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Another weekend passes uneventfully. I tried, intermittently, all morning to track down “Skinwalkers,” a 2002 PBS Masterpiece Mystery film based on Navajo, werewolf –esque witchdoctors. I saw it many years ago at home, and it was so well done I never forgot. Normally, enough effort finds me whatever I desire, but today my luck ran out. The only playable version I tracked down was awfully grainy. I may as well have watched it on a Gameboy display. Oh well, it wasn't all I was up to. I played a lot of Go, lost a lot of Go too.

I’m left with surplus time here at the camp, and I’ve been mulling over what to do with it. I could practice my Japanese, maybe re-practice French, improve my Go game, write some stories, or perhaps take some online courses. It feels strange not to be working on anything. Of course I’m working on Kung Fu, but that isn’t an intellectual pursuit. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of theory involved in martial arts, and a lot of craftiness, but honestly that's best left, in my opinion to people with decades of concrete experience. It may pass the time to ponder movements in my room, but I feel the effect will remain negligible until I commit the more basic ideas to second nature. And besides, those complicated ideas, and movements, are really the simplest, essential, concepts in disguise.

I wandered off topic, what’s to be done with the extra time? I’m leaning towards writing. Many times I’ve sketched out, brainstormed, sometimes even started work on works of fiction, but they all come to nothing soon enough (I have so many outlines stored up, choosing between them is the difficult part). But hey, with an hour or two every night I could really accomplish something. Going to need that new keyboard.

It drives me crazy starting so many sentences with “I.” I don't want to, but when writing about myself few options present themselves. Ah well, I was going to start this paragraph saying, “I think I’ll go out for a jog.” Lying in bed for two days doesn't help the stiffness situation come Mondays, so I’ve decided to at least run and stretch every day. Yesterday I put on my old shoes to run, thinking it would be fine since I wasn't going to train afterwards, and I couldn't stand them! They felt so cumbersome after wearing the lightweight Feiyue shoes. I washed them (the Feiyues) again this weekend too, with more success than before— last week I washed them to satisfaction, left them to dry, and woke up to a nasty, yellow tinge all over the top. I’m positive the radiator turns them yellow, this time I set them out on the clothes-line-rails.



Last week wasn't the best. I was tired, sickish, and simply out of sorts. I’m experiencing a diffuse malaise, withdrawal from American life, as my feverish desire to stay positive wanes. It probably had to happen sooner or later, and hopefully next week will be better.

I keep dreaming of the Southeast wilderness. One night I dreamt I was a bear carrying my macbook through the forest, I realized I couldn't walk very well while I was carrying it, that I was having trouble carrying it in my bear paws anyway, and that I wouldn't have any use for it in the forest, so I left it in a pool and went on, bizarre. I also dreamt I was an owl flying at night with two Bald Eagles. It was pretty cool until I met this sort of predatory sea bird, which I vaguely recognized from Planet Earth. He was up to no good, and I was unsure of how the situation would turn out. He was much bigger, and quite a mean fellow. I can’t remember last night’s dream, but I remember that I liked it, and it that it happened in the ocean. These dreams are remarkable, because I have never before dreamt myself in an animal body, and, for that matter, have never dreamt of flying, not under my own power.