Sunday, December 03, 2006

Joon Bee



The first of many tests comes tomorrow, when I take my first final: my karate yellow belt test (yellow belt is the lowest class). What a way to start it off! I have a page of korean tae-kwon-do terminology I'm pretty shaky with, and the combat combinations and forms, which I am pretty good with. I should receive the belt.

Friday is when I face down civil procedure, and I have 3 hours to prove to the professor that I have mastered the course. Three days later: property. Two days after that: contracts. Then, with a nice five day break: torts.

That will leave a nice week and half or so before X-mas to get my resumes out for summer work... Then I fly to New Orleans for relief work.

But I get ahead of myself. Tomorrow is not friday or January or the summer. Tomorrow is tomorrow.

Tomorrow also happens to be the day I take the car to the dealer to have what looks like a major problem diagnosed. I feel strangely calm about it. Maybe the stressors are so insistent and ever-present that one more major stress barely makes a dent. I like to think that it is the result of stress management. After all, I know the law and I am prepared. I will do well on the exams or I won't. I will be able to afford the car repair or I won't.

Ooh, and then ever once in a while a wave of anxiety hits! The secret (for me) is to allow it to be there. To be alright with it, and to form an uneasy truce with it as a fairly natural outgrowth of heavy pressure and a part of my personality. No need to fight it. It's going to happen regardless, and better to be aware of it than repress it I think.

Joon bee means prepare/ready, BTW.

2 comments:

La Misma said...

You couldn't do what you're doing without stress. But it sounds like you're surfing the wave of stress like an extreme athlete. Best of luck on your exams. Joon bee!

beckett said...

Thanks lm. I did get hit with a flu.

I've come down with such sickness leading up to many shows. It's a combination of a weakened immune system and a psychosomatic response to pressure to perform.

Somehwere inside me the rationale is, if I'm sick and don't do well, it won't be my fault, will it?

Anyway, I got my yellow belt and my first exam is today. I plan on kicking it into submission. Kyah!