Don't forget to breathe, very important.

I have taken up Tae Kwon Do this week which is fun, although I do not understand the commands just yet. I decided my goal has shifted from learning a martial art to obtaining a black belt in TKD. This will not be easy and may take several years, but if it were easy it would not be worth doing. Although flexibility may be an issue.

Thursday night I went to the driving range with some guys from work. After realising it is less about power and more about technique I got some pretty good drives in, even scoring a hole in one. Although I was not actually aiming for that hole.

This weekend was sunny so I spent it out wandering around. Did a short six km loop on Saturday and on Sunday decided to head out to the countryside. Thanks to my policy on turning back I ended up doing a 15km trek which included some cross country. Still, good exercise.


Work has been going well, the students are loving my policy of wearing a hat when outdoors. My fedora gets greeted with the Indiana Jones theme or mentions of cowboy or gangster while my flat cap. Well they haven't come up with a good one for that yet. I think I will get a white panama for summer. I have also taken to wearing pocket squares, just to raise the bar that much more.

Tigers are Nice in moderation...

The Waitangi day pub crawl was brilliant. Small speed bump at the start as I went to the wrong station, but going clockwise I managed to find the leading edge. Pretty easy to tell as I ran into Phar Lap and some all blacks. Over the course of the day I also saw sheep, beer bottles, poppa jacks, All whites, a kiwi cop, and strangely enough Buzz Lightyear. I drank with a variety of people in different pubs, ran into a girl from uni, found a toy gun, got lost, got some exercise, and overall had a great time.

First term went off without a hitch, more or less. I have only really had to shout once and the kids seem nice enough. Looks like I will be there until June, hopefully I can extend this further. I bought a new three piece suit recently, lack pinstripe. Now, I look damn good in it but as I have lately taken to wearing a fedora I do have a certain gangster look going on. The kids love it, I have all sorts of nicknames along that line, or cowboy, etc. Much better than the Terminator.

I had half-term break this week. Started off with the best of intentions to get out and do stuff. However due to a combination of poor weather and sleeping in I did not do anything out of the norm until Wednesday. I went into London, wandered round, sorted some things, went to the Science museum but left pretty soon due to all the kids around. Also saw two movies over the week. First The Wolfman which, while it did have some good points, was largely pretty naff. This Saturday I saw Solomon Kane, nice and violent but did not leave me feeling inspired or even particularly entertained. I also spent some time looking into different hobbies, etc. Figure it is about time I started getting to know new people and learn new skills. So far I have chosen archery, fencing, and some form of martial art, probably Tae Kwon Do or Karate. Just a matter of getting in touch with the groups and finding out how to get involved.

Speaking of getting involved, I have recently discovered the Art of Manliness community. A wonderful site full of advice, articles, and fascinating stories. It has inspired me to further refine my personality and attitude to life. Starting off with setting down core values, fashion changes, taking up hobbies. I have also been looking into something called adventure philanthorpism. The basic idea is that you raise money for a charity and they send you to do something cool like climb a mountain or jump out of a plane. However as mum pointed out I do not really know many people here which would make fund raising a little difficult. Still, while searching I did come across some good deals to Kilimanjaro, Inca trail, Petra, Scandanavia, etc which could be a lot of fun.