TKD-LAN 2k7-I

It's all set for Taekwon-Do-LAN 2007, #1. For the time being, we're only four people here. The kids are (of course) at home sleeping. But we're hopeful that Saturday will bring plenty of people, and give us our chance to play games and poker. I'll keep posting.

The Test

It's a bit late, but I thought it might be due to tell everyone how it went. Everyone passed, and Master Andresen was very pleased with the club. It was especially pleasing to see the fresh ones, the whitebelts, pass. They're always so worried about the test, and then find that they're better at it than they think. Congrats to all of you.

Last Day Before Exam

Tomorrow I'll be going to Molde with all of my students to see how things are going. I hope they all pass. Some of the younger students have to study more theory, but they'll get there. I expect they'll show me that they're worthy today when we're going to free training in Isfjorden. This evening I have to go to Innfjorden to clean. I've been trying to figure out how much I'm working, and it looks like I'm up to 45 hours plus every week. A bit too much, but I'll hang in there as long as I can.

TOO MUCH WORK!

Full job and a half, and in addition all of the administration for the club. Tomorrow it's set for the annual meeting, and I've got to write the annual report. And that was the end of my night off. Why, oh why, did I say yes to another year? I'll get through it. At least a lot of the work in the club will be passed on to adults. That's a major breakthrough. We've had an election commitee that's done great job. I'm looking forward to starting a new year with them.

Skiing Again

Once again, the fourth and fifth grade had ski school today. I had fun with the kids, playing ski games and trying ski jumping again. I really love ski jumping! After that, it was back to SFO. The two hours there were rather relaxing. And today I got my first payment notice. I've earned appr. 11.500 NOK in a month/109 hours (after taxes). It's not great, but it's definately not bad, either. When I got home, I got red onion-filled meatballs with brown gravy and potatoes. Now we're going to get some crisps and soda and watch a movie. So all in all, it's been a good day.

This Weekends D&D Session

At around 20:00, Friday evening, we met at D.P.'s place. His parents were gone for the weekend, so we could enjoy the recently refurbished livingroom, with black leather coaches, for the whole weekend. After creating our new characters, all of us choosing a class we hadn't played before, we started playing at around 23:00. We created them with the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. I played the gnome rogue Glamridong Askhaug (Ash-hill), who isn't a thief, but suffers from cleptomania, originating from the Dalelands and meeting up with the other guys in a small trading hamlet in the Western Heartlands. Inhabitants and traders alike had been killed recently by stray orcs, and we took it upon us to deal with it. After a day's march, we came to the entrance to the dungeon where the orcs had taken lair under the guidance of a shaman. Goblins and orcs were slaughtered, using my barrel-tactic. We found a barrel in a room, and it was large enough for a human to sit in, so I took it for my own. I drilled an arrow slit in it, and we thus developed our new tactic. I walked up to the door, wearing the solid barrel. Steven's character, by Glamridong dubbed Double-M, opened the door, and there I stood. Our first kill was a dumbfound orc, who walked up to the barrel to see what the heck this barrel it was. When he was close enough, I shot him in the balls through the arrow-slit, and Double-M jumped up from behind the barrel and slid his throat. This tactic worked wonders, but after half a day of careful adventuring, Double-M almost died. With some first-aid (great Heal check) and a full day of caring for him in a goblin sleeping chamber we found, he was back with a vengeance. We had captured a goblin (and crusified him to a door), and after releasing him and tending his wounds, we managed to befriend him (after a few days). It's nice to know how to speak the Goblin tongue. With this new friends directions, we found the shaman's lair, and attacked them. I was wounded so badly that I fell, but Double-M grabbed me and fled. She stopped some fifty feet down the hallways, and carefully put me on the ground, fighting the remaining orcs single-handedly. In the middle of the fight, she found an opening, giving her a chance to stabilize me with a cure minor wounds. She got the final killing blows, and the day was saved. Being a priest, she looted the shaman of his full plate armour, and strapped it on her tender body, making her an impenetrable killing machine. We left the caves with all our loot, killed two orcs on the way back, and then met up in town. We took a trip to the sheriff, a female goblin with a cute face. We needed permission to sell our loot on the market place, and this she gave us. However, my eyes strayed to a beautiful clock standing on her desk. After talking her head full, I got her to come with us to the market, and the clock disappeared inside my puffy shirt. We sold all our loot, and was all smiles after a long, very long, session of roleplaying. The time: 03:30, Sunday morning.

Ski-school 2007

Today I went skiing with the kids and the rest of the 4th and 5th grade up in Heinåli. The kids learned how to use different cross-country techniques, and after that we played "Stiv heks" (a kind of tag), still with skis. At 11:30 we gathered to eat, and I got some cookies and a an uncooked sausage. It was great!

Donnerstag

Heute soll ich auf Ski mit der fünfte Klasse fahren. Wir sollen nach Skorgedalen fahren. Ich hoffe, daß wir einer Sprungschanze bauen können.

Real happiness...

... I find in:

• Having an icecold glass-bottle of Coca-Cola and "Pondus" at the same time.
• Finishing a task.
• Attending a really hard sessions of taekwon-do.
• Laughing with my wife.
• Learning something new.
• Accomplishing your goals in a sparring match.
• Getting a hug.
• Listening to music that makes your neck-hair rise.
• Hearing from parents that their kids are starting to make progress.
• Being respected for who I am.
• Watching the sun go down with my wife.
• Having progress in my life.
• Finding out that I still know how to play the organ.
• Being met by a smile.
• A cup of hot chocolate.
• Being desired.
• Being welcome.
• Watching a good movie.
• Watching a really horrible movie.
• Winning in poker.
• Skijumping.
• Teaching taekwon-do.
• Thinking happy thoughts.

To be continued, I think.

Got to go to work...

... but I don't want to. I've got to go clean the office, but I'm tired. I just wish I could lie down and get some sleep.

It's been a looong day

This day's been a long day of work, work, work. In between there's been a few rounds of Meshuggah's "I", a masterpiece of music.

Training today, however, was fun. There's only a few more sessions left before we'll all be going to Molde and my students have their exam. I'm looking forward to it, and based on todays results, I think we'll do well.

After training, we discussed the upcoming TKD-LAN a bit. Hopefully we won't get to do it this weekend, because then I'll get to spend the time on better things, such as preping for the test in Molde. But whenever it'll be, it's destined to be a great weekend. We've got all the compos up and running, and The Oath of the LANers has been posted for all to learn. Check it out at Åndalsnes TKD's forum (Norwegian).

Day of D&D

I got up at around 10 today, and a bit later, I got a phone call. I had forgotten about my organist-job today, and had to get to Verma in a hurry. And I was hoping to get time for a free haircut by my mother this morning.

Well, the "gig" went well, and the priest was pleased, so I guess I haven't forgotten my skills. I was a bit surprised, though, when I got there. Since I was there the last time, they've gotten a new organ. This one was decent to play on, so that was a good change.

When I drove home, I stopped by on Mjelva, and picked up Steven and DP, and then we went home to my wife and me to play Dungeons & Dragons with the "Elite Group".



After fixing their character sheets, which took about an hour, we finally got to the playing. My wife was happy to sit and listen while she played Sims, which gave me a chance to level them up to level three. The new adventure that they're going out on is for level 3 to 5, and since I didn't want them all to die, I had to design an in-between adventure for them.

After an hour of playing, Pilininge (Steven's PC) died a painful death by the falchion of an orc guard.

Steven made a new character, a wizard. After two minutes of playing, he was surprised by a fire beetle. He, with his fantastic armour class, decided to cast a spell on him, without declaring defensive casting. He got an AoC against him, and was almost slain. Luckily he was close enough to the city walls, to have guards coming out. The heal check of the first guard scored a wonderful 18 on the d20. We do play hardcore, so dead means dead. I was…relieved. I did, of course, not tell any of this to him, and instead changed the scene back to Fen, DP's character. He got a message to get back to town, and there he saw this seemingly dead wizard.

The next day, Fen and this new wizard was out on the road, heading back to the cave. This time they slew all the orc guards, and are now ready to get further inside the cave and find out why all the fire beetles are out there in broad daylight.

At 21:30 I drove them home. It's been an entertaining day. I spent about 15 minutes yesterday creating the cave's basic outline, and 30 minutes today polishing it. And we got more than five hours of fun roleplaying out of it, just today. There's probably three hours left of playing in there.

We also played D&D yesterday, and I finally got to play with my berserker Þjoðarr ['Thyo'dharr] Serklauss. I had to improvise how he was as a first level barbarian, but it worked out all right. It was fun to finally get to play, instead of DM-ing. DP got his hands dirty on DM-ing this time, and with time and practice, he can get good at it, too.

This group was new, with two players new to D&D. Both of them are from the TKD-club. Rita, the quiet girl, played a hobbit bard who has a fancy for climbing trees when he gets scared. Bjørn-Eirik played a diplomatic monk. My wife played someone who doesn't like angry dwarves, and Steven was her partner and ally. I played my dwarven barbarian, and I must say I had a great deal of fun with it. I'm already looking forward to the next time I'll get to play my character again.

Champ for a Day!

The ski jump competition is over, and I won! I have to say that I was impressed at how well it all went, and how much guts the youngest kids had. I won by appr. 1 metre, with a total length of circa 8.5 metres, and boy was it fun. We competed in longest jump with fall, and longest jump without fall, and I was lucky enough to win'em both.

That means that I earned 8 points today in our cup, and with the 1 point I've got from the last round, I'm in the lead. Great day!

Anniversary-Cup: Ski Jump Competition

Today we're going to Isfjorden Ski Stadion for the third round of "Jubileumscupen" (Anniversary Cup). This time, it's a ski jump competition. We're going to compete in longest jump and funniest/best/whatever fall. It's been more than a year since I wore my skis the last time, so this'll be fun!

All is set for a good time, with good food around the bonfire. Pictures will hopefully be uploaded later.

What a day!

This has probably been the longest work day I've had in a long time. My day started at about 7:45 when I drove my wife to work in Innfjorden. Then I drove the 25 km to Isfjorden to get the stuff for work today. Then it was back to Åndalsnes to get ready for the wild bunch. I was substituting for the first grade teacher today, and the first two by forty-five minutes was set for gym-class. I taught them and half the fourth grade some taekwon-do, and then went back to school to teach some more.

Next stop for the first-graders was learning about impulse control. They really had a lot to tell, and I have to say that they're charming, if a little bit noisy. We ended the day by learning how to tell what time it is.

Then it was over to SFO. At 2 o'clock we started the SFO-class in TKD, which lasted for one and a half hour. After SFO was through, at 16:30, it was Isfjorden next, for even more taekwon-do. At 18:00 I was done, but it would take another hour of my time before I got home. Now I'm wondering whether I'll go to my last job today or tomorrow. I really want the whole day off tomorrow, but I really want to sit down today.

Oh, and another thing: I don't have mealbreaks, since I have two jobs that overlap each other… I hope the paycheque is large.

Finally, a Proper Blog

This isn't my first blog, but it's the first one I've taken seriously. I plan to use this to post about my life, for good and for bad, and for inspiration for myself, and possibly some other people too. I haven't decided yet, whether the blog will be in norwegian or english, but it'll probably stay in english due to all the friends I have online.

So, what's happened today? Well, I've been at work at both my jobs. First teaching firstgraders and then at SFO (skolefritidsordning – after-school child care). Today, we decided that I'll give the first- and fourthgraders a one-hour-introduction to taekwon-do tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to getting back to work.

After work, I had to walk back home. I got some food, and drove to Isfjorden, where we train. It was a fun two-hour session of self defence (ho sin sul) and arranged sparring (sambo -, ibo - and ilbo matsogi). Oh, and I got a knee in the nuts. Ouch! But it was fun.

For you 43t-guys: Today's been alright.