Tomorrow

Gotta break it down to the lawyer tomorrow about how, regardless of what he thinks on going to court the opposition apparently only understands legal actions, and thus we need to file the expedited hearing immediately. As if he wishes to emerge legally victorious, then we need to have me back in my condo before May comes round, and that leaves, but two months.

Passed the class

I'm going say I'm 100% sure I passed the Database class.

I have a 97% before she finishes grading last week's assignments, and I got at least a 96% on the final before the fill in the blank are tallied. So, even if I get a 0 on my assignments (which I won't) I have a 91%

Tomorrow, just the final for the Dreamweaver class. Which I have a 98% in there and the final is 250 points. Thus, I should be on track to keep up the GPA.

Naka-Kon 2010

Poor Joe couldn't go, when he work up this morning his hip was way out of whack, but Danielle and I still went. She saw some friends from school and went and kicked it with them. I perused the artist portion for quite some time. It was good and I got a piece of artwork and a new satchel, or messenger bag. Now, my raggedy old "laptop" bag is unpacked, and not nearly as much fits in this one, which, may be a good thing.

I also, cleaned out my coat and now it's ready for the wash.

Learn Well

Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.
-Morihei Ueshiba

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything - even mountains, rivers, plants and trees - should be your teacher.
-Morihei Ueshiba

That is what I have for my wish to instill into everyone. That everything is learning, each instant in our lives a time to be taught, if we are but prepared to accept that which is being offered.

I have posted before about learning from my surroundings, and how I must have missed many lessons. That is the casualty of our time; the lessons we don't stop to see being taught. We are in an immediate gratification time in history. Our desire for it has caused a global crisis of nearly unstoppable proportions. Will we be able to curb our wanton desires in time?

Whether environment or economy, we have brought the change upon ourselves by desiring more than we were readily able to maintain. I must admit, in my desires to assist and for blindly following at times poor advice, I too am in a bad situation.

I have increased my debt, and my hardships beyond manageable reasons. I even told my nephew, that I used to have a life, before I made these poor choices, and the cautions of credit.

Let them pass

The little things in life that are important, aren't the little things that others do to you, but rather the little things that you do and enjoy.

It's your life. You express yourself through the little things that you do, and shouldn't be bogged down by the little things that other people do. Your little enjoyments in life should be just that little. For when we get too much we lose track of what is truly important.

Therefore, let drop the insignificance of others, but be true to yourself in the little things that you do everyday.

Good, Bad, and Long Waits

I was on the phone for almost an hour with the mortgage company today. I was trying to find out if they could do an extension on my loan/defer the payments for a few months. Then, I found out that there was an investor on my loan, that I hadn't been told about before, and the bank I thought was the one that bought my loan was merely the servicer on the loan and not actually the loan provider. However, due in fact to the "temporary" status of my bills, my debt to income ratio was too high, and due to that:

Since, I have shown financially the inability to keep up the pace with paying all of my debt at this time, and albeit a temporary problem, this disqualifies me for the deferrment, and for a lower interest rate preapproval of 2% instead of 7%. However, I can try the elongated form on the website and submit my information, and possible receive a reply within 30 days.

So, there's that.

On the other hand I got my taxes done and filed last night, and the IRS accepted them this morning. So, hopefully in about 8 days, I'll have $1,700 that I over paid in taxes last year, which will go towards bills next month, and possibly make it in time for me to pay them all on time.

I did a quick set of taxes for my brother, and he's getting back about 6K, because of the two kids and the other random credits associated with that. I also got Joe's taxes done and he's getting back a little, if his creditors don't get it first.

So, that's set up for both of them, my brother just has to give me the details for his daughters so I can accurately put them on his taxes.

Other than that, I'm still working on the most important thing to bestow upon my students before I'm out.

Multi Topic Post

What makes an actual apology?

Well, it must incorporate certainly full disclosed honesty.

When one simply says I'm sorry, clearly you are only sorry you got caught.

While I have thought about this for a long time, it didn't come to full comprehension until I read Instant Persuasion. Therein is contained an apology formula:
1st - Say, "I'm sorry for _______________."
2nd - Say, "In the future I will ________________."

This way both you and the person you are saying sorry to know exactly what you did, and why it would require being sorry. Then, you offer up a solution to prevent the action from recurring in the future. Without the latter part, you don't actual show any interest in changing you habits. This is a great key to the apology. Especially with the slew of apologies in our popular culture.

The second topic of this post is:
What would you teach someone if you knew it was the last opportunity to teach them?

I had very much wanted to do a demo team this Spring at as many locations as wanted to. However, we are working quite hard on being able to do Brown and Black belt preparation, Kata by tournament, fundraiser, and more, that I have simply failed to bring it up in time to work on it in a timely manner.

There are lifetimes worth of lessons able to be learned in a martial arts class, but after consulting with the lawyer and learning of the 9 month waiting period for a hearing in Douglas County Court, due to so many backlogged cases in civil court, I believe this will more than likely be my last semester ever in America, unless miraculously the insurance company changes their position or even more miraculous the improperly set up "board" gets brains and fixes my unit ASAP.

I have meditated a little focusing on the aspects I wish to bestow upon my students, and what I hope to teach them, but I know I will have challenges in doing so through just one semester. In fact, many students may just have one class.

So, what is the most important thing to teach someone if they even can learn it from you?

I focus most of my life on respect, but respect is something demonstrated and learned throughout one's life. I can show them as much as I can in one session, but how much will stay.

I work on basics, which can transform into great techniques, but require much practice and depth of understanding to grasp fully.

So, without boring my students to tears, what will I be able to bestow upon them before I leave?

As one great instructor said, with time running out, I no longer speak softly, but find myself yelling even more, if only for my students to learn one more lesson before I pass on.

Will that be the philosophy?

I know not tonight. Hopefully, tomorrow I can meditate some more, but it is doubtful that time will appear before me.

Third topic:
China?
Japan?
Korea?
Germany?
New Zealand?
Bahamas?
Mexico?
Canada?
Australia?
Uninhabited Island?

Deep Breath

Well, there is but a few months left, and with what I've been told the average time is there will not be an adequate resolution of the situation by the end.

I now must muster up the time to photograph all my belongings and start getting rid of what is actually mine.

I have sent word to Ian that I don't know what he wants me to do with his things, but I hope he gets back to me soon.

With needing to travel light I have yet to determine where it is I shall go. However, volunteer programs look like they cost a bit out of my budget and I have currently nothing more to lean on.

If my taxes come back quite favorable that will be nice, but I am going to try and get a stay of payments for 6 months from the mortgage company, and that will help alleviate some of my stress for money, but in the end I will have two cars in my name that won't be paid off unless someone takes over payments on them. Which is highly unlikely, considering how much I still owe.

So, I think, should I travel around a bit and then hop a plane or simply go north or south and see where I end up. Although, someone mentioned a Shaolin temple in Arizona a few years back, and Dave knows some places in China and Japan. As the date grows closer I will ask him, but I do not want to alarm him so much before the end.

Parallel Reality

You are living in a world with infinite decision yet you yourself are allowed a finite number of new ones each time you make one. You were born into a set of finite decisions, and you will die someday based on the decision you have made and had made for you before you even knew it.

What if the parallel reality was really simply our existence? Why does it have to be an alternate reality. If reality is what we make it then are we all not living in separate realities simultaneously together? We could fantasize about what decisions we could have made, but truthfully someone else made those decision in similar circumstances to ours. We have made choices and the finite remaining reality open to us is not getting longer by pondering what could have been.

We must accept and move forward. The decision we have made cannot be undone, but we can merely learn from them and from the decisions of those around us to make our reality shaped into what we wish it to be.

If you know not of something then in your reality it doesn't exist. Once you can embrace it and believe that it does in fact exist, then it does. Millions of people died in a reality where the Earth was flat, more when the Sun revolved around the Earth, and yet we now live in a reality where our planet is not the center of the known, but unfortunately we as a majority have replaced the Earth being center stage of the universe with ourselves. Reality has taken a downward turn in this aspect, because truthfully every life has now become nothing more than a parallel reality in which the decisions of one do not affect the other in the same way after the filtering process of their reality kicks in.

Romeo & Juliet

Romeo & Juliet was a tragedy, not a love story. It was the tale of happenstance with two young kids not knowing any better. They met, and fell in love, yes. However, in the end they moronically committed suicide. Thus, it is a tragedy. By romanticizing this story we have made countless young people feel that suicide is somehow better than it is.

Suicide is far and wide the most selfish act anyone can commit. The line from the very first episode of Trigun, "To tell the truth, I disapprove of suicide more than anything else." was one of the main reasons I love that show so much. Also, even in Rorouni Kenshin they have many episodes where they talk of how selfish suicide is, and how to take one's life simply because of missteps is not only cowardly and selfish, but goes nowhere on the path to repaying back others for suffering that you may have caused them.

So, when people talk of suicide even jokingly, I look down upon them with so much disgust. Simply because they are being the most selfish, and attention grabbing. My thoughts generally are if you are going to talk about it, then just do it. If you want to lead your life by selfishness, and talk of ending it as such then, shut up and do it. Otherwise, just shut up. I don't want to hear about your tiny problems that you can seem to wrap your head around, and how you just wish they would all go away. Of course you wish they would all go away, they're problems, but wishing it doesn't make it so. You must act! You cannot accomplish anything in life by simply wishing for it, you have to decide.

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." - Rush