive and Health

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It’s no secret that things can get stale. This article, based on one study, claims women are more prone to a drop in sex drive 34% vs 15% of men. That still means that 66% of women and 85% of men have normal to high sex drives.

What’s most important about it to me is the reasons cited for lowered sex drive being health issues, poor communication, and a lack of emotional connection. Why a study was needed to figure out the obvious I’m not sure. Did they think most people stop wanting sex with their partner to be vindictive? Anyway, this means we need to be better at taking care of ourselves and we also need to be brave enough to do the work that it takes to keep communication flowing and nurture the emotional connection with our partner.

This doesn’t have to be like climbing Mount Everest. A lot of little things contribute to it. Let’s say you and your partner like a TV show. Do you talk about the show or do you just mindlessly consume it while sitting beside each other? If you talk about the parts you love openly with each other, why a character is your favourite, speculate on what will happen next and/or what you hope to happen, you learn about each other through the shared interest. If you instead leave all the talk about the show for your buddies at work, well, you’ll soon find your partner to be more of a roommate than the most important person in your life. How many other times do you cut them off from knowing you?

Of course, sex will suffer at times if you have a medical issue, but those are usually temporary and you need more than healthy hormonal states to want to sexually connect with someone. Your emotional needs need to be taken care of too.

And if you’re always running for the kids and work, you need some alone time to work on your personal goals too.

For some, they just need a nap to restore some energy.

If you can’t talk about smaller things with your partner, it isn’t likely you’ll feel safe opening up about some thing you’d like to try in the bedroom. Health and emotional needs must be taken care of because they are the foundation for a healthy relationship of which a robust sex life is only one piece.

Go connect with your partner and have fun together with or without the sex.

I’m off to a wedding this weekend.

Guid cheerio the nou,

R~

Filed under: Musings Tagged: Sex