Monthly Archives: August 2004

Learning At The Table

I played three match­es yes­ter­day against three dif­fer­ent peo­ple and won all three. It felt pret­ty good, espe­cial­ly since I had nev­er played one of them before (he was a Canadian-born English teacher, work­ing in China). He also start­ed play­ing about a year before me, and was taught in what’s con­sid­ered the table ten­nis coun­try of the world. Knowing that he was using an anti-spin rub­ber gave me an advan­tage though; I did­n’t have to wor­ry about his spin, and since I focus on speed and place­ment, his rub­ber became point­less. I also have less respect for peo­ple who use the anti-spin rub­bers, because they gen­er­al­ly rely on the pad­dle to do the work for them, instead of prop­er­ly learn­ing how to counter spin. My habit­u­al ner­vous­ness when fac­ing a new oppo­nent was­n’t there.

I also won against one of the peo­ple I use to have great dif­fi­cul­ty beat­ing. He had a new pad­dle, with small ball-bear­ings imbed­ded along the rim. When one shakes it, the pad­dle sounds like a baby rat­tle. Apparently, it’s sup­posed to pre­vent rever­ber­a­tion, but I don’t under­stand the point. I count on feel­ing rever­ber­a­tion through my han­dle to give me feed­back on where I’m hit­ting.

I also beat one of my long time oppo­nents, although it’s more of an emp­ty vic­to­ry because I’ve learned his tricks and styles, so I know how to counter them. I won based on vital­li­ty over­com­ing his expe­ri­ence, not skill over­com­ing skill. It was inter­est­ing to find out that his pad­dle has a hol­low han­dle with a weight attached to a screw assem­bly in it. The weight can be shift­ed up and down through the han­dle to change the cen­tre of grav­i­ty of the blade.

Still, it’s good to know that I’m improv­ing. I can learn at the table now, in the mid­dle of a match instead of after­wards.

The Most Repulsive On The Bus

I just got home from a nice din­ner with Aaron, Karen, and Chris. On the bus ride back, there was a woman sit­ting in front of me, who I could­n’t help but look at. I watched, the entire trip, as she peeled an orange, and threw all the skin and fibre on the floor. Then she would spit seeds into her hand and throw those on the floor too. It was one of the most repul­sive things I’ve ever seen. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.

The Difference Between Rude And Inconsiderate

I just stopped at Timmies before work this morn­ing, with a large triple triple in my hand, and a caramel pecan cook­ie in the oth­er. I had to maneu­ver the cof­fee and cook­ie around because it was too hot to hold by its sides, and I did this as I was walk­ing out the door. Without think­ing, I let the door close behind me. As I step out­side, I hear a lady say, “Tanks for ‘old­ing the door” in a loud, grumpy, sar­cas­tic tone. I usu­al­ly hold the door open if I see some­one behind me, but I was still wak­ing up, I did­n’t see her, and my mind was else­where. Normally, I would feel ter­ri­ble for being so incon­sid­er­ate, but I real­ly did­n’t feel bad at all after she said what she said. I actu­al­ly wished that the door slammed in her face, spilling her cof­fee all over her proud­ly worn blue Magic School Bus shirt, stain­ing it for­ev­er, and that she would slump in the door-frame, sob­bing, because it was the final gift from the debil­i­tat­ed grand­daugh­ter she had just put in the ground. At least what I did was an acci­dent, one that I’m not prone to let hap­pen, but what she said I con­sid­er even more rude.

Trolley and I had this dis­cus­sion a lit­tle while ago. We both agree that it’s rude to keep a seat occu­pied with a bag on a busy bus, but it’s even more rude to walk up to a bagged seat, then com­plain loud­ly and rude­ly about the own­er. There are ways of polite­ly doing things that just make things go eas­i­er for every­one. Interesting, how the first per­son to take the step in being polite is the one in con­trol, but few peo­ple actu­al­ly take the risk because they assume an unapolo­getic per­son.

Anyway, I need some cof­fee in me.

So go the fuck away.