with apologies to albert.

So last week was not much of a week.  I mean, it existed--time passed at one second per second.  But I slacked off, and became bored because of it.  But I'm back on the horse.    

It seems to me that restlessness often serves me better than discipline.  Another way to think about this is that on some mornings I manage to get up mostly out of spite.  

graham vs. poor methods of belief formation

It occurs to me that I've complained too much about marking this past week.  I often grumble about it, but this time around I'm doing it much more than usual.  And to be honest, it's perfectly justified.

Wait--perhaps I'll give some context.  

You all know that I TA philosophy, which involves both running small class sessions (tutorials) but also marking.  Most of you can probably guess the difficulties that arise from having a bunch of first or second year students try to write decent papers.  This is compounded by the fact that many students have the unfounded idea that philosophy is easy: so they don't try very hard and then sit in my office complaining when they get a poor grade.  But that's a story for another time: the point is, marking papers is often a frustrating endeavor be cause at least 2/3rds of the students don't care.  And since I care, it's disappointing.  Two of the greatest treasures that belong to humanity are language and reasoning--one can only seem them butchered so many times. 

This semester, however, I'm teaching intro ethics.  How to think about morality.  What I've discovered is that most of my students don't do very much thinking about the subject.  My experience is that the majority of students who couldn't even conceive of turning these powerful tools of analysis onto themselves.  Everyone has their biases and manages to simultaneously acknowledge their existence while rationalizing away their presence.    

We're supposed to be discussing big ideas: concepts and debates that effect our daily lives!  I'm not asking for excitement, but merely appreciating the gravity of a question like capital punishment. Instead I have the next generation of middle management staring back at me.      

There of course exists glimmers of hope.  One is the students who care--most won't become philosophers but there are a handful of students in every class who are actually striving to be engaged, thinking humans.  The second is the possibility that if I hammer away enough, I can at least make a small crack in the wall of unreason and apathy I'm confronted with most days.  

I should relate this to training so I don't simply sound like I'm venting.

 If the goal of the I Ho Chaun is not only to become better martial artists but also engaged humans, the scope of such a project is intimidating.  Because the difficulty and importance of such an endeavour goes all the way down.

In many ways, the reasons we have for holding a belief often matter more than the belief itself.  This is because we tend to think of our reasoning process as static: it's hard to imagine oneself absent the beliefs and principles we each hold dear.  But the reality is we are all wrong about some things, and we could be wrong about pretty much everything: our particular moralities, our faiths, whatever.  I'm not saying that everything is merely opinion: I'm affirming the opposite.  Each individual person, however, has flaws in their belief structure.  Correcting those flaws takes a lifetime.  There are few fixed truths in the world, but since we have the displeasure of dealing with it, best to plunge on with that in mind.  

no news is all news

I forgot to post yesterday!  Welp, off to a good start.

This week has been uneventful: training so often is still an adjustment, but every day the routine solidifies slightly more.

Perhaps I'll have something more interesting to say later on this week.  Due to a vacation to sunny Edmonton, I'm falling behind a little on my numbers.  But that will just mean a fun week or two catching up again.

Re-beginning

Oh hey look: I'm back. Back at training and in the I Ho Chaun. It feels...proper. Walking into Silent River in December was a visceral reminder of what I have missed over the past year. So now holding a spear is like coming home.

 For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sifu Robertson: errant black belt based out of Vancouver. I'm currently working on my Master's in Philosophy with an eye on academia. I drink too much coffee.

 Unlike everyone else on the team, I don't have much to say about the banquet on account of not being there. But congratulations to the new Sifus and a happy new year to everyone.

 I'm not going to talk much about my first week, I'd rather just post my requirements and not take up too much space. Suffice to say it's going well. I've been (more or less) sticking to my requirements since the beginning of January, but as the semester wears on my patience will be tried. Starting Muay Thai is helping to maintain my focus: being in a class environment does wonders. Anyways, onto the list. Expect more in this coming week.

UBBT 9: TEST HARDER
Core Requirements
No quitting!
      I should hope so.
50,000 pushups and situps
     Situps can be different variations to maximize impact Journal once a week
1000 reps of Mlong Kuen and an original Spear form
       Initially some reps will include piecing together the original form.
1609 Km of biking/running/equivalent
Record 1000 acts of kindness 
      Bah humbug. I intend to be very mindful of this. I strive to be kind and stick to my moral       convictions, but I'm also not a particularly pleasant person. I want to record actual kindness, not simply the veneer of sociability.
Mend a relationship
 This may be a tough one. Most relationships that are broken are for a reason. But it is an important step to take.
 Maintain an online presence
 This will be vital for me. I'll talk about it more later, but I recognize that staying connected with the school is the key to my training.
Memorize and recite Mastery
Participate in SRKF Projects 
While I can't directly participate in something like the kwoon maintenance, I intend to help out with logistics and similar manners.
Grading day and a public performance at the 2013 Chinese New Year


Additional Requirements 
224 reps of other forms
     Obviously I simply can't only do my core forms. I have a rotating list of 2-3 forms (including the core weapon forms) which I will do every day.
365 teps of Tai Chi This translates to 1 or 2 sections of the long form per day.
85% attendance in Muay Thai 
     Part of my training this year will include training in another martial art to help me stay focused, but one that will also not interfere with my Kung Fu. A style like Muay Thai is ideal, as it will provide me with much practice in my core skills. Therefore, I should probably go.
 365 hours of personal intellectual growth
 The bulk of this will be reading: including philosophy which is relevant to my personal interests/projects and fiction I find particularly stirring or interesting. I expect this to be around 2 or 3 books a week. Furthermore, some of this will include writing or revising papers which are wholly original philosophy. To me, this is the most important of my personal requirements; my development as a thinker is equally important to me as my growth as a martial artist.
Write at least 2 professional level papers
   It should come at no surprise that trying to philosophize at the professional level is very difficult, especially considering I'm just starting out. But I want to write at least 2 papers this year which engage in current conversations and have been given the amount of research and thought expected of real philosophy. One of these can (and probably will be) my 'professional project' that is already a part of my program.
200 hours of writing
  Turns out if you work at something it gets finished.  Which brings me too...
Finish the book
 Writing it, not reading.
Volunteer once a week 
As I can't directly take part in community projects of Silent River's, I should maintain a constant community involvement.
Don't sacrifice quality of teaching
 As a T.A. it can be easy to slack. I've noticed plenty of people who do. But my commitment to excellent teaching this semester clearly had an impact: the average of my sections was slightly higher and I had several students thank me once the class was done. It would be too easy to skim when marking or not adequately prepare for tutorial. I don't intend to do that.
Develop a basic grasp of another language 
 This won't start until the summer. It will probably be German. Once I actually start learning, I intend to update this with more specific, daily requirements.

So there it is.  Let's see what happens.
Sifu Robertson

absent without going anywhere

no excuses over here.

MY FATHER BLEEDS HISTORY

History, or at least historical consciousness,is a terrible gravity. My mind reaches back and sees this thing, this weight called capital H History. Thousands of events, millions of lives. That one crossing of the Rubicon we call important. The founding of countries. The Holocaust and the Trail of Tears. And I hit a blank. I can't really conceive of these. I suffocate under it all.

The millions of things happening right now and the paths we've all taken.

How can I possibly imagine what is what like to be a Tutsi in 1994 Rwanada, to be butchered by my neighbours? How can anyone who was even there truly appreciate the scope of it? I try think of mass graves and 800,000 dead people but I just can't. It's too much, my brain shuts down. The complexity of the lives in front of me is already dizzying enough. Grafting that reality onto everyone? To function in the day to day is to ignore the true implications of our shared experiences.

I can't come to terms with our species. I can't grapple with our history, and I can't stand up to our pasts.

titles are for chumps

This. Go watch this.

It's a movie called The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters. It's about Steve Wiebe's quest to set the world record for the highest score in the original 1981 Donkey Kong game and his rival, Billy Mitchell's attempts to keep his score on top. It's also about the culture of competitive retro gaming.

The best thing about this movie is Billy Mitchell, the then current record holder. He's ridiculous, and so arrogant. His USA ties are also great.

Secondly, though, is how good these people are. They develop intense strategies and techniques to boost their score, all under the watchful eye of Twin Galaxies, the referee organization of this world. We talk about excellence all the time in the martial arts. Well here's a handful of people who are the absolute best in the world at what they do. They devote countless hours to it, shaping their lives around this passion.

And there is absolutely not practical value to this skill.

That's what makes me respect these two guys all the more. They're playing Donkey Kong because they want to. They're amazing at it because they decided to be. Mario is the original ubermensch.