The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.
Thank you to those who were loyal followers of this old blog. In the spirit of new beginnings – among other things – I’ve moved myself to a new home. In the interests of not attracting any unwanted audience(s), please email me at cmdrdantecrazy@yahoo.com (it’s an odd name for a reason) so that I may email you the link to my new voice. Kindly state who you are and your blog and we shall take it from there.
Happy belated New Year and Happy early Lunar New Year! (of the Dragon)
I am officially closing this blog (or simply letting it die out).
Two things:
1.) In the first week of September I had invited my master teacher (my immediate supervisor) to my Facebook. Unawares to me I had linked up this blog to my Facebook account. It wasn’t until two hours after I had accepted her invitation that I realized she was going to read this post. I quickly deleted the link on my Facebook – but my precautions were too little too late. In a span of 10 hours from the time she read it at 10pm, I was firedfrom my position as student intern.
Basically, I am now an official member of the dooced club. After getting in touch with my program director and after being told that under normal circumstances that student interns would be expelled from the program if given the boot from a principal…I was given a chance to explain my case to her and another high official at my university. Scared and shamed I went to the meeting, but long story short I was given a second chance; with conditions.
Unfortunately that was only the opener.
2.) Recent developments (~ 1 month ago) have deteriorated my standing in the dojo to the point that I have been “asked” to take a 2 week sabbatical from all dojo functions. My title as child instructor has also been taken away until further notice and my position as the community liaison for the dojo is on “indefinite” hold.
No words could describe the shame, distraught, and helplessness that I felt in the week following the meeting when one of the yudansha brought me the news that day. He acted on behalf of the other black belts and my Sensei.
I won’t get into detail in this so much but post-meeting I did remember acting out of line. My actions were cocky, inconsiderate, and not of a 1st kyu – who’s next belt would be black. I will also say that I unintentionally step on some toes – particularly some of the junior sensei – the lower ranking black belts. Fortunately – or unfortunately there were no transgressions done to both of my Sensei (as stated by him when I met him after the first meeting with the yudansha). I have too much respect for my Sensei to do such things, but I guess I am too much of a brat to do the same with the other ones.
I really don’t know what to say at this point. It’s been a week since I met up with my Sensei and although I felt better after our meeting (he did more than simply address what had transpired), I can’t help but feel that I single-handedly brought down the honor of the dojo.
Which brings me back to this blog.
For over a year I’ve chronicled my adventures in the art through my dojo. I’ve laid down some insightful posts…and some not so much (these were more personal in nature and did not pertain to the dojo). I have gained some friends, lost some, gained some more. I have detailed the art’s highlights to the best of my (in)ability and some of its nuances from the view of a rising rank holder.
That being said, the current revelations have made me realize that this blog is no longer an accurate, positive depiction of myself as an emergingaikidoist and as a psudo-representative of my dojo(s) and the teachings of my multiple sensei. It is with a heavy heart to also say that in a way, I have also let you – my few loyal followers – down. There’s a part of me that feels that I should have seen this coming, but in the interest of keeping what I have gained, I suppose I let my ego blind me.
I do plan on continuing to write in some capacity or another. However, I have decided, that in the interest of those parties affected by my intentional and unintentional actions, to close this blog.
When will I start-up again? Probably sometime soon or sometime long into the future. Who knows, whenever that maybe I feel that my presence and my voice is no longer welcomed at this point.
When I’m allowed back into my dojo, I don’t know what will happen. My situation has been talked about through most of the members and through some of those outside. I feel a lot of emotions at the moment (even almost two weeks after the revelations): anger, shame, sadness, bitterness, etc.
Whatever happens though, I would like to thank those who have followed me since the beginning. Thank you, you made my first foray into theblogsphere memorable and worthwhile experience. It brings me sadness, with a bit of anger that my experiment has ended this way. If any of you are mad, disappointed, weirded (whatever) out at me; please go for it! I have nothing but honesty left. It’s really up to the Universe at this point. If you wish to continue to follow me, please leave a comment below and enter an email address or a medium where in the event that I bring up a blog, I may contact you.
Some of you might be asking “why did you do what you did?”. Without being too open (in the event those parties who are affected read this). The school thing was a professional miscalculation on my part. As for the dojo situation: there are some past mistakes that no matter how much you do to put them behind you, they just keep on coming back to screw things up.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I wish you well in your respective journeys.
As noted in an earlier post, I it was recently discovery that I had ADD as a child. With reassurances from some in the blogging community I thought I’d go ahead and put a brief history of my life concerning this new revelation. This isn’t the complete cliff notes, but I hope you enjoy the beginning of the journey nonetheless.
As stated, on a visit to a psychiatrist last month he had determined that as a child I likely went undiagnosed with ADD, otherwise known as Attention Deficit Disorder. I guess this didn’t come too much of a shock to me since as far as I can remember I was always a little off as a child; quiet yet emotional, physically adapt yet unable to academically “fit in” (I did have my scholarly moments). My academics were erratic as best; there were years where I was stellar in K-12; others I was in the dumps with Cs and Ds! (for those not from the USA, it’s kindergarten through 12th grade – ages 5-17).
One year in middle school however, I discovered a saving grace: sports and exercise. That year was the year I was on the cross-country team. Man was it tough! Running three miles for an 8th grader is no walk in the park. However I assumed that was what got my grades up to a 3.9 GPA (stupid French, I only got a B+).
So that was it. The only time my grades ever breached the 3.5 gpa mark. I use to have a 4.0 gpa the first semester of my graduate program but it was since fallen due to subject course load and subject matter. Goddamn.
So there’s my ADD history in short. Nowadays it’s just known as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hypertension Disorder). Why the scientific community upped the standard of those with this type of existence is beyond me. Just being ADD already carries a badge (of honor or shame depends; I prefer the first) and just being typecast is already something to consider. Anyway, my academic woes didn’t stop at college, I’m still struggling with in my program and in my classroom placements.
That aside, I would like to share this part of myself because of my martial arts history. I did Shaolin Kung Fu for 4 years from 6th – 9th grades. Unfortunately that didn’t end well (different story). My cross-country experience was only for one season – I did it for 8th grade and entered high school being on the team but dropped out in favor of taking an accelerated literature course for freshman (a decision I’ve regretted ever since!).
My attitude towards the classroom has been a bipolar one; either I’m deafly neutral to them or they’ve been the bane of my existence. The only time I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a classroom setting has been when I’ve had a great teacher. By “great” I mean “balls-to-the-wall-I-love-teaching-AND-I-know-my-stuff”. I bet that some of you have had teachers who were quite animated and enthusiastic about themselves and their topic(s).
Anyway I digress. So yes, the way to attract my attention in a class was to have an awesome teacher. Otherwise forget it! I’ve off into my own little world, drumming on the desks, daydreams, swinging the legs, etc. If you wanted to get me you’d need to go kinesthetic; that’s academic speak for “activities that involves movement”. Not surprisingly, my cross-country experience and my current forays into Aikido had yield positive results and growth in multiple facets of my life in terms of energy, self-control, self-confidence, self-dignity, and direction (among others).
I won’t get into details as to how to handle ADD/ADHD. I’m not a licensed professional (yet) and am just one guy among many trying to sort out his own craziness. But what I will say is that my journey is one that is riddled with trial and error (with amusing and tragic results!). There’s nothing particular at the moment that I want to focus on, but I will be including my “condition”, and will be sharing findings that I find of interest.
Till next time ladies and gents!
So this one took some thinking and a couple of months. Well, actually just 2; as part of my journey in Aikido (and martial arts in general) I feel that this revelation is one that will be a major driving force for the coming years if not for my life. I don’t really know why I’m doing this, but I suppose this aspect of myself has been with me since the day I was born. Additionally I’ve been thinking about the future of this blog; what sort of direction I should take?
Should I be writing about Aikido? My training? The connections between Aikido and other martial arts? How my personal life has been affected by my training?…And other goody stuff.
I wanted to share about a revelation that a psychiatrist made about me a month ago. The news that I went undiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder as a child wasn’t easy to take, but at the same time it was a relief. I’ve suspected this for over a decade due to a lot of things that have happened in the past. Something like this might be too much for some viewers, but I wanted to test the waters out first. Would anybody mind me including this aspect in my martial arts ramblings? For those of you unfamiliar to ADD, here’s a site that gives the juste .
Till next time ladies and gents!
The Journey of an Accidental Aikidoist 