五月二十一号

昨天晚上，我喝太多啤酒。不是有意地。

我有头疼从早晨到晚上。几个开会。

Back to it

Quick report on last week. Lots of gym, a run OUTSIDE, bit of swimming.

James' saturday tai chi. Great to be back in class. Bumbled through the lao jia (manageable with others. totally impossible on my tod). Bit of push hands. No I don't remember any of the two-hand push hands patterns. Got introduced to Chen style sword (jian). Interesting!

Mandarin classes started up again. The momentum seems to be building there, more conversations. I think our teacher should force us to speak autonomously a bit more, we can handle it. I've tried to be systematic in the week, in terms of pushing the vocab and han zi (i.e. characters). Lost track of cpod though.

This week wasn't so great. Missed lots of gym "slots" due to random social gatherings and late working. I should just have a Rule. Six o clock, down tools, phones, pens, mice.

Trying to keep up

I've got this sensation of falling off the back of the treadmill. Metaphorically of course, my running is comparatively fine.

Troublesome day at work (not enough time!! MSc administrators panicking!! Both of them!!) then felt exhausted, so planned to drift back to the sofa. Mrs Monkey rang up, with troubling developments on the Felix front. A card from the RSPCA (danmn, they're out, must call first thing tomorrow) and explanatory voicemail from the (helpful, understanding) vets. Message to irritatingly anonymous worried neighbours : No, we. are. not. neglecting. our. cat. OK??

She was going to the gym anyway, so I grabbed a Jaffa cake and joined in. Felt ok actually, despite initial lethargy. 15 mins running, various weights and floor contortions, 15 mins x-trainer. Lots of punters (though not as many as in Bloomsbury, which is constantly packed).

Back home to find Felix out somewhere. I update my twitter, in case M wants to follow the plot, and then he chooses that moment to wander back in. Has the panicky old lady fed him, or not? Anyway, he gets another dinner. And another wash.

Because of the wonderful new Pet Porte (photo) , we can do clever things like keep everybody in at night.

Missed Chinese tonight obviously. Read the book, highlighting new words. Pleasantly surprised at the level of comprehension, though I'm making no regular effort to update my vocab. Resolve to try and catch up with Chinesepod. Though not tonight. And so to bed.

Bit of progress

It might be hubris to say that I might actually be getting the hang of things. This time last term I was getting the distinct feeling of slipping downwards, or at least not going up. This could well have been due to the chaos, or at least the intensity, of my term 1 schedule. I counted at least 6000 of the ten thousand things.

The new year's been a bit better. I've almost got a rhythm going with Chinese, helped I think by getting a gizmo to listen to ChinesePod in the car. The classes are being run a bit more steadily now, and I think the rest of the class is bit less panic-stricken.

As well as my regular taiji classes, the Wang Hai Jun monthly specials have started again. Two this year so far, both excellent. I got on the same tube train as him last weekend on the way to the class, and we kept up a 90%-in-Chinese conversation on the way to the class. It's hard to gauge, but I think that's way above the level of my O-level French. The taiji was good too, working through the lao jia yi lu, and concentrating a lot of figure of eight hip movements in the form and in silk reeling.