Wushu, And So Can You

I know, I look a little rough here.  :-)  I've been working hard.  I slept entirely too late because I was having this strange dream about the move we learned in Wushu last night.  I wasn't doing it right, in the dream, because I was supposed to be throwing fire while jumping, and I just wasn't able to create any fire, so I was getting a bit restless.  :-)

I went to the Lipsius mensa (cafeteria) for lunch.  (They had corn soup and bami blocks again!  Woot!) After I ate I worked on some translations for an hour or so.  Then I picked up my bike from the shop and headed to the Common Room, where I translated for a few more hours.

The first text I translated today (Pyramid Text, spell 252) was super easy.  I almost didn't need the dictionary.  I worked for freakin ever on the Lebensgeschichte des Wnj (Life Story of Weni) but I only sort of managed to get one paragraph almost translated.  Urgh.  This is becoming a real problem here.  I'm beyond stressed about this all.  Mostly, it comes down to motivation.  I simply don't have it.  I want to do well, I just can't get myself to focus on this stuff.  Argh.  It'll all come.  I'm just out of academic shape, it'll come back with practice.  Either way, Grace and I ordered pizza and ate it with John from Ireland in the Common Room.  

Tai Chi was amazingly dull, unfortunately.  The normal teacher wasn't there, and the woman who was there spoke very very quietly.  There were also a bunch of beginners, so we didn't get very far.  Wushu, however, was pretty awesome.  For some reason we were all just really into it, and we, the regulars, pushed ourselves really hard.  I think we were all super sore from training yesterday.  I know I was.  

At the end, there was this one last spinning kick move.  And I just didn't think I could do it.  My legs were jelly, and I had almost fallen down a few times just jumping.  So I thought, ok, just give it your best, and you probably won't fall down.  I was actually rather scared that I'd fall.  You're supposed to jump, spin around, and, while spinning, kick your left hand with your right foot!  So I took a deep breath, focused, and jumped, spun, kicked, stuck it.  I mean, it was beautiful.  High and straight, powerful.  It even made this gorgeous, loud, smack.  Everyone in line behind me was like "Wow, nice!"  :-D  Amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.  

If I look at Egyptian in the same way, I can do much more than I expect.  I know it.  :-)