Lame Excuses and New Challenges

Holà again!

So after this impromptu hiatus, I’m finally back and will hopefully start posting regularly again. What happened is I clearly underestimated the no-break pace on the weeks following my Dragonboat training camp. We’ve had competitions at Pickering, ON and Ottawa, ON, and had a blast, as well as very good results.

Lame excuses aside, I did tell you in my last post that I’d describe the latest challenges people submitted me to. So, without further ado (I’ve always wanted to write that sometime) …

Challenge #9: “Le Moment de Vérité”

“Le Moment de Vérité” is a TV show from my home province, Quebec, which theme is basically to submit a team of 3-4 people to (*gasp!*) a challenge of pretty much any kind. Sounds familiar?

One disadvantage of this one is the language, but I’ll do my best to translate the essential for you non-francophones. For the rest, take it as practice! It’s good to have some French skills handy. Anyway, so it’s been submitted by my cousin Souyuan, and she simply challenged me to take part as a competing team in that show!

Here are examples of challenges that were submitted and done in past shows:

• A woman learned and recited all highway exits on highway 20, the famous road from Montreal to Quebec City
• A guy trained to succeed a DDR song
• Another guy successfully did 2 hockey slapshots at a speed above 70mph

So! That’s gotta be interesting. I already recruited one friend to be part of the team, and I have yet to find 2 others. When it’s done I’ll update you guys with pics. Oh, we also need to film a video as an application for the show, so look for that in the weeks to come.

Challenge #10: The PicLetters (or something)

Source: vivaterra.com

Next up is another photo challenge, but my buddy Patrick wanted to add a touch of artistry. This time, I need to search and find letters in objects around me, and take a picture. For example, an orange might make me think of the letter “O” (but don’t worry, I’ll try to come up with something better). I need one picture for each letter of the alphabet, which makes for 26 pictures. Of course they all have to be taken by myself, bla bla bla.

It’s brought in the spirit of making me look at ordinary things a different way. Therefore I might add a thought or two to some of these pics if anything pops in my head. Imagination time!

Challenge #11: Origami!

Source: Wikipedia

After Art comes Craft. Well, in the expression “Arts & Craft” it does, anyway.

My friend Janie wants me to fold pieces of paper. Actually, a LOT of pieces of paper. One thousand, to be precise, and that’s not counting those pieces that will be, ah, discarded and not take part in the final Piece (as in Art Piece. Masterpiece. Whatever).

As Janie put it, how about folding a thousand cranes? Wikipedia (a.k.a. The Source Of All Knowledge ) explains the whole quite fascinating history, which here is an excerpt :

Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru^?) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.

An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise), and is said to live for a thousand years. In Asia, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person’s wish come true. This makes them popular gifts for special friends and family.

Source: Wikipedia

I will therefore learn how to, and actually make, a thousand origami cranes, and hold them together with strings or something. I’ll show it to you. I will become the Origami-guy Master. Pro. Thing.

Oh, and I’ll let you know if I indeed meet the wish-granting crane, unless it asks me not to. I mean, I don’t want to be rude or break tradition or something. I’ll also have to think of a wish to make, which I may or may not tell you.

Just don’t be too surprised if you suddenly find me filming from a tropical villa with a hot chick by my side. Just sayin’.

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Well, that’s it for now folks! I’ll do my best to deliver the next post much sooner.

Cheers!