Date a Girl Who Reads

I found this on Facebook through a link a friend posted.  A little dramatic, but I couldn't agree with it's heart more:

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

—

Rosemarie Urquico (via kblitz)

Champions Move On
A Jim Loehr course I sat in for last year talked about how champions, by their very definitions, were abnormalities.  What made a champion a champion, was because his/her innate reaction towards obstacles and difficulty were intrinsically different.

In other words, champions don't act, react, behave or think like normal people.

Take Federer versus the lay man on court, in a 4-5 down, advantage in situation.  The serve opens, the rally starts.  He hits the first ball deep, aggressively. His second ball shoots past the net---clipping the lines accurately, pushing his opponent deeper into the back of the court.  Too soon, his opponent starts struggling with the rabbit race to and fro---and inevitably he gives that weak half-assed lob in response.  The lay man sees the opportunity---shuffles quickly to the front, pointing his free hand at the dropping ball as he poises his racquet arm elegantly.

"Ha!  I've got him!" 

And just as he lets his arm sail, he inevitably hits that easy smash into the net.  Into the net.  Instead of his, the fist pumping, adrenaline-rushing "VAMOSS!!" goes triumphantly to his opponent.

Now, the layman, being the lay man he is, would scream at himself.  Maybe his arms start flailing around like flaming limbs dipped in kerosene.  His face might be contorted into a Van-Gogh howl.  Or at best, the more elegant of the lays slouches over, drops his head and shakes it disconsolately. 


Federer, however, as we have seen in so many occasions, behaves differently.  The only thing that drops are his eyes.  His body does a quick swivel around while his fingers hold onto his grip not to smash it---but to simply twirl it in his hands.  It's almost as if he twirls the error out of the fabric of his mind too. Drop it.  Moves on.

Maybe champion tennis players, or just champions in general, are really palimpsest experts in disguise...

Upwards and Onwards
Dartfish, Morphing Training Systems, and,
as Fernando says, "How not to play like my neighbour."

Aside from the recent loss, I have been playing really well these past few days.  In drills, practice matches, I can really feel my game improving.  I've told you about him but I'll say it again.    Am really grateful that I have Fernando Boldo, my new tutor to guide me.  I think it's funny that knowing that my previous tutor was Andreas, it was only when i learnt how to be content and appreciate his value as a coach, that God finally gave me the coach that I wanted.  Fernando's so full of passion and energy!  He has experience, good ideas, and keeps on pushing pushing pushing me to get better.  Everyday.

Things are also changing in the academy---I think for the better.  They are slowly but surely making tweaks to the training system here.  It's not just endless, senseless drills now---they're taking more time to explain the drills in more depth now, the coaches are meeting for more meetings, they've just introduced a inter-league between players in the academy for the whole semester, and have also started using more camera, tournaments, psychology and video-watching for the players.  I for one, just watched myself on Dartfish---a revolutionary tennis analytical programme that plays videos of myself doing drills and allows my coach Fernando to review my shots in a clear, detailed manner. 

He can zoom in, slow down, super slow down, speed up, and mark my image on any frame of the video with obvious start, stop, forward backward functions.  While I winced watching myself, it was really good because I could finally see some things that he's been trying to get me to work on---like having better double rhythm in my footwork, switching my body position in between shots, how I tend to let my free hand droop when I hit the ball, etc.  It was actually quite disheartening at first----I never like seeing myself on video, but hey, it's the truth, right?  Seeing it is the only way to get better.

But going back to my game, Fernando told me that the girls are slowly starting to respect me more because I'm starting to play.... good tennis.  Even beating some of them. 

Last week, I thought I played the best tournament match I've ever played in my life, and on tuesday I played even better. 

Irony is that I lost both, but that is not important.  There was so much variation in my shot selection, and a lot more intelligence in the way I built up the point.  I was very pleased---and I really have to thank Fernando for teaching me how to construct points and think them through better.  Even though she may have won, I think I did with my own objectives too.  Every time I constructed the shot well, read her body correctly, moved into optimum position and executed the shot----my opponent had no answers.  No answers at all.

Now, the next step is to keep learning how to be more consistent.

"Not Just Passion.  I want TENSION!"

That's what my tutor coach Fernando said to me after I lost my tournament match today.

I lost 2-6, 1-6 to a pimp squeak of an 11 year old who hit the ball like a beast for her age.  She was good---Catalunya regional champion for an age group (can't remember whether it was U-12 or U-14).   Before the match, she genuinely looked like a very tame, nice girl.  Big eyes, spectacles, soft voice, shy eyes.  But during the match she made a whole load of dubious line calls and score changes---which I, thinking in disbelief that she couldn't possibly be cheating, gave to her because I thought maybe I got it wrong.  Towards the last game of our match, I realised she was cheating and got sooooo pissed off because it was already too late into the game to change much. 

I found out later that she has a massive reputation for cheating on line calls and changing game scores. 

What an eleven year old ...

Complained to Fernando about it and he scolded me and said "Why didn't you call the umpire??  It is your fault for not fighting for those points."

Sigh.  Yes, true.

In one way, this is the price I'm paying to learn this.  And I'm glad I'm learning this in a small tournament instead of an important one.  I learnt a lot about complacency, playing in massive wind (it was 40km/hr that afternoon), and just learning how to keep my cool.  When I shook her hand at the end of the match, I didn't even say thanks.  I just looked her in the eye and said "honesty is the best policy."  It's really not my style to gripe and scrum over every point----hence why I didn't think about calling the referee over. 

"How would it look if a 25 year old is fighting with an 11 year old about whether a ball is in or out??"  I thought.  Maybe faulty thinking.  But nevertheless, after finding out the truth, I have decided that the next time I play with her, I will show no mercy at all.  I will screw her over mentally, emotionally and physically.

Be, Be, Be, Be My ♥
Was trying to think of someone I'd truly, sincerely want to hug and kiss this Valentines.

Jesus, I thought of You. xxoxx

"When we play, attack starts with our legs." ---Sergio Casal

Overheard this while walking past the courts after tournament today. 

"How true," I thought.

Got a walkover---was kinda looking forward to my match.  I play again tomorrow morning.  Rest now before practice again in 40 minutes.

Rotan Living

 

It takes so much damn discipline to sleep early.  And each time I don't, my consciousness weighs in like a menacing Lat encik.

But I have to force myself to.  Probably explains why I haven't been blogging as much as I would like to.  Tournament starts again tomorrow, and as usual, have been drawn with a tough opponent.  Am looking forward to it---and as much as I detest a lifestyle dictated by threatening rattan fibers, I am beginning to wonder if that is exactly the life I need more of.