Waiting

Not much going on here at the moment. I've gone into cleaning mode, likely because I enjoyed the simplicity of life at Sunrise Ranch and am sick of having my house so cluttered up. My laptop is at Galaxy Computers, awaiting diagnosis. On the bright side, if it's a hardware problem, it's still under warranty (and HP has a good warranty). Not sure whether to hope for hardware or software. Whichever has the best chance of leaving my personal files intact, I suppose. Unencouraging: the guy at the desk put a note to the techs that said something like "if the hard-drive is bad, it's still under warranty." Bad hard-drive seems likely to have irretrievable files.

I still have the pictures on my camera from after Breakdown101, but I'm being lazy and not doing anything about it (largely to avoid trying to find the camera's installation disc to get it onto my desktop). I've got a 1 gigabyte chip in it right now, which holds roughly 400 pictures at the highest resolution.

Oh, and my sword is awesome. It feels so much better to practice the sword form with it than with a wooden practice sword. The balance is soooo much better, and it's a lot easier to keep from "paddling the air." It's a Paul Chen sword, very similar to my teacher's. He also has a Dragonwell sword, but it didn't feel quite right in my hands. Too large a grip, mainly. So I went for the Paul Chen. Which reminds me, the other Don (taiji instructor from Iowa who was at camp) introduced me to sword-sparring. I'd seen it done, but never tried it before. He was rather surprised, as I didn't make any classic beginner's mistakes. He specifically mentioned two, but the only one I remember is "getting backed into corners." I went sideways and back and forth rather than just backing up. *shrugs* I sparred with one other person...and now I can't think of her name.

One other item of interest. A while back, Idaho-Don started doing some occasional "Om" chanting during Saturday morning practice. Basically, chant "Ommmmmmm", closing off to the "mmmm" without closing the back of the throat. It is extremely energizing and relaxing, all at the same time. With a large enough group, you get a continual hummmmmm, since people don't breathe at the exact same rate. The first time we tried it, Don mentioned that some Tibetan monks could get a harmonic going in the nasal cavities, so they would be chanting two (or more) pitches at once. The second time we tried it, I actually got one of those harmonics. It didn't last long, but it was there. How? Uh...the best description I can give is that I relaxed everything behind my eyes and let my throat hang open. Anyway, I thought it might be a one-time deal until this morning, when I tried it on my own. I actually had three notes going some of the time. According to the Wikipedia article, and other sources I've read, it's possible to get SIX notes going at once. Oh, and the Tibetan chant CD I picked up does have some of the overtonal chanting on it. It's pretty awesome to listen to.