Shadowless Sword and Chocolate

It's been a while since I've posted anything related to Martial Arts, and to relax a few weeks ago, I watched some martial arts films we've had lying around. Lucky for me Devynn is always up for watching some action movies:)

The first one I watched is called : Legend of the Shadowless Sword. It was great! It's a little unique because fist, it's a Korean martial arts film (In case you didn't know, the best and most of the martial arts film come out of Hong Kong). The other awesome thing about this film, is that the plot has very strong female characters. The premise of the story is a woman warrior going and finding the banished prince so he can come back and be king. I wouldn't want to give away any of the plot, but I really enjoyed the movie as a movie and the martial arts was pretty awesome too. Lots of good sword stuff.

The second movie I watched is called Chocolate. This movie comes from the same people who did the movie Ong Bak. I loved this one! It takes place in Thailand, and is a little slow to start, but it was so good! I believe what I heard about the making of this movie, is that the director wanted to produce a movie that showed that a girl could do everything Tony Jaa does. So again, the main character is a woman. This movie is also interesting because the main character is a "special needs" child. It's a great movie, with AMAZING action and I recommend you go watch it!

Be sure to let me know if you do go see either of these, or if you would like to borrow one. And I forbid you to watch either of these movies dubbed in English. It completely ruins the film. Now go watch!

Karaoke and the Emergency Room

Man, too many things happening recently and a lack of internet connection. Doesn't make for consistent blog postings.

This story dates way back to finals week, first week of December. One of my friends from karate, Brad, went to his last karate class and was going out to celebrate moving back to Washington. I got the pleasure of joining him and his friend Bobby at Suds here in Corvallis. I had never been to Suds before, it's a pretty sweet little place, in the building of Woodstock's pizza.

Brad and Bobby started drinking some beer and got me some hard cider, catching up and talking about what lies in store ahead. After two ciders for me, (and I don't know how many each of beers they had!) we decided to head over to the Peacock. Now this was odd for me, I have never gone out on a Wednesday night, and never putting no thought into what I was dressed like.

I discovered that the Peacock is great for some karaoke on weeknights. There were some impressive folks singing too! After I had another beer, the boys convinced me to sing a song with them. (It ended up being the last song of the night, I guess it took me a while!) We sang "What's My Age Again?" by Blink 182. It was a lot of fun, and I definitely messed up the song with the lyrics right in front of me.

The Peacock closed and none of us were in any shape to drive, so we started walking towards Brad's place. Bobby thinking ahead, had some chex mix to eat on the way. By the time we got to Brad's house, we discovered that there were nuts in the mix and Brad happens to be allergic to all nuts except for peanuts.

Bobby and I were going to try to head over to my house, where I have a car and could drive somewhere to get Benadryl, but instead we called an ambulance. Brad and Bobby spent the night in the ER, one of Brad's roommates dropped me off at my house where I slept until about 6am and went and picked them up. It was an eventful night to say the least. Things I learned: Benadryl is an anti-histamine, so that means good for people having an allergic reaction, and Good Samaritan Hospital is in a weird place at the end of 9th Street. Good things to know.

Shavonne, Siobhan, whatever....

I am very excited to announce that I have finished reading the Twilight Series, I finished reading Breaking Dawn late last night. Although I did not love the books, or care too much for the way Stephanie Meyers writes, I really enjoyed some of the characters she created. After all, she gave a vampire the same name as me! Siobhan!

As you may notice, it is not spelled the same, but Siobhan is the Gaelic version of my name (or Irish version if you prefer). The vampire named Siobhan was pretty cool, the leader of the Irish coven and had the suspected power of things turning out the way she thinks they should. Very unique.

Reading this name made me think of the last time someone brought this Gaelic spelling to my attention. Of all places to hear about alternate spellings, I last heard about it at my last belt test in October. Yeah, that's right, my brown belt test! The big test I had been practicing months for, the test where sparring is included, and the test where I would have to work with students going for higher level belts than mine. This was one of the big tests that happen twice a year at Aurora Martial Arts. Once you become an advanced student (promoting to brown belt and above), you can only move on to the next belt rank at one of these tests. The other important aspect of this kind of test, is that my instructor, Mr. Donadio, not only has his black belt instructors at the test, but invites other high ranking black belts to oversee the test. Most always this includes Mr. John Sepulveda, a highly revered 9th degree black belt in American Kenpo.

So it was this last October, and I got through the much anticipated belt test still in one piece. The class was lined up to bow out and end the test, but Mr. Sepulveda gave us some closing words about how the test went. After he got through the aspects he wished to discuss about our test, he started to turn us over to Mr. Donadio to bow us out, but right before he did, he remembered he had one more thing to say. He looked at me in the back line and asked, "Shavonne, do know where your name originates from? If you are interested in the Gaelic spelling of your name, you should email me and I'll let you know." After that we were dismissed. Talk about a weird place to learn about your name!

So if you see the spelling of Siobhan, you now know how to pronounce it:)

Thoughts & Thanksgiving

It is coming to the end of November and I've only one post for this month. That is not to say that I have done nothing worth writing about this month, it's actually the opposite. I've been busy with so many things that I either haven't had time to write about it, or I have too many cool things to write about that I don't know where to start.

Right now I am in an interesting sort of mood. I only had one class today, which is great, because now I'm done, but because I want to get another project done before Thanksgiving break, I have to stick around in Corvallis until 4. Usually that's not such a problem either, but most of my friends work... which means however I'm going to spend my time today, it will probably be alone.

Being alone is an interesting thing. I really don't like being alone. I can handle it, but I prefer to be interacting with people instead. Not just any people of course, but friends, people that I care to spend my time with.

Anyway (let me stop sounding so depressing), I have definitely had some exciting things come my way. One thing is, I am very excited about the future. I'm finally make some real plans to do a little traveling, as well what my options are for finishing up school (or not finishing, as the case may be). I also recently got a new backpack for attending a Columbia Sportswear Focus Group session. It was a great thing to experience, and they gave all the participants an OSU Columbia Backpack! I'm pretty happy about that, because I was in desperate need for a quality backpack. I am also very excited about the things that I am learning in karate. We get to play with knives and guns, and do some pretty sweet, but complicated moves. It's also great being known as a brown belt, it makes me feel like I really am one of the Advanced students and I actually know something about the martial arts.

It appears that this blog has turned into a little update of the happenings of my life, as well as a way for me to prep for what Thanksgiving is all about. I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to cheer on the Beavers this Saturday!

New News

The best news is that I am now a brown belt. Woohoo! The next thing I would like to point out is the lovely new design on my page and the added "links" section. Just a few websites that either have cool people or great websites of things I'm interested in. Check it out and let me know what you think!

The Happenings of My Life

It has been a long while since I have returned to this blog to write, and in the meantime much has happened. Since my last blog, I have won another disc golf tournament which coincides with winning the Oregon Series (the series of disc golf tournaments over the summer), I've started school again, and I'm getting ready for my brown belt test.

Disc golf is a little more off of my mind these days, because of the grand finale of the Oregon Series being over, but I am very excited about this year's outcomes. At the beginning of the season I was thinking, it would be pretty sweet to win the Oregon Series, but I felt I had no chance at that. After one or two tournaments, I realized I am very much in the running for this win. Lo and behold, it came to pass that I won 2 tournaments which sealed my spot for the win in the Oregon Series. Now I have next year to look forward to, as I will be moving up a division to try and give those girls a run for their money:)

Then there is school, which is the part of my life I am trying very hard to focus on right now. It's my senior year, so I'm finishing up my Exercise Sport Science stuff, and getting started into this Apparrel Design thing. It's very exciting to be so close to then end of my college career, and have a pretty good idea about what I want to do with my life.

Another funny thing about school is, not much has changed. There are still swarms of people at the change of the hour at every intersection, people who are obsessed with their i-pods, and those people who think rubber boots can be a fashion statement. With nothing really changing about school, I still feel different. My attitude in regards to classes and professors has changed, I used to be timid and afraid of even asking a basic question in class, but now I have a new found confidence and my professors and my peers are far less intimidating. Maybe its because I'm a senior this year, or maybe its something else.

The last big thing going on in my life (that I'm willing to blog about!) is karate. I am finally getting ready to promote to the next belt. The journey to brown belt has been quite a frustrating one for me and it isn't over yet. I have obstacles I still need to overcome to be where I want to be for this test, and time keeps zooming by me.

All in all, life is pretty great right now. I know that I will have plenty more to blog about :)