Guitar, Gym, study, Family, Life

I have had about 6 guitar lessons

- The first lesson was awesome - I learnt so much about 6 chords, then I tried to learn how to strum, with my right hand and it all went wrong - this is really difficult for me, I can't keep rhythm. I can't hit the strings with up and down strokes and not strike the strings with up and down strokes in a consistent time and constantly keep my right hand in rhythm and I am far from being able to do this and seamlessly change chords...

But I am not ready to give up - just yet!

I joined the gym on Saturday, it is a local gym - not a chain.. it is small and cheap, but the equipment is good. I am not really an exercise person... but recently I am inspired as I have been losing weight by not drinking alcohol during the week (still have a few beers at the weekend though) and walking everyday...  In the UK I weighed 83kg (ashamed to say) and in fashion and body conscious Korea - this is a bad weight to be. but things are moving, in the right direction... so I am putting this out there with my target. But my main aim is just losing the beer gut! but I enjoy beer, and Korean Chicken - too much)  I think that Korean food has really helped - It is quite healthy, but I love it.. a bit too much. As is common in Korea, gyms provide clothes to wear in the gym, for a small additional fee... last night the owner asked me "Extra Large" - the t shirt he gave me may have been extra large but was skinny fit - like a muscle vest... this is so far away from what my body shape is...  so this is my new target, to fit in the XL - T-shirt without looking so hideous! - I worry that someone may complain!

You can follow my Korean study progress on my other blog but I am currently having 3 lessons a week and trying to squeeze in as much self study as I came - listening is still improving, but speak is still a struggle...  but little by little I am making progress...

Lots of things going on in my family life too,

Harvey has started football and the other week he had a 3 game tournament - they lost - (0-0,0-0,0-1) but i was impressed by Harvey's skill and determination and it was a good day.

Last Saturday I attended Erin's kindergarten open day. Each child had to perform on stage and Erin had been practising all week!  When the performances started, I was surprised as the Parents joined their child on stage in matching t-shirts and all sang together... Act 2 - matching T-shirts... so when our turn came around we joined Erin on stage and I managed to break out some of the dance moves and about 5 words to the song... Harvey carried us with his loud singing and I think Erin was a bit stage frightened - but we had fun!


Here are the teachers giving their performance

Muffin Tops and Bingo wings at the Lunchtime exercise club

I have recently joined some more health concious members of my team to exercise at lunchtime.  We (believe it or not)  go to one of the female sleeping rooms in my company office block.  We do between 4 - 6 sets of Squats 45 seconds of squats 15 seconds of break time, 4 sets of the impossibly painful plank, some pushups (usually I try to avoid these) and some other random exercises that our Team JJang (manager) dreams up, usually on the spot.  I usually try to distract people from my rubbish-ness at exercising by injecting my own brand of humour in to the proceedings, such as squatting out of time and humming crayon pop bar bar bar..

Or taking the opportunity to teach them humorous words for the misshaped bodies that we are trying to rid ourselves of...  So far I have managed  to teach them

Muffin tops

and Bingo wings

To tackle these problems, Team JJang has started us on a new stretching regime using an elastic stretching rope and on day 3 I can confidently say that..."It hurts like buggery!!!"

Another FUN aspect of working in a Korean Company!