Jonathan (ジョナサン)

Day Before 2nd Degree Death

    Tomorrow morning, at 8AM Central Standard time will begin my test that will, upon succesful completion, earn me my 2nd Degree Black Belt under Brian Bryan's system. The test should last 2 hours, maybe longer. I will probably be near death at the end, or at the very least, completely exhausted. On a positive note, my nephews will be here on Saturday, sometime after the test, wanting me to play with them in my energy-less state. Maybe I'll just lay ontop of them.

    I thought I would post a few of the pictures I took with my new camera. These are with the fisheye/wide-angel lense attachment:

    

    Things have been quite hectic for me the last several weeks. A big part of it has been preparing for the test that is tomorrow. I will be going to bed probably the earliest I ever have, and waking up very early as well (at least for me!).

    I'll post tomorrow...well... I'll post sometime after the test how the test went, if I'm still breathing.

    TUMEO.

Non-Camera Arrived!!!!

    Wait, what... non... non-camera?? Is that what you are thinking? Well, first, let me start by talking about yesterday. Yesterday the wide angle lense attachment arrived. So I got to sit and look at it, and imagine how cool it will be to attach to the camera that would be arriving the next day. And boy, did it look sharp. Fast forward to today! I wake up early (and this is very early for me... 7:00AM), and see that it is for sure out on delivary. So I leave and go to the breakfast meeting to talk about the after school karate program. I come back, and then go back to sleep. I wake up, it still hasn't arrived yet. I do a few things. Then I see the UPS truck stop infront of the house!! AWESOME!! I take the package out of the guys hands (only wearing my boxers), go to the kitchen, open it up. Sweetness. I pull out everything, get out the battery and charger, and hook it up to start charging the battery. While I'm waiting on the battery, I hook on the lense. I'm super duper awesome thrilled at this point, because I am controlling the zoom and focus with my hand on the actual lense (it does have a switch to use auto-focus instead of manual). And yes, no battery, looking through the view finder. Then I hook up the wide angel lense. Even better!!! This thing rocks my socks off. I start thinking about the pictures I'll take once the battery is charged and post for people to see. I zoom in and out with the wide angel, zooming all the way out gives you a fish-eye, which was another awesome thing about it. Then I pull it away from my eye and look over this wonderful camera, and notice the little sticker/emblem that is on it: "Digital Rebel", and realize it is missing 2 very important letters to go along with it, those of "X" and "T". I blink a few times, then look down at the manual, and see that it says "300D" on it, NOT 350D, which would be the Rebel XT. I think "hmmm", and I go and check my order, and see that I did in fact order the XT, the newer one, not the old one. I make a call, yep.. got sent the wrong camera. Now this particular item was a "recertified" camera, and I'm thinking that maybe Newegg didn't realize it was the regular and not XT, or something. But anyways, they refunded the amount I was charged, plus money to cover the shipping (20 bucks, which is more than what it will cost, so cool). I went and re-ordered the camera. Good news out of this sadness is that I got it caught and fixed fast enough to get the camera shipped out today, so it is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Of course, I was all pumped, and now............. Plus I was hoping to use it on Wednesday for a few things. Ironically, it probably all works out better, because I also ordered a memory card to use, and it will be arriving the same day as the camera now.

    The birthday party over this last weekend went really well. It was a great time, and I enjoyed seeing everyone, but the far off sister and bro-in-law in Lubbock. I was amazed that Jennifer managed to call and leave a message on my phone on my ACTUAL birthday. Stunned, simply stunned. You can read about it over at my sister, Emily's site, she posted a couple of pictures. It was cool getting to see the house first hand.

    I've been busy busy busy, with this upcoming 2nd Degree test and everything else. Once September is over, things should start falling in line a little more nicely. After school karate teaching is going pretty awesome. I'm enjoying it. I haven't substituted again, but that's mainly because of me worrying about this 2nd degree, so I plan to actively look for postings starting in October. The Movie theatre, is the movie theatre. Oh yeah, Emily and Kane, my theatre IS getting The Illusionist, starting this weekend, so I will get to catch that.

    I suppose that is it for now, not much else to say at the moment, at least that is not coming to mind after 4+ hours of karate tonight.

    TUEMO.

I am 24

    Well, today I am 24. As I recall, I don't "offically" turn 24 until around 9:30PM Pacific time, so about 10 hours from now. I won't be doing a whole lot today, because I have Karate I'll be teaching. I'll eat a nice dinner with my father and grandfather inbetween teaching though. This weekend I will be going down to Texas, and on Saturday will do a party with my sisters, bro-in-laws, mom, dady, and grandpa, and nephews. Should be a lot of fun.

    For all my friends, and those who enjoy the internet: WATCH THIS, from Wierd Al.

    Passing on a request from my friend:

Hello Everyone.

I hope everyone is doing well with Class, work, or whatever it is you are doing. School starts on Friday this week, and its going to be an exciting semester, though I am very nervous. (I have never taught before).

So here is what I want to ask. I want you to send me a postcard that represents where you live. On the back, I hope you can write a short self introduction of yourself so I can read it to my students. Not only will this motivate the students hard (especially because some of your native languages are not English, if they see that people from other countries where English is not the primary language can speak english, they will be motivated to try harder) I will also look really good at my school (hey couldn't hurt to get more acceptance at my school). If I can read them postcards from many different countries, my students will be very impressed. They are very curious. I have read their papers and many are interested in travelling all over the world and many want to see America. Even if you are not at home, a postcard from where you are would be great!

Here is an example of what to write.

Hello Students of Icchu!!
I am _________. I am from _________ in _______.
I met Matt at ______ and we are friends.
My hobbies are ______________.
Please study English very hard!
Sincerely ___________.

That is all you have to write, but of course you can write more. The level is very low, so keep that in mind.

If you do this for me, I will love you forever!!!

I will definitely return the favor, because I know this takes a little time (finding a postcard, writing it, and mailing it) (Americans can find local postcards at Walmart or gas stations)

You can mail them to me at

Matthew Hafner
Dream Heights 105
Senpuku-cho 417
Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture
915-0846

Thank you so much! It will be really great for my students! I can definitely do something in return for you!

Yours Truly
matt

    And... that's all I can really think of for now, there were some more things I wanted to say, but I've forgotten them...

    TUMEO.

Substituting

    Well, a decent amount has happened. For starters, I had my first substitute teaching job on Thursday. I could NOT fall asleep the night before, which sucked. I think I finally managed to fall asleep around 3AM. I woke up at 5:45AM. I got to the High School at 7:00AM. The office where I need to check-in at, well, the person apparently doesn't show up until about 7:30AM. Luckly I ran into one of my old teachers and chit-chatted for awhile. My first substitute teaching position was with Special Education. It was a pretty interesting day, and I went between the 3 classrooms for them, and took them to lunch. I ended up working with mainly 4 different students. The other teachers told me it was one of the rougher days, but of course I don't know any different. It wasn't bad though, and I enjoyed it, though I was a bit tired. Got to talk to 3 of my old teachers afterwards too. Oh yeah, and I got to go eat at the "faculty cafeteria". Wasn't too bad.

    I am enjoying my new phone, but still getting used to it, and the slightly different layout. My old phone is going to my lovely brother-in-law, Kane, who decided to try and give some coy in a coy pond a chance to make a phone call with his, I hear it didn't work out too well.

    I don't think I've mentioned it to too many people, but on September 30th I will be going for my 2nd Degree Black Belt. I will be testing with Brian Bryan, and earning it in his style of Tae Kwon-do. This means I've been fast tracking on learning his 14 different katas, and a few different blocks and punches that are specific to his style. Since I have helped administer a few of his Black Belt tests, I know what is coming, and it is no where near easy. No spectators are allowed to watch his Black Belt tests either. I'm about to go jogging, as I need to raise my cardio level quite badly, wish I had a stationary bike to work on.

    And yes, my birthday is coming up on the 12th. I'll be... 24, I think. I have a small list right now made up that I'll e-mail to my sisters so they have a clue as to what to buy me. I plan on getting a new camera, and my birthday present from my parents will be helping to pay for part of it. I plan on getting a digital Rebel, one of those SLR types, with the changeable lens. So... if my sisters wanted, they could go together and see about getting my a lens with somewhere around 10x zoom?? No idea how much those cost, so that might not be an option.

    This coming Tuesday marks the start of the afterschool Karate programs that I will be helping Brian with. I'm pretty excitied about it, and it will be really good experience for me.

    Léia has a meeting with the consulate towards the end of November, it is the last step in getting her visa to come over here. Things look like they will work out, and if they do, that means she will come up to the States and visit from the end of November until just after Christmas. This way she can meet my family over Christmas, and we can spend some time together. I would also plan on going back with her to Brazil, and meet her family, though for a shorter period of time, as I would have to get back to work.

    Well, that's all, I need to get to jogging, then shower, then work.

    TUMEO.