day 8 & 9

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i am writing this entry from a thai prototype of a korean pc bang. this may be a tropical paradise, but that doesnt stop 11 year old boys from thinking that starcraft and cabal are much more entertaining than anything outside. the sound pollution of repetitive game soundtracks and various weapons being electronically detonated pretty much suffoctates any coherant thought. i am pretty sure that the volume is set on "ear-splitting" on every computer in here. i also feel very conscious of the fact that i am the only person over the age of 13 in this room.

the only reason i am here is because i am doing my laundry at the laundromat next door. i can pay someone to wash, dry, and fold my laundry for almost the same price, but it takes a full day to come back, and i would rather wash everything at once.

training has been difficult the last few days. it is difficult for two reasons: first, it is more difficult. we do the same things, but faster and with more power than in beginners. and there is a lot of added core training to strengthen our bodies, which are invariably so feeble compared to our trainers'.

the second reason that training has been so difficult is that i have had enigmatic stomach pains for several days now. i don't know if it is from working hard or eating too much or too little before training, or if i am sick. (i have eaten at some suspicious food stands.) whatever it is, it is frustrating to not know how seriously to take it, and i don't like that it is interfering with my training.

yesterday i decided that, though i didn't feel up to two training sessions, i did want to do something with my day. it didn't take much convincing to get nick out of his bungalow, and before long we were on our way to the beach!

the waves were a little calmer (no red 'no swimming' flags this time) so we rented boogie boards and headed into the water. nick had never boogie boarded before, so he probably was even more enthusiastic than a kid in a candy store/toy store/amusement park hybrid. it was pretty fantastic. once we were exhausted, i introduced him to the joys of skim boarding, which he had never heard of before. all in all, it was a fantastic sunny day at the beach, and we didn't leave until the weather abruptly remembered that it was supposed to be monsooning, and promptly dumped buckets from the sky.

today, sunburned with sand abrasions (thanks to the multiple skim boarding accidents), training was especially exhausting. i am always amused at how our trainers act like little kids. they are so limber. they sit in a cluster like puppies as we sweat away doing our half hour of jump rope, and amuse themselves by augmenting one anothers' tattoos with a ball point pen. one of them drew my face on anothers' shoulder.

as difficult as training is, there is something that connects people when they do difficult things together. i suppose getting pushed to your limits is a vulnerable experience during which you really have to confront yourself, and you feel closer to people who were with you when you experienced it. i may not know my trainers or my fellow trainees very well, but there is a bond or a commonality that we feel.

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