Continue reading »]]> I really should have started writing this post a few days ago, but I didn’t feel like forcing myself to do it. The words weren’t flowing. Well, here I am on the final day of the year and I really need to get these words out. This year, 2011, was a bit of a harder one than the last. I remember declaring somewhere that it would be a year of buckling down and riding out tougher times. I was right. That’s not to say that this was a bad year for me. I’m just likely to label it as a challenging one. Did I rise to the challenges thrown at me? I think I did.

Anyway, enough blabber. In depth text follows…after the jump!

January

When I read back through the posts I wrote during this month, nothing really stood out to me. On the surface it seemed to be a status quo month for me. I was coaching the half marathon clinic back then, and that was good. I was also taking an improv class back then, and that was good as well. I do remember the one instance of throwing my boot at a teacher. Thing is, there was an undercurrent of stuff happening that I didn’t write about, except in a cryptic post or two. Basically, I was on the hunt for a new job at the time. I had had enough of the job at my old workplace and figured that staying stagnant was serving no one. Of course, I didn’t want to announce it or make a big deal of the hunt at the time, hence the weird posts.

February

This was an interesting month for me. Geez, I was a bit of a basket case. At the beginning of the month I gave my two-week’s-notice to my previous employer. My interview had gone well and the new company wanted me. Things happened really quickly. During the period where I was wrapping things up I was feeling odd. And after my last day I was actually feeling blue. It’s hard ending 4.5 years of service just like that, isn’t it? Luckily I had my improv classes going to distract me.

It was during this month that I had the final class show for the series of short form classes that I was taking. I also had the final class show for the beated script class that I was taking. I remember both class shows as being awesome. It’s so strange feeling the kind of energy you do up on stage. The audience is there, watching, and taking in every moment. Crazy!

March

March brought me to the end of another half marathon clinic. The race in Burlington was cold and wet, but it was great. It was the first half for many clinic members of mine, and I remember feeling immense pride at bringing them across the finish line. It didn’t matter that I almost got into a crash on the drive in. Pff.

I also started my new job this month. I think immediately I felt like I was fitting in well enough. At the time we also had visitors in from the UK so we were eating out constantly. The side effects were unfortunate, but regardless I felt like we were all getting along just fine. Anything would have been better than where I was before in terms of my mental state on the job. Uh huh.

April

Back in March, for kicks I participated in a small short film project for a friend. After a day of taping we left it all to him for processing. It was our goal to submit it to a small competition to see if we could win a prize. Well, when the event rolled around in April we actually won. Sure, the audience was sort of stacked with the director’s friends but all the same it was still fun to have it recognized. Besides that, improv classes continued on. I was taking a musical class at that point and that was challenging me in ways I didn’t expect. Taking a class like that is a good way to get over nervousness. I learned that ultimately it’s worth it to take a chance because even of people see me fall flat onto my ass it’s not the end of the world.

May

Hmm…I think this month is even more status quo. I see a lot of posts about overeating. I think during that month I hadn’t run for about two months and it was starting to affect me weight wise. It was a rough period, for sure. Ugh, and I see that there was a post about the side-effects of being backed up for days. Oh man, that was HORRIBLE. Resolution should not have taken as long as it did. Damn.

I continued to bake a lot that month, including these Irish cream glazed shortbread cookies. This seems to be the month where my friend convinced me to take the baking course at George Brown. I wasn’t sure at the time, but at least the seed was planted. And why not, right? Might as well get proper training for something I like doing.

June

Yet another class show took place this month. This one was for the second beated scene class I took. It was a mafia-themed show and I played a well-intentioned butcher that was caught up in this world. The costume involved me wearing an apron over a tank top. Seemed like I looked the part. Sure, why not? Overall it was a fun show and I enjoyed playing the role immensely.

That same night I had another gig across town. So right after the show I had to pack up me gear and take the subway out to the east end. All of the students from the short form class that I was with had banded together to for a troupe. We wanted to continue playing with each other and put on shows to keep our skills up. It so happened that that was the night of our first booked gig that featured our new gameplay format. It was a success. This format has stayed with us right through until the end of the year.

Ah, and if I wasn’t busy enough June also marked the start of another coaching cycle for me. This was a big group, and it was the first time I coached the half marathon group through the summer. Interesting times.

July

Our improv group was able to find a small theatre location down in a trendy part of town that allowed us to put on shows. In July we put on our first show at that location. It was a big success. It was enjoyable for all of us involved. We were all proud to be doing it on our own terms. We knew that we had something good going so we all have been working hard since to keep the momentum.

 August

In August I attended my first ever wedding as an adult guest. This was a rather big moment for me for the obvious reason. It was also a chance for me to really gauge my ability to handle social situations. To my relief I seem to have handled myself really well. It was a beautiful ceremony, for sure.

Coaching continued. I gave a lot of the talks during that month. I learned that I always need to prepare. Winging speeches is not something that should be done–especially if people have paid proper money be part of the clinic, know what I mean? All the same, I think my honest and open approach to coaching has saved my behind more than once. Uh huh.

September

My baking class at George Brown started this month. That meant that I always had a surplus of baked goods on hand. It doesn’t mean though that I stopped baking at home. I still baked a lot of great things, which included this cake. I was asked to make a surprise cake, and I sort of went all out. This was my first time making a fondant cake and I amazed myself. This was a crazy undertaking. I was proud of these results.

In September I participated in the taping of another short film for that same friend. My role involved me being creepy and wearing weird facial hair. We taped it in the heart of Toronto, so there was a lot of interference, but it was still enjoyable. All in all we really only got one scene taped that day, but at least my part was done. Up until now, the film isn’t done. With winter here, the remaining scenes won’t get taped for a while.

October

Oh wow, so October was a huge month for me in terms of beginnings. The big thing for me was really my introduction to CrossFit. My friends from Michigan had been doing CrossFit for a while and and they were adamant that it would be a good match for my personality. At the same time, my manager told me that he was signing up for the CrossFit bootcamp program at his local box. With influence from those two sources, I signed up for the bootcamp at my box. That month was a tough one, but so rewarding–so much so that I signed for a membership. Amazing stuff, really.

This month was also the end of the summer half marathon clinic. The clinic culminated in a race along the Toronto waterfront. Again, I was so proud to have so many people new to the half marathon cross the finish line. I was also immensely proud to have attained a new personal best.

November

So…this year I turned 30. Do I feel any different? No…though perhaps I feel like I’m free of any of the shackles associated with the label of being a 20-something. Sound odd? It should–I haven’t figure it out myself.

My baking class was in full swing in November. We were producing some genuinely amazing stuff, including this black forest cake pictured here. Sure, it looks cool, but if people only knew: it wasn’t entirely difficult to piece together. There’s a procedure and all, so really the hard part if just following instructions. That’s basically how the whole class was, really.

I got to test out my progress from the bootcamp this month, too. After one month of hard work I repeated a benchmark workout that we had done at the start of the bootcamp. When I repeated it I had cut my time in half. I swear, it was like I was possessed. I knew I was on the right path. That’s why I’m still doing CrossFit today.

December

And that brings me to this month. We had one improv gig this month. We had originally planned to do a Christmas themed show but due to commitments we weren’t able to get that show off the ground. Since we already had the venue booked we decided to spread the burden of performing for the whole 2 hours by inviting other groups to perform. We offered slices of time in the theatre. That night, three other groups got time. As a result, that night was relatively stress-free for us. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

So there you go. That was my 2011 in condensed form. If I could summarize it all up: 2011 had many improv gigs, much bitching about weight, a lot of coaching people to succeed in big endeavours, and a fair bit of packing on muscle. I hope that 2012 will bring more success and further transformation into who I am meant to be.

Continue reading »]]> So, this week marks the last week of the whole CrossFit bootcamp thing that I’ve been doing. Today’s class had us working rather hard. After the usual bootcamp warm up (though the row was extended to 500m today) we learned how to do the deadlift. At this stage more focus is being put on good form rather than lifting heavily. All the same I was pretty happy that we actually had some plates on the sucker. Once the coach was convinced we had good form we lowered the weight back to something more manageable before we were introduced to our evening’s workout. In this case we had to do 3 rounds of 500m row, 12 deadlifts, 21 box jumps. I was getting good at my box jumps so the coach changed my box to something about 4″ higher. Oh hell, that extra height made a difference. In the few test jumps I felt like I really had to work hard to jump up there. With all of that we started.

Rowing is pretty tiring. There’s a lot of technique involved to make it efficient. I had to keep reminding myself about my positioning to make sure I wasn’t sabotaging myself. My deadlifting technique got better as the reps passed. Back on Friday we learned the movements for the clean and jerk. The clean and jerk involves a lot of the same positions as the deadlift. On that day coach was really getting on my case for not having good positions. My biggest problem that day was that I was rounding my back instead of having my butt out with a tight back. Having a rounded back is apparently dangerous. I watched a couple of YouTube videos on the weekend to figure out what I was doing wrong. That actually helped. My improved technique definitely helped me with the deadlifts. For the box jumps, I was obviously well adjusted to the shorter box. For this taller box, I felt like I got winded fairly quickly. Each round I had to break up the 21 box jumps into chunks just to make it through. In the end, I made it through in a decent time for a beginner like me (so says I). I was pretty much wiped out and I needed a minute or two to recover and be able to just breathe normally again. I felt proud to have accomplished something that seems somewhat hardcore. That’s a lot of movement for one workout, you know?

Back when I started out I knew that the program involved a fair bit of weightlifting and interesting movements. I didn’t really realize that things like deadlifts and power cleans would somehow enter my day-to-day life. As I continue to work hard I can tell that I’m getting stronger. I know that I’m really making progress. My weight hasn’t really moved, but I’m feeling the tiniest bit meatier.

Eh…don’t mind this picture. Somehow my black hard hat was the closest hat to me at the time and I was just curious what a vain flexing picture would look like. Anyway.

With all of this positive change, I want to continue with CrossFit beyond the foundations class. I’m raring to join the rest of the people that show up. As long as I continue to work hard I know that things will pay off. I’m willing to put in the work.

Continue reading »]]> This post is kind of meant to give a little bit of insight as to what it’s like in baking class. In today’s baking class we tackled a recipe for soft rolls. Putting it together was fairly simple. There wasn’t anything terribly out of the ordinary in the ingredient list. We got to use the big mixing machines with the big dough hooks to bring it all together. After forming a big ball of dough we covered it in plastic and covered that with a big bowl to let it rise. From there we all gathered back to the front of the class to watch chef demonstrate how to knot the bread. He was very deft in tying the dough. For some of the knots he did it so fast that it was almost a case of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speeds.

After the demos we were all sent back to our stations. The ball of dough belonging to my partner and I had doubled in size causing the covering bowl to come off the table. We divided the big ball into 36 pieces, giving us 18 each. From there we rolled each piece into a tight ball before rolling it into a long tube. We had to knot each tube using the techniques we were shown. When I was giving it a go I ended up screwing up the knots several times. I was having trouble with doing a simple single knot. Each time I did it I thought it didn’t look right and I ended up re-balling the dough to start over. This carried on several times. As a result I started falling behind. There came a point where everyone else was done knotting their dough, topped everything, and racked the sheets in prep for oven time. Meanwhile I was scrambling to get my act together. I eventually figured out the single knot, double knot and even some braiding. Once I finished I started running around the classroom finding different items to top the rolls. I ended up choosing cheddar, sea salt, poppy seeds, and parmesan cheese for the different rolls.

Honestly, at out low levels things aren’t all that stressful in class. Once in a while though there are moment where I feel like I’m under the gun. I say it’s better not to rush things. The act of rushing can result in shoddy work. If I hurried my knots I probably would have ended up with more wonky rolls than I’d want. In the end, I’m rather proud of the results. Thing is, I don’t like it when I’m holding up the class either. I’ve got to find a balance point, I guess. In a real life bakery kitchen scenario I’m sure things would be a lot more hectic. Better to know that I can handle things under pressure, right?

Continue reading »]]> After tonight’s workout I had a craving for some freshly baked bran muffins. I knew I had most of the ingredients, but I wasn’t sure if I had enough of each. After checking my stocks I decided to go for it. I didn’t have any nuts or dried fruit, but I had cocoa powder and warm spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, ginger) so I decided to improvise and make chocolate spice bran muffins. I figure this would be a good warming mid-autumn muffin. Putting it together was fairly simple since the recipe I had on hand had the ingredients listed by weight. It was simple enough to plonk the bowl onto a scale and measure things out. Oh, and having a recipe by weight means that cutting a recipe in half is pretty exact. I only did a half batch because I had no desire of ending up with 3 dozen muffins. Nope. Anyway, this is the end result:

At first taste it’s rather good. The cocoa powder is making its presence known, and it’s a little bitter. I wonder if I should have cranked up the sugar a little bit since there’s no dried fruit in it. All the same, this is only a taste test with them straight out of the oven. Usually these things taste better the day after. Who knows. If in the morning I decide that it passes I’m going to bring a few into office. Free food, you know? And having less in house means having less waste and less in my belly.

Continue reading »]]> Days before the race I wasn’t feeling nerves like I might normally would. It all finally hit me the night before. And it didn’t manifest in the form of an overactive mind. Instead, I barely got any sleep. My body was buzzing with anticipation preventing me from getting into a deep sleep state. By the time I got up, I started piecing all of my gear together.

When I got to the race, I could feel the excitement in the air. After dropping off my bag I hiked over to a hotel lobby which was our designated meeting spot. I started running into a lot of my clinic members. Each one was filled with a personal mix of excitement and nerves. For many of them this was their first half marathon. I was entirely proud of each of them. At one point the whole hotel lobby broke out into cheers. I looked around and there was Fauja Singh and his entourage. Mr. Singh had just turned 100 years old and was planning on running a full marathon. Totally inspirational.

Minutes before gun time we started heading to our corrals. I was in the last corral along with a bunch of other people I knew. We were taking pictures and having a great time. As I looked around I saw some worried faces. I kind of wanted to go up to them and cheer them on but I’m sure some of them would have told me to fuck off. No problem though. I mean, I was there once. I totally get it. And just like that the race started. I think it took me about 11-12 minutes to cross the starting line from where I was. That’s the longest interval between the gun and me crossing the starting line that I’ve encountered so far.

In terms of the race, mine was rather average. I started out slow to get the kinks out. By 5K or so I was feeling good so I started picking up the pace. I was able to maintain things at about 6:00-6:15/km for a good while. I was amazed at just how many more people were around me than when I was running a bit slower farther back. It makes a huge difference. At the rate I was going I was headed to about a 2:17 race. At about 16K, that’s when the fatigue kicked in. I knew it was coming, so instead of panicking I worked things out in my head. I told myself to run slower but pick it up once I’ve worked through it. Somewhere after 16K though there was an aid station that was giving away gels. The ground after that station was entirely sticky. My legs didn’t like that at all. I slowed down by a fair amount through that area, and it took me a while to regain some of my speed. Combined with the fatigue though I don’t think I returned back to where I was. I just couldn’t. I tried, but my body wouldn’t let me. It was at that point that I knew I was facing my usual battle against time slipping away from me.

Every now and then I reminded myself to try pushing again to see if I could get back up to speed. Sometimes I was successful, but slowed back down. By the last kilometre I was doing so many calculations in my head. I was trying to figure out what my likely arrival time would be. I think that’s when I my mind fell briefly into panic mode. The smile went from my face and all I could think was “WTF WTF WTF.” When I saw the sign saying there was 500 metres left. I pushed harder. There’s un underpass in that stretch. In the darkness I felt like I was on drugs. It was a really odd feeling. According to my watch I knew that I could achieve a new personal best if I just kept at it. That was my incentive. Never mind about 2:15, or 2:17: I just wanted to beat my old time of 2:20:19. Just before the finish line I raised my arms in amazement. I did it! I had beaten my old time! I made it in 2:19:46. That’s 33 seconds! It’s not as wide a margin as I wanted, but it’s still a sign of improvement nonetheless. I was so happy.

I was on the verge of tears but I kept it in. My arms and teeth were buzzing. I stuck around the finish chute looking for others from my group. There were some strangers that were in tears or looking worn out. I made it a point to smile at them and congratulate them. They smiled back. I hope I was able to brighten someone’s experience, at least. When I finally ran into someone I knew, the floodgates opened, and I shed a few tears myself. I couldn’t help it. I was just in a weird state at that point. I stuck around longer and saw more and more of the clinic members come in. High fives and hugs were given freely. It was a wonderful time.

Eventually we decided to head over to pick up our bags, which was a terrible experience. The baggage check this year was so poorly organized. It should not take one hour of standing in cold winds to pick up a bag. That was piss poor and must have turned off a lot of people doing this race for the first time, you know? I claimed my prepaid massage and had the guy work on my calves specifically. He was able to find a lot of sore spots. Though…now I kind of wish I got him to focus on my quads and hamstrings. My calves are fine now, but the bigger muscle groups are still sore.

So yeah, that was the STWHM for this year. Generally this race hasn’t been one where I’ve generated personal bests so I’m just amazed I made it out of this one with an improvement. More than anything I’m so happy that so many of my clinic members made it across. They all worked so hard to get that point. It all paid off.

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このアップルパイがアップルいっぱい、ね？
(Kono APPURU PAI ga APPURU ippai, ne?)
[This apple pie is full of apple, eh?]

Lifted that pun from Sailor Moon, episode 107. Translation isn’t punny at all, but in Japanese it’s totally corny.

Made this pie tonight. Used the skills I picked up in GBC. Sending it to a Thanksgiving get together tomorrow. Should be good eats!

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In all honesty, there’s a part of me that wonders how the hell my weight hasn’t ballooned out of control. I like baking far too much to not making it a part of what I do. I make a lot of awesome stuff. The problem that follows though is me figuring out just when the heck to do with all of the food. ”Eat it” is definitely an option, but it’s rather risky. Taking that approach might mean that what I made will dominate my food intake for many days to come. That risk is multiplied by a little bit of impatience such that I may just want to eat it all quickly just so that I won’t end up eating it for days to come. See! Bad! Ah, but like I said, I won’t let it stop me from baking. Hell, I’m excited about that George Brown course to come.

So yeah, what’s pictured above? Those are some freshly baked rolls of pandesal. I kind of love the stuff. It’s available from many Filipino food stores but those bagged things just can’t compare to some freshly baked rolls. It’s got a nice crust with a soft chewy centre that’s a little sweet. Add a little butter or margarine and this stuff is insanely good. I saw a recipe for it in my mother’s cookbook. The instructions are handwritten. I photocopied the page when I was visiting their place. I had full intentions of trying out the recipe. This weekend I finally got off my butt to do it. I didn’t have any yeast, so I actually drove over to Walmart at 7 a.m. to get some. I wanted an early start. To my surprise, the assembly was pretty quick. The process of kneading and rising wasn’t tough either. It all just takes some patience. I eventually ended up with what you see above. I tried one of the smaller buns to see if it was worth sharing with other people. It was really tasty, so I ended up trying out another to be sure that I wasn’t imagining things. Eventually I downed a third for good measure. See! Baaaaaaaaad! These rolls definitely trump the store bought stuff.

Trust me: there will be a next time for this. It was simple enough that I could make these on a weekend morning as a project. I think next time I will try adding more sugar. I already increased the sweetness, but I think it could use a little more. Instead of just water, I want to try using some evaporated milk. Through a few more iterations I’ll get this recipe tight enough such that my bread will be well known, yeah? Hahah. First things first though. I need to eat/give away all of these existing ones. Blaaaargh.

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If I think about it, the last time I played Mahjong was probably five years ago. It was during my last term in university. Since then, I haven’t really brought my tiles out. It’s been hard to find people who knew how to play or were at least willing to learn. So, the tiles stayed in the closet.

More recently, out of curiosity I asked a new local friend if she was interested in learning the game. I said that it’s like playing rummy, but with tiles. That was enough for her. To my delight she was willing to learn. So, I spent this afternoon over teaching her and her visiting uncle how to play. There was a bit of a learning curve. As you can see from the picture of my tiles there aren’t any Arabic numbers on them (apart from the flower and season tiles) so there was a bit of back and forth over which number a character tile represented. And since the directions are etched out in some fancy style it was a bit hard to tell the directions apart. Eventually they got the hang of it and we were able to play seven hands. There really isn’t anything like the sound of the tiles clacking around, or the smell of the resin floating through the air. And there’s some fun in playing with big chunky tiles.