Hooray! Success! Went to Tesco today (a different one) and found not only a french press for only 250 kc (about $12.50), so I can finally have real coffee instead of instant, but also four swing-top bottles of beer! The brand is nothing I'm particularly fond of, but I'll choke it down for the bottles, no problem.
It's an unfiltered beer with 5% alcohol content. Better be careful with this one. It was cheap though. Like... Suspiciously cheap. 25 kc per bottle. The funny thing is, they were also selling empty bottles for 250 mutha-fucken crowns each.
They also had a 5 liter mason jar for quite a good price, but I decided not to get it for now. It would have been a nightmare to get it home, and 5 L might be a bit too much. I'm not even sure where I'd put it. Right now I'm munching on one of my pickles and resisting the temptation to test my in-progress kombucha.
Regarding emotional state today, when I woke up I immediately decided not to go to training. I felt like a puddle of sludge. The cat napped lovingly on my chest for nearly an hour with me watching him before I could finally drag myself up enough to feed him. I played video games for a short time, then made breakfast, then did my push-ups, then painted for a while. I started a new painting last night which is clearly going to take a while to finish, but I'm happy with the idea of it so it'll be worth it. I'm trying to push myself to do a little at a time, not to burn myself out on it. Slowly I started to feel depressed, so I decided I'd better get up and do something. I did one more set of push-ups (I'm up to sets of 10 today!), got dressed, and headed out shopping.
First stop was the secondhand bookstore. They always have a bin of 10-kc books outside (that's about $0.50). They put it outside because they don't even care if people steal these books, they're so useless. I dug through until I found a couple with interesting old illustrations I can butcher and use for various art projects. Then I got some falafel (chatting with my Slovak friend who works at the pizza/gyros place and doesn't speak any English while the falafel cooked) and walked to the supermarket.
It was a longer shopping trip than I expected, and I was really exhausted by the time I got home, but I definitely feel better than I did before.
So, analysis. I think I might be trying to push myself too hard with the Taiji training thing. I want to make use of the time, so I want to go to every training, but when it comes down to it, I don't particularly care for most of what we do at these trainings. When we have normal 1.5-hour classes, we use the time to learn and refine the form and do a few other exercises. But during these 3.5-hour sessions, my teacher uses the time to play with partner exercises and "practical applications" which are not actually very practical, and I don't actually enjoy that stuff very much. The parts I like the most are standing (which is better done at the end of the day when the body is loosened up, rather than at 8:30 in the morning), going through the details of the form (which we don't do until about 10:45) and learning a new form, the Master Huang Refined Simplified form, which we don't do until after 11. Those three parts together add up to be about an hour and a half, but I'm trying to go for more than twice that amount of time and I'm not enjoying most of it. For sure it's better than sitting around doing nothing, but after 3 weeks of going almost every single day, I think I'm burnt out.
My teacher will happily teach me the new form whenever we have spare time. And we'll go through the details of the form plenty of other times. It's not really the end of the world if I miss one or two days here and there during this month. So it might be better for me not to go every day now... BUT I have to find productive ways to spend that time. And I still have to practice. AND I can also go to training late. I'll only miss the parts I don't like, since my favorite parts are right at the end. Better, even, to get there late and not be completely exhausted by the time we get to my favorite parts.
I suppose it would be prudent to make a list of activities which are acceptable uses of my time, particularly when I'm skipping training. Even during regular down time, it's actually kind of surprising I haven't thought to make a list like this yet, to push myself a bit more away from video games and movies.
-Drawing/Painting
-Writing
-Reading
-Practicing taiji
-Playing with the cat
-Exercising (push-ups, jumping rope, etc.)
-Going for a walk/hike
-Cleaning
-Cooking
-Practicing cajon
-Meeting friends for just about anything
-Listening to music and singing/dancing
-Reading up on the books I'll need for the next school year
Activities which must be limited:
-Video games
-Watching TV/films
-Napping
I'm very open to other suggestions for things that should be added to these lists. I feel like they look awfully short, yet I can't think of other things to put on there... When did my life get so boring?