There goes my free time

Random surfing brought me to this site . A free game allowing me to freely create martial arts styles!! I'm torn between the urge to worship the man who came up with this concept and the desire to kill him now before he ever releases it and completely obliterates all of my free time

Something to aspire to

I've been thinking about this post from Steven Barnes' blog. Particularly, this section

"this would easily relate to my sense that the negative programs run by America, and black America, pertaining to young black men are absolutely poisonous. That black immigrants who come from a culture in which there are role models and mythologies that support excellence, as opposed to young black men, who, faced with countless dehumanizing and emasculating images in the majority culture turn to the only powerful images they can find. In America, this happens to be Hip-Hop culture right now"

It reminded me of a previous post where I touched on the importance of role models to children. This seems like as good a time as any to talk some more about that.
Heroes give us something to aim for. An idea of what our limitations are, or should be. Children who grow up believing that there are no limitations in what they can accomplish therefore start out with a significant advantage over children who expact to achieve little. For now, even if you don't believe this accept it as my hypothesis.
Now, the image of black people in the American media is, with very few exceptions, limited to athletic, entertainment, criminal and/or sexual prowess. (sidenote: As for Africans, we're usually starving, exterminating each other or living in the jungle. However, we retain the same 'animal' sexuality) Don't believe me? Talk to someone from a foreign country whose only exposure to America has been through the media and ask them what they think about black people, or just observe them around black people.
Since these images are all children see, they expect little more of themselves. A good way to counteract this mental poisoning and expand their horizons is to show them as many images as possible of extraordinary people who look like them as possible. This was originally the idea that led Carter G. Woodson to create negro history week, the precursor to black history month. It's also a large part of the reason why African and Carribean immigrants tend to do comparatively well despite all the racism and idiocy we have to contend with. We have a larger pool of role models to draw on when creating our expectations.

All's Well

The car is back and unharmed, although she needs a wash and I'm out $150 in storage fees (for two days!). School is going well so far. I'm more focused in class. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Jack Johnson: Flawed Hero

The second half of Ken Burns' Documentary: Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson aired today. I already knew who he was but this show definitely added a lot to what I knew about both the man and the boxer. Like most great people, his story was at once humbling, inspiring and saddening (the rhyming in unintentional, I promise). This was a man who, in an age where black men could be assaulted or killed for even daring to speak out of turn, lived his life with a fearlessness that would be remarkable even today. The fact that he was somewhat troubled and made several unwise decisions does little to overshadow the magnitude of his achievements or the strength of his character. I, for one, salute him and hope I can one day learn to live my life with the same fearlessness.
R.I.P Jack Johnson, a giant among men

I Can't sleep

It seems that I inherited my father's insomniac tendencies when stressed. Usually night time meditation clears up my head enough for me to go straight to sleep. Not this time. In my defence, today was particularly stressful. My car was stolen and then recovered by the police. The perks of living in Newark, I guess. Though I can't imagine what kind of idiot thought a '99 Hyundai Accent was worth stealing, especially considering the other cars on the street that day. I have no idea what kind of shape it is in and I won't know until tomorrow morning when I go to pick it up. In addition to that, my procrastination last semester will keep me from registering for classes until at least thursday. Unfortunately, classes started today. I'm going to just keep showing up until I get all the paperwork taken care of. On a brighter note, I didn't panic. I stayed calm and handled everything as it happened. I hope I can remain this sure of myself in the future

Current training regimen

My current daily training regimen is my return to being a dedicated, slightly obsessive martial arts student. I figure that by putting it up here, I'll be a little bit more motivated to see it through.

For at least the first three months, I will be taking the advice I have received from all of my teachers and going back to basics. That means lots of stance work and single movement drills. Right now, its split up into two onw hour sessions. One in the morning and one at night

Morning: 7-8 am

I start by warming up. Usually with 40-50 jumping jacks. These are followed by a series of joint rotations. From there, immediate transition into stance work. There are a series of seven stances that are basics in the style of northern mantis I practise. I hold each one for ten breaths on each side. Every week an additional breath is added. Usually by the time I'm done with I'm warmed up enough for about 10-15 minutes of stretching. The primary focus of the stretches are my hips, back and legs. The rest of the time goes to mantis single movement drills.

Night: midnight-1am

This time is reserved for my dachengquan practise. Currently I am managing 35 minutes if standing meditation. Every week, I add on an additional 5 minutes. The rest of the time goes to movement drills

After 3 months, I'll look at how far I've come and see if any changes need to be made.

Wish me luck

I'm back

I've been without internet access for almost a week now. Apparently because someone in the house has been uploading a huge amount of data. In response the cable company drastically throttled down our connection. Now seeing as I live with three graduate students and a law student, all of whom, like me, make good use of their computers means that this isn't that hard to understand how this could happen. On the upside, I made a good start on Feynman lectures and got in a decent amount of training. I guess I am a little addicted to having net access. I'll have to watch that from now on.

These are our heroes

This Christmas I set out to buy my little 12 year old cousin a present. An image of a black superhero. Watching him grow up in America has made me more aware of how important it is to see people who look like you do extraordinary things. As anyone who is familiar with the world of comics knows, black heroes are few and far between. As a comic book fan myself, this is one of my biggest issues with the industry. Thankfully, I've put in a fair amount of time and energy over the years into finding science fiction and comics with black creators and well written black characters so, since he has the good taste to be a fan of 'Static Shock', I got him the trade paperback. He loved it and I felt great for getting him to read more while simultaneously finding him a black hero image.
Sidenote: According to Static's creator, Dwayne Mcduffie, the show folded because they were unable to get any merchandising deals for a critically acclaimed award winning children's cartoon with consistently high ratings. Would anyone care to venture a guess why?

New Year's Goals

Well, another year has come around and it is time for me to take charge of my life and steer it down the right path. I figure by writing out my goals down and making them concrete I'll be more likely to follow through. Here goes

Academic:
Approach every class from a 'teach yourself' perspective. Look up alternate materials, review notes asap after class, make sure I maintain a solid understanding of the core concepts and any necessary mathematics.
Put in as much time as is necessary to make sure that I'm ready for qualifiers by the end of the semester.
Find an advisor. Ideally the professor doing solar cell research. I need the money and the experience.
Also, finish reading the Feynman lectures. Try to average a chapter a day.

Physical:
Continue my daily martial arts regimen. I've been doing this for about a week. Sooner or later it'll end up on here. Probably some time this week.
Try and work out a weekly training routine with Master Wang, my current teacher. Ideally get into shape so I can compete in either Baltimore or Akron at the end of the year in forms, push hands and sparring.

Personal:
Call my parents more. They worry about me and I miss them. I learned from my mother's cancer scare that it's impossible to predict how long they'll be around.
Pay more attention to people I care about. For some reason, I tend to take the people I care about for granted. Not out of malice, but becase I assume they'll always be there. They deserve a higher priority. Bu the end of this week, I'll be caught up on all the phone calls and emails I've been putting off.
Return to the version of me that couldn't care less about whether or not people like me. I'm happier and more genuine when I'm free to say what I'm thinking and not worry about other people's expectations. Plus I get more women.
Speaking of women. I need to start dating again. As soon as qualifiers are over I have some calls to make.

Finally:
Recognise the worth of every moment

This seems loke a long list but a lot of the things on there are actually connected. Basically, if I treat myself and my family with the respect they deserve, the rest will fall into place.

PS
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

Goodbye Mama, I'm sorry

My grandmother (Mama to her grandkids) died in her sleep about four months ago. She'd been getting progressively sicker for the better part of decade so I cant say it was totally unexpected. Somehow it still managed to blindside me. We weren't particularly close, I saw her on sundays after church (back when I went to church) and she lived with us for a brief while. I hadn't actually seen her since the last time I was in Ghana, almost three years ago. I always had mixed feelings about her. Truth be told, I hated her for a while. She hurt my mother more than once and treated all her daughters far worse than she treated her sons, even though her daughters took care of her. I'm not a vengeful person by nature. Generally I'm good at letting stuff go and not holding grudges. Except if you hurt my family. The things my grandmother did hurt my mother deeply and I never forgave her. After she died, I didn't mourn. A part of me felt happy in a perverse sort of way. Mostly though, I was conflicted.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited my aunt. While I was there, she handed me a huge stack of pictures she had taken when she was in Ghana for the funeral. Most of tham were pictures of family. My parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, family friends. Buried somewhere in the middle of the stack were two pictures of my grandmother in her casket.All of a sudden, old memories rose to the surface. I when I was a child, my mother would pass by her house every sunday after church. I'd run up to her and give her a kiss on the cheek. Then I would grab whatever sweets she had for me and run into her sitting room to watch cartoons and read my grandfather's old encyclopedias. When she got really sick for a while and came to live with us, she would be sitting on the porch every morning reading her bible. I would go by and kiss her in the cheek and watch her smile. Whatever she did in the past, she's still my grandmother and I'll never get to see her smile again. That hurts alot more than I expected. Wherever she is, I hope she can forgive me for carrying this grudge around for as long as I did. I'll miss her.

Random musings: smoking and the 'Truth.com' ads

One of the things I am most proud of is the fact that I may have saved a man's life. This is actually a story my father tells a lot. When I was about eight years old and equipped with the fearlessness of childhood, I talked one of his partners into giving up smoking. We were visiting his home one day when I noticed him holding a pack of cigarretes and proceeded to point out how unhealthy the habit was for him and especially for his newborn child. With hindsight, I suspect now that part of my reason for calling him out was the fact that my grandfather, who I adored though I never really got to know him, lost a lung to a pipe smoking habit. Either way, I argued with him for a long while, reportedly showing an eloquence far beyond my years and thoroughly embarrasing my parents. A couple of weeks later, my father told me that he'd quit smoking beacuse of me.
Why did I tell you this? Partially because I always thought it was a good story and partially to note that as an eight year old in a developing country with limited access to information, I already knew smoking was bad for you. Anyone who picks up the habit now has no excuse for blaming cigarette companies. I'm sure they really are evil soulless bastards who would turn us all into addicts at the drop of a hat without losing a moment's sleep. Most large corporations are the same way. The fact still remains that we don't have to buy their products and in this day and age there is no excuse for not being aware of the dangers. People blaming cigarette companies for their lung cancer are like people blaming fast food restaurants for their weight problems. As mature adults we are responsible for what we put into our bodies regardless of how much advertising surrounds those products. If we choose to be ignorant, we can't blame people for exploiting that ignorance. Granted they aren't nice people(I believe the term 'soulless' might have come up in this post) but they are dependent on our ignorance for their survival. They lose their power the moment we choose to take responsibility for ourselves and stop listening to them.
Might I suggest, therefore, that instead if ads telling us about how evil tobacco companies are, we try a simpler approach. "Smoking may look cool, but it will probably steal away years of your life and a large chunk of your money. It will also hurt those around you. If you are prepard to live with that, good luck to you"
The End

Fear and self esteem: a promise to myself

I am having a hard time studying. I start working on a topic and then lose motivation, wander off and do something else. Usually I begin to get motivated late at night or close to deadlines and manage to get just enough work done so I do okay in my classes. I never fail, I just never do well or even begin to live up to my potential.
Intellectually, I know what to do. I know how my time should be organized and what I should be working on. The problem is confidence. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea has taken root that I am not particularly intelligent or attractive or worthy. This fear has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don't ask questions in class for fear that I'll look stupid. I don't study because I'm afraid I won't understand the material and this will prove I'm an idiot. This despite the fact that, when I do study, I tend to have a quick mind for concepts and a great memory.
I have horrible interpersonal relationships with people because I'm afraid they won't like the real me so I either ignore them for long stretches of time or I pretend to be the kind of person I think they'll like. This despite the fact that those who have gotten to know the real me generally think better of me than I do of myself.
I also run from the merest hint of conflict, even if I'm right. Fear of losing keeps me from malking an honest attempt. This has been my largest failing in every martial arts I've ever taken. Despite being from a family of natural athletes, I hold myself back for fear of failure. Everyone I've ever trained under has said I have a great deal of potential. I'm just rarely confortable enough in my own skin to live up to it.
I hate constantly almost failing but the idea of true success scares me. I guess because it would mean creating a new image of myself and I'm confortable with this one.
Either way, I'm done with this version of myself. I owe it to myself and to those I love to strive for my full potential. I might still fail, but at least it will be honest failure, not a sham where I barely try. I'm also going back to my old kung fu school. Hopefully I can still patch things up with Master Wang. I owe it to myself to find out if I have the potential he saw in me. I'm going to put 2 hours every day to meditate and train. I'm going to put in the time that my studies deserve. This blog will, among other things, chronicle my journey towards living up to my own potential. See you on the road

The Wire (R.I.P Stringer Bell)

I took my standard sunday night study break to watch tonight's episode of HBO's 'The Wire'. It would have been a better study break if I had actually gotten any real work done before midnight but that's another story. I'm a huge fan of the storytelling on this show and of the writers' willingness to take chances like killing off popular characters. Their willingness to make strong statements about the futility of the war on drugs and honestly depict the politics inherent in law enforcement don't hurt either. That said, I will miss Idris Elba as Stringer Bell.
Favourite moment of this episode: The opening scene where Omar and Brother Mouzone have a western style face-off. The dialogue and chemistry between the two characters was perfect.
I hope there will be a season four. Television needs more shows like this.

Welcome

Hello all.
I honestly have no idea how many people will ever read this blog. Hopefully i won't be the only one but even if I am, the act of writing down my thoughts in a public forum should do me some good.
Either way, welcome to my blog. Enjoy.