  OK something really disgusting occurred on Thursday. That morning I happily donned my shoe and went to work as usual. Spent a whole day in school and went Aikido at Siglap after work. Arrived early as usual and started to change. Lo and behold, guess what I found? There was a freaking dead cockroach smeared on the right side inside of my right shoe. Ewwww ... freaking gross. Cleared out whatever of its remains I could and blocked out the thought as I went on with Aikido for the night.
Can't quite shake the thought out when I had to change back and go home after class. Moment I got home, removed my shoes and went to wash my gi + socks (blood smear on my socks). Thoroughly washed out the inner regions of my shoes with a fibrous brush and an old tooth brush. All the while the remains were like being removed really slowly. I figured I must have worn out a whole chunk of my shoe with all the hard scrubbing I did.
Lesson learnt? I always shake my shoes to throw out whatever dirt, insect or creepy crawly first before sticking my foot in now. Yesterday went to River Valley High to take a company test. Technically I was late but when I arrived it seems like people had just settled in a few mins ago only. Test turned out to be OK. Was decently easy, but it's not like I'll be getting a high score in it or anything lah. Just felt that they were reasonable questions though some terms were a bit technical. I was lucky that during my first 3 days in the company, I had an expert like Angelica walkthrough me a lot of the stuff. After the test, I went to Clementi central to make a new pair of specs. Cost me like $240. Freaking expensive but I figured getting one I really liked will last me longer plus I guess I really needed the new specs.
The new one came with 2 clip-on sunglasses. Always wanted to get one to replace my old set years ago. My old ones are either too dented or scratched from Aikido or dropping them now and again. One small news, turns out my old specs degree were a bit high. It was like right eye 500, left eye 700 (astigmatism). But after the tests, it was 500 and 650.
Could've reduced it to 625 but the optician said 50 degree reduction is a lot already and she recommends doing 650 instead because the eye needs some adjustment. After this, I met up with Tang for lunch at Mac's and we proceeded back to River Valley High area for Aikido training. It was my first official lesson with Yuishinkai. Their ki emphasis is definitely a lot more structured then Aikikai. Maybe structured isn't exactly the right word. The thing is they use the words ki, ki direction a lot more than us. Just doing warmups alone, Frankie Sensei went through how our hips, center, arms, ki direction should be going. Very very very detailed. I can understand some but not all. At the end of class, he passed me some forms to fill up and a copy of their syllabus as well as one set of illustration for their warmups. Willl try to scan these in when I get the time, but anyone with Koichi Tohei's movie clip called Authentic Aikido will be able to see everything better.
In terms of technique, everything was about redirecting ki, placing yourself, footwork, etc. That doesn't sound so different from what Aikikai style does, but practically to apply what I've learnt from the warmups was a whole different thing. The thing is, there are so many similarities between Yuishinkai style and Ah Hee Sensei's. I guess that's why Freddy Sensei said, all Aikido is the same.
Just a lot of different 'brands' out there. Stupid cough is getting from bad to worse. Think it's the cold drinks I've been taking since Thurs till now. Sigh, have to watch my food and water consumption again. Mon will be the start of term 2 and I need to take the class lessons for the upper primary levels. First week is like my killer week but subsequently the afternoons do get better. But still, I've got a lot of outstanding tasks not done or just started only. Need smokebomb liao, hahaha. 
