Real Life Grading

I was graded last Sunday. The grading itself wasn’t that difficult, I was actually very familiar with the syllabus, and I have been training regularly, in fact, I didn’t really care about grading nowadays, I only care about training and learning more from it. But this grading seems different, it is coincided with one of the most difficult phase in my life, and because of that the grading becomes several folds more difficult. But I managed to pass through it…

Now I have to prepare myself for the real life grading, real life test of my perseverance, my determination, and my will. The toilet bowl in me is already full of shit(pardon the language), in fact, it’s almost over the edge. Sometimes I envy animal which doesn’t need to live a life full of mannerism and keeps their composure. Their life is not full of pretense. The only thing important to them is how to survive, but for us human, it’s different. Hopefully I can pass this important test, and the toilet bowl will be emptied again, and be ready to receive all the shits again hopefully tomorrow’s training can knock some sense to me again… For anyone who read this, sorry for this gloomy entry! I just need to throw this one out a little bit.

No Regret for Training

Today is a very busy day. This morning I attended one interview session and late for 30 mins because of the bloody bus that I waited for more than 25 minutes. Impatient, I go to the taxi stand and although there’s no queue, but there’s also no cab! Calling the taxi company to no avail and I have to resort back to the bus stop. Luckily they understand my reason and it went smoothly. Finished with the first business, I went back, changed my clothes, pack my karate gi, and left to Chinatown for lunch with my wife. After lunch, heading towards the dojo for the late afternoon session.

I was feeling a little bit lazy and only thinking about how nice my bed is with these breezy weather. But somehow finally I managed to win over my laziness. During training I was exhausted since I’m not used to train in the afternoon again. Yet, finished the session and still felt that I was able to train a little bit more. That ‘a little bit more’ resulted in an additional two hours of training. Not only that, I have managed to fulfill one-third of my new year resolution during those two hours! After the exhausting additional session and a good shower, I swear that it was really refreshing The after-effect of the training is one of the ecstasy besides the training itself. It surely feels rewarding after hard training days. Any serious martial artists definitely understand this, and I dare to say that they must feel the same about it.

Martabak Manis aka Pancake!!!

Yeahhhh!!! Now it is Martabak Manis!!! My friend in Batam help me bought the ‘loyang martabak’, erhh… basically it’s the pan to make Indonesian sweet pancake, two weeks ago. Fetched the ‘loyang’ after did some errants in Batam, then last week I finally make my first proper martabak manis. I made it a couple of years before, but since I used teflon pan, not a proper thick pan for pancakes, the result was a very think pancake, since the heat is not enough to actually cook it. Well, the waiting has finally over and do enjoy the picture!!(make it yourself if you want it or buy it please )

Recipe? Well, you can always refer to the resourceful cikcik’s website I actually used another recipe here. And here’s the tips and tricks to properly make it. Sorry, everything is in Indonesian Maybe someday I have to translate some of those recipes to English huh? Btw, the result is not bad, but it is not as fibrous(direct translation from Indonesian: bersarang :p sorry, don’t really know the term here). Maybe next time I will use more baking soda. Oh, I also feel that the yeast was too much, maybe either don’t use it or reduced it by half.