According to the basic youtube stats, it's very few...maybe like 10-20 per video. When I looked the other day I actually had quite a few more subscribers (61) than I expected. I don't subscribe to very much stuff on youtube, I generally just go and watch the things directly, even from the ones that I watch every single episode. And I really dislike those things at the end of vlogs etc like, subscribe and comment blah blah blah.
Anyway, I left the vlog uploading while I went to bed last night.
Vlog 14.
And it's a top post, so here's a painting.
This was found by typing "Easter at the Beach painting"
On a very quick look at stats of Youtube, none of these subscribers have signed up since about a year ago. Most are footbag or freestyle football related. the views are coming much more from non subscribed than subscribed and I imagine the subscribed ones would just be a coincidence that they came across that video through Facebook or other platforms taking them there.
Today is a rare Friday where I have the weekend off, and I have to say I'm really pleased about that. Heading down to the beach tomorrow. Going to the Raiders match tonight, though the rain is looming, I think I will still go anyway.
We had a wonderful weekend away. The weather was just perfect, which is funny because today, back to work, it's been raining the whole day. I will hopefully make a cool vlog from the time away. I used my gopro in the surf, just bodysurfing, for the first time. I've always been concerned about losing it, but it wasn't too rough so I gave it a try.
I just played briefly in my break today somewhere undercover. I was wearing these shoes I got at Christmas time, and it was a struggle. I'm a bit annoyed with myself because I chucked those blue shoes in the bin. There was no room left in my luggage, but I could hit pretty much any trick with them. It's not the same with these white ones. Francisca has been pushing for me to get a new pair of Lavers. I think I have three and they all have cracked soles, but I don't like the idea of not being able to hit whatever I like with a different pair of shoes. I also don't like the price of shipping. But it's on the to do list. That might be a reward for completing prac.
My big idea for a reward for completing prac was to go to Worlds, but I don't think that's going to be happening unfortunately. I still haven't really recovered financially from the trip to Chile (moreso from the living there and going unprepared). There has started to be some discussion of buying a house, but I don't really like the idea at this stage. I would like to be in a significantly improved financial position, and that may come with a teaching job.
Anyway, not much footbag in this post. I did hit a locomotion in these stupid shoes, so maybe they can't be all bad. I have generally been able to play a bit in pretty much any shoes, but these have been some of the worst. Which has been disappointing, because they are quite similar in shape to the Rod Laver shoe.
Haven't made a post in a while. I'm at the midway point in my prac and that's going quite well. Will be very interesting to see how everything goes once I finish up, as I've done all the coursework now, so next stop is to look into registration and then hopefully getting a job, and even better a permanent job.
I have been kicking a bit very late at night, as I'm also working at the hostel after the school days. Pretty tiring periods. I'm not too concerned though, as it will be all over in a couple of weeks, and also in the last week I am not working at all. Next week could be a bit difficult, but I think that should work just fine.
In terms of kicking, I hit a cool trick the other day, neo motion. I don't imagine too many people would have hit that, though I imagine plenty could if they tried. I also kicked with Copey on the weekend, that was great to catch up, I had alpine food processor come off my foot and did a few other tricky tricks.
Here's two vlogs I did since my last posting.
I am thinking of going to Sydney this coming weekend. My cousin is coming out from Norway and it would be really cool to catch up. The Raiders are also playing up there, so that could be cool to see.
I have signed up to the new system of footblogs, but I would also like to keep this one going. There are more than 10 years of junk in here and I don't really want to just transfer that over, if that was even possible. I really like the ease on there of putting in clips from youtube, instagram, etc. That's really good. You can also set up multiple sites, which I have started working on.
So I think I will make that blog a semi-serious one. In here I can write things like drills, just general sessions. The two other sites I have set up so far are one called "Footbag in the News" and the idea of that is pretty simple, to collect articles from various media about footbag. Which is something I've done on and off in this blog, but this will be a central location for that, with a link to each article dated to the date it was published. That is something that could be used as a good source for people wanting to promote footbag, showing a consistent promotion through the years. It's also a bit of a fun research project.
The other one is going to be about footbag education, and I will work on that a bit more once I finish my degree, which is next week. That's pretty exciting. Last week of prac and I'm hoping to make it a good one.
Kicked a little bit over the weekend. Can't remember hitting anything particularly new or exciting, but it was a beautiful sunny day when the prediction was for pouring rain all weekend.
Awesome! Such an important job. I taught English at a primary school in Japan for a couple of years. It was so much fun. I have so many great memories from that time.
Additionally, we can be academic nerds and talk about research/theory/practice.
Last week has all finished up, and that's really great. At the end you get a report that aligns to the Standards for teaching, of which there are 37. You may or may not tick off all these things, but obviously if you have them ticked off on your report, it is significantly easier to argue that you have some evidence of these practices in your own practice when you have the interview which will decide which kind of jobs you can get.
No pressure, but you only get a permanent job if you go really well in this interview. Yes, it is to aim to have better teachers in the permanent positions, but I think bringing it down to just one interview is not really a fair process.
Anyway, that's all done. Had some drinks with the little team afterwards, and that was pleasant. I enjoyed the vibe at the school. They told me that once I get my accreditation to teach casually, I should get in touch, so that would be a great place to start.
I have played some footbag, but not much. Some 30ish contact runs, some cool combos. Nothing really outstanding. I've had a few late night sessions in the garage. It's always hard to get warm as the winter approaches. Actually, it's been very rare for me to even take my jumper off. Hopefully over the weekend I can have an outdoor session, but we have a house inspection on Monday, which is a pain. It is for that reason that I arrived home from work close to midnight and went straight to clean the oven. Good times...
My friend Dianne, that plays freestyle football, has been out injured pretty well the whole year. She's back in action now, which is great, so hopefully we will meet for a kick soon. She usually has a pretty busy schedule so we will see if our paths can cross.
So I have been tracking my expenses for a while now. Well, since the start of last year. What I had meant to do and hadn't done up until today was to make a comparison to last year. Things are looking pretty good actually, which I was a little surprised by. I have actually spent almost $5,000 less in this first months of the year against last year - though a big chunk of that is because I paid the rent for January on the final days of December, but it's still positive signs.
I don't think I put my most recent vlog up on here. Bit of footbag in here, with hiking shoes. Including a mirage race style thing on top of a mountain. I actually filmed this ages ago when I first started doing the vlogs but hadn't had a chance to put it together.
I was looking also at a folder called "videos from Chile" that has endless, unlabelled files. I might use some of them in future vlogs.
I had a nice little session today down at the tennis court. After finishing my prac a few people were asking me about having a weight off my shoulders, and now that we have had our house inspection and I am just back to regular work, that feeling is coming through. The highlight of yesterday was probably stepping ss motion, which I've hit before, but I find it harder than some of the other motion tricks.
I didn't film anything there at the courts, I was just having a kick in the sun. Had some good long runs there, quite a few over 30 contacts. Didn't really try for too many bigger combos or anything. I also played at the uni yesterday, as I had to go and hand in my final prac report. Now I am figuring out the process for getting registration as a teacher. Seems I might have to wait until getting all my results to start the process, though the results come out at the end of this week.
Ken put a vlog up in his blog, mainly about Euros. I put a few comments on the Facebook page about the shorter routines and the dangers of carpet that can lift up. There must be some better way to do it, but I don't really know what that is. I had a crash during the Circle Contest in Denmark due to an issue in the surface, so I guess it's something I feel a little strongly about.
I made another vlog, just some general shots of the city and a bit about completing my uni degree. I'm made some serious progress, hopefully, in regards to making the next steps into the teaching world. I have sent off an email today enquiring about casual teaching work. It pays quite well and if I could get into that sooner rather than later, there could even be a small window in which I go to Worlds, but I'm not relying on that. That was my basic plan at this time last year, the nice idea.
The reality is I haven't got the money for it. I have been pretty disciplined with my financial things lately, so maybe Worlds next year could be an option. No one has mentioned it, but I have the feeling Aranjuez was a bit of a test run for a Spanish Worlds bid? Just a guess on that one. That would be fun. There is a budget airline that has been advertising really cheap flights to Europe, so even if it's not a thing, I might look at going to Euros next year. The flights only go to Greece, but you can connect things up pretty well from there.
I've got another vlog lined up to put up sometime this week, I was getting a bit off rhythm on the timing during the prac, I would like to go back to making it a weekly thing.
I went to this exhibition today at the National Library of Australia, "Melodrama in Meji Japan". It was quite interesting, it was a whole concept that I knew practically nothing about, with some interesting stories behind it, and a particularly common theme in the rise of reading/education in the empowerment of women at the time.
Here's me strolling by the lake afterwards with the family.
I had a short session today in the garage. As mentioned we had a lot of family visiting over the weekend, then I was working the rest of the time. I had considered going for a late night shred, but it's just been too cold. It was still cold when I went out there today, but I got a little bit warm eventually.
I hit alpine blurry whirl, which is something I haven't done in a while. I also hit motion sickness, but I hit that with reasonable regularity. I played around with the soccer ball a bit in that session. Got some runs of 5 or so in a row. I was a bit rusty on that, and didn't have a lot of space. I did a PLO with the ball at the end, and that was enough to finish.
I have a long, long shift at work today. I was actually looking forward to an earlier than usual finish, but the girl who was walking called in sick, so I will be here until late, but I'll take some hours off tomorrow, so that should work ok.
I was glad to play today. I spelt a lot of the morning feeling quite lethargic and unenthusiastic but decided it would be best to try and get in a session. This was something worthwhile in the end. I also played for a short while in my dinner break. It was pretty cold out, but I was able to do 10 guiltless in one of my first couple of runs and finished off with a spinning whirl, so that was worthwhile too.
I got some new shoes delivered in the mail. 3 x Quantums. It's been a long time since I've played in those shoes (maybe back to 2010, I think I got one pair before Berlin, they were completely wrecked by the end of that trip, I bought some new ones at Worlds and think I just went back to Lavers the next year as there were problems with the availability.
I've solved the availability ordeal by ordering 3 pairs. I'm going to make a little vlog about the new shoes. I would just like to say that inside the box was also a package of Swiss chocolate, which was a pretty awesome addition. A few of my aunts are actually in Switzerland right now, posting some great photos. I had an awesome time there, would be cool to go back again.
Anyway, first run on the first pair of shoes was 23 contacts. That's the big reputation, that they can play straight out of the box, and that's a pretty good indication. In the course of testing them out I hit a few cool things, ripstein, food processor. It's early days, well the very first day, but I was really happy with how they played so far.
Congrats on getting so many pairs of new shred shoes. I know what an ordeal it can be to have proper shoes, and I'm down to my last pair of G-Units. Honestly not 100% sure what I'll do once these run out, so I'm envious you won't have to worry about that for a while.
I'm really pleased about that. When they put that announcement on there, I knew I had to make a purchase. I have been holding off on new Lavers because the exchange is not great at the moment and the shipping was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but this one was a once in a blue moon opportunity. I probably stepped in a big puddle around the same time, so it was a good time for new shoes!
It was nice to log on to Modified and see a bunch of new posts, new videos etc. Over in the new section I have still been figuring our exactly what I'd like to do. One thing I did do is create a post to keep all my vlogs in the same place, so I will update that each time I make a new one.
My little newspaper project has started, but will need plenty more to add to it. I think I've got about 10 articles in there so far, but I haven't done much work on that lately.
Over the weekend I went for a picnic with a colleague from work, he is from Nepal. He told me he had started playing this game they used to play at school that was a bit like footbag, so we were playing that. I'ts called Chungi. I made a post on the Facebook group but there wasn't much more information.
I have had a couple of kicks with it and have been able to freestyle with it pretty well, getting like 15 or so contact guiltless runs with the thing. It's made of just a whole heap of elastic bands tied together. I actually hit a few fives with it yesterday - blurry whirl, paradox blender, phoenix, spinning whirl. Maybe a couple of others. I came close with ripped warrior and mobius as well. It's quite different, but I find it a lot easier to do freestyle with than some other things, like the jianzi for example. Interesting to find out about a new foot game that I had no idea about. We didn't see anything like that when we were in Nepal either, though we weren't there for that long. I'm going to put together a video of that, probably for an upcoming vlog.
I had a kick yesterday with Dianne. She's had some injuries so we haven't actually met this year, so great to kick again. I was doing some stuff with the ball and went better than expected, as I haven't practiced much. Hopefully there will be a couple of competitions for that this year, haven't heard anything so far.
Went to a concert on the weekend. It was the final show at the ANU Bar. It the 90s they had a lot of really big name acts - Nirvana, Faith No More, Tool, Fear Factory, Sepultura etc. So it's a really renowned venue, though it won't be anymore as it is getting knocked down. I went to a lot of good shows there. This one was OK, a lot of bands that haven't played for a long while playing.
I have finished my teaching degree now, have a permit to teach, which is the lowest level of registration, but at least it's something. That will mean I can start casual teaching. I have sent my paperwork off to do that, so hopefully can kick that off soon. This current term ends next week, so it will probably be next term for that.
I was pleased with the speed at how I got this one together. Last week I was very pleased to pick up a package from the post office, with some shoes, from Switzerland. There was also some chocolate from Switzerland which disappeared quite quickly. The shoes on the other hand appeared quite quickly, I wasn't hoping for a particularly rapid arrival.
So I put the video together with the runs to test the shoes. I have decided to keep two back in their box, and try and really just use them for footbag and not for walking around. The Quantums are ultra fragile and I don't want to rip them not even kicking. So I've got a pair of Lavers that are pretty worn, but I can wear them around, and even the hiking shoes I wear fairly often do a good job.
So seems like my teaching paperwork is in and schools are already starting to call me. I have been offered the whole week next week. Potentially that could put Worlds back on the map, but I doubt it. Will probably look at how things work for next term. This coming week is the last week of term. So that's an interesting.
Today I was quite indecisive at times. At first I put on my Quantums, planning a session down at the courts, but it was freezing and foggy, so after dropping Nico off I just came back home. Nico proudly announced to his educators "My Daddy's beard felled off" (I got a haircut and a shave yesterday). Once I had come back home the sun showed it was thinking of coming out, so I set off on a long ride. I didn't really have a great plan of where I was going, but I got some footbag in along the way.
In a give away of what's happening in a future vlog, I was in the Royal Military College, which is also kind of a normal, but not really normal, suburb. And they started doing the testing of the fire alarm system. I got quite a good run going while the alarm is blaring and you could also hear the regular parade going on as normal. I went out past the airport to a place I've never been to before, which is also some sort of military/suburb area. In the end I played on the tennis court there, which tied things together. Rod Laver would be proud...
I have been playing in bits and pieces. Probably only had one proper session, and that session included a 60 contact guiltless run. I was working on some ideas for the 100 guiltless challenge. I think if I do it, it's going to be with some fairly boring, systematic run, and with a lot of tricks repeated. It's been a goal of mine for a while, so that would be good to tick off.
I spent the past week teaching at a school, it was good overall, though the last day of term was not great fun. I did a little bit of footbag with the class. The first day they were very enthusiastic about it, the second day, which was the last of term...maybe not so much. I've filmed a bunch of stuff for future vlogs but I haven't done any work on them. Maybe next week will be a bit more relaxed, it's school holidays now, so there will be no school to worry about.
I had another short session in recent days, I had one run that had backside spikehammer and food processor in the same run, I was pretty happy with that.
The Raiders are having a disastrous season. I was glad I missed the game last night. Negative temperatures and very bad play. Had some friends in town so had some fun with them.
I played today at the tennis court and I played pretty well at times. Was my first time there playing in the Quantum shoes and early in the session I nearly had a 5 fearless run, which was a pretty good start. (phoenix>blurry whirl>spinning ducking butterfly>spinning ducking osis, drop on pdx blender. I had some good runs that had multiple fives in them. It had been raining overnight but the surface was not too slippery.
I've got a couple of vlogs planned, but I haven't done anything about them as yet, well I have at least got the files onto the computer, so I guess that's a start. Hopefully there's some good runs that turn out well on video. I've been able to get a couple of more serious sessions in over the last few days, rather than just getting a few tricks in during a break.
I just did my tax return and I'm going to get some money back, which I wasn't really expecting. A part of me though, hey, I could use it to go to Worlds, but a more realistic part of me thought about upcoming bills and other expenses, Worlds is not on the cards this year.
I'm not exactly sure what I plan to do in regards to teaching for the rest of this year. I think it will be best to just stick on casual relief teaching and get called up every now and then, and to keep working at the hostel, that means that when the holidays hit and there is no work in teaching, that I will still have money.
Heading up to Sydney next weekend, Dyalan was sick last time we went up there, might try and catch up with him this time around. I was planning to catch the train as Nico likes trains, but it's double the price it normally is, which is quite annoying. Let's see what to do in that case. I was going to leave you with no pictures or videos, but here's something from 2 years back thanks to the Facebook on this day stuff.
