2019: Sowing Small Seeds for Satisfaction

I think that my 2019 reflections arriving at the beginning of February neatly sums up what the year was like for me. Days, weeks, even months went by awfully quickly, and I never really felt entirely on top of everything that I was trying to achieve. However, compared to the bog of self-hatred and dissatisfaction that was 2018, 2019 saw a number of little victories that gave me enough pride in myself to feel that I was actively moving forward, even if I wasn’t quite going as quickly as I’d like.

Firstly, I started reading for pleasure far more than I had been in previous years. I completed a book of the month challenge set by an online friend of mine, dipping my toe outside of my literary comfort zone each month and broadening my reference base in the process. I also rediscovered my love for comic books. The blend of words and pictures creates a medium unlike any other, and I have indulged in stories that would be impossible or far less well-realized in any other format. Spending more time in stories has helped me add new perspectives to my own life, and also provided necessary escape when a day was particularly draining.

‘The Smoke’ by Simon Ings – a tale where the world discovered gene manipulation before the First World War. A personal highlight from the reading challenge.

Taking in more tales led to my next piece of progress – writing more often. While sadly not for this blog (yay, mandatory apology for not writing here enough out of the way!), I have been spreading my writing wings. I mentioned this in a previous post, and I have been steadily writing pieces since then. Not as steadily or regularly as I’d like, but enough that the ever-present dread and shame of being a poser who only claims to write things is assuaged more consistently than it was since I stopped writing for GosuGamers and posting twice a week on here. I have also begun writing comic reviews on a second site, Multiversitycomics.com. Joining a site as exculsively a reviewer (even if I’m currently only writing small micro-reviews for the last few editions of their Wrapping Wednesday series) is more validating than it rightly should be. I even managed to get some reviews into the last few issues of PanelxPanel, the comics journalism magazine that reignited my love for comics in the first place. Hopefully I can forge a consistent habit and hone my craft in 2020.

Beyond honing my craft, I made small choices to hone my body as well. Nothing drastic, mind, but my pudginess and general health habits needed some adjustment. After Kris watched a particularly intriguing TED Talk on how vegetarianism was an unnecessarily binary, we have changed our diets to be mostly vegetarian, only eating two meals with meat in them per week. This means that we generally eat completely vegetarian meals during the week, and have the freedom to eat meat when we see friends on the weekend. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than not being concerned at all. Beyond that, I have begun working out more often, usually playing Ring Fit Adventure on the Switch. It may not be a complete workout regimen, but doing squats to slay anthropomorphised yoga mats and kettlebells gets me surprisingly sweaty. I aim to be in better shape going into the next Ultimate season, instead of using Ultimate as my sole source of exertion. With a little over a week until I go to Bangkok Hat, there’s not much time before I see whether my efforts have been in vain.

Who wouldn’t want to defeat that guy?

I always feel odd writing posts where I celebrate victories in my life, especially small ones or ones that are simply beginnings of larger journeys. I don’t want to make it seem like I believe that my entire world is going to change because I send some words out into the gaping void that is the Internet. My body type isn’t going to change overnight because I spend a few minutes playing a fitness game. However, without these little changes, I would be stagnant. In today’s ever-shifting world, there are few worse things than that. So I’ll take my tiny achievements. Perhaps I’ll build on them. Maybe I won’t. But at least I made an effort to better myself, and succeeded.

The Power of Pen on Paper

This year, I have probably read more words than I have in any previous year. Most of these have been through a screen – digital comics, social media, online news, and all too rarely, my own words for this blog. And yet, the words that I found had the most consistent emotional impact on me were the brief messages scrawled lovingly on cards and notes. There’s just something special about some surprise sentences from a dear friend that short-circuits my emotional defenses and lets them reach right into my heart.

It’s always nice to find an unexpected message from someone you care about, wherever it may present itself. Even a short ‘Hey, how are you?’ on a messaging service after a long period of life-induced silence can lead to a welcome catch-up and sharing of stories.

And yet, I still find myself at a greater emotional distance with digital messages than I do from a postcard sent on a whim, or even a birthday card. I can’t pinpoint one clear reason why I find myself disarmed by written messages, treasuring them more than all but the most heartfelt interactions on social media.

It’s partly because they are so one-sided – with digital communication, there is most often a tacit expectation of a response, and most of the time a rapid one. Written notes and cards have no such expectation. You take the time to write them, knowing that their recipient might not reply. You write them just to make them happy, and that purity of purpose fascinates me.

After reading so many words through screens, there is also something special about holding a piece of paper and seeing them pressed directly into the surface. Whether the person’s handwriting is godawful like mine (be thankful that this blog is not written by hand, because there would only be a handful of you able to read the chicken scratch that comes when I am writing a creative piece in a fit of inspiration), carefully pristine, or somewhere in between, I can so vividly picture the character behind each piece. This is much harder when their words are uniformly dulled by typeface.

Finally, handwritten communication is just simply rarer. We all gorge on swathes of digital verbiage, and receiving something written for you only happens a few times per year. This has lead us Kris and I to make happiness totems of the few that we have, tactically placing them on surfaces where we can catch a glimpse of them when we least expect it, hearken back to the moment we first read them, and smile at the memory.

All of this is not to lessen the importance of keeping in touch digitally. It is certainly an easier and more instant form of communication, and is much more convenient for keeping up with everyone in your life. However, while handwritten letters and cards may not be a universally useful tool, they are impactful and meaningful expressions of your feelings for those that you deem worthy of them, and Kris and I both treasure each one that we have been lucky enough to receive.

Cycles

Life is little but the same cycles repeating, with wrinkles of variation.

On Friday evening, Kris and I travel for an ultimate tournament. After a few hours, we arrive in the city. We stay over at our friends house. We eat dinner. We talk. We play a boardgame. We go to sleep. We wake up on Saturday morning and head to the field. We meet our teammates. We play a few games. There is some entertainment to occupy us in the downtime. We play some more. We take a tournament photo. We shower and get ready for dinner. We eat barbecue for dinner. We head to the party. We party. We go home.

On Sunday morning, we prepare to play more Ultimate. We play. We hang out on the sideline when we are not playing. We eat a late lunch. We spend some time with friends while waiting for our transport. We travel back home. Catsby yells at us. We go to sleep. We face the new week. I vow to write a blog post. I procrastinate.

Life is little but the same cycles repeating, with wrinkles of variation.

On Friday evening, Kris and I travel for an ultimate tournament on Jeju island. After an hour flight, we arrive on the island. We stay over at our friends house, where we’ve never stayed before. We eat a delicious dinner that our friend lovingly made herself. We talk, catching up on the small talk we haven’t been able to have because we don’t see each other as often as we’d like to. We play a boardgame that Kris and I had never played, and were justifiably terrible at it. We go to sleep, eagerly awaiting the hat tournament the next day. We wake up on Saturday and head to the field, with our friend driving us there, chatting all the while. We meet our teammates, a mixture of old friends and island folk we hadn’t had the chance to bond with before. We play a few games with everyone in costume, trying to keep their outfits together and still play decently. There is a field-side game show to occupy us in the downtime, all meticulously planned for maximum fun and price-guessing opportunities. We play some more, with no-one stressing about the results and everyone just having the best time. We take a tournament photo, with some costumes in a state of disarray. We shower and get ready for dinner at another new house. We eat barbecue for dinner, and I have the best kimchi jjigae I’ve ever had. We head to the party, marveling at people’s new costumes for the evening. We party, Kris and I feeling a little out of the loop with the strong party and costume game in the club. We go home, arguing that the costume contest was a sham and some people are the worst.

On Sunday morning, we prepare to play goaltimate on a beach. We play, with everyone a little less energetic than the day before. We hang out, and are surprised by a visit from a long-travelling friend’s sudden return. We eat a late lunch, the best fish and chips on the island for Kris, and a solid burger for me. We spend some time with friends while waiting for our transport, teaching them rugby as we watch South Africa win their world cup semi-final. We travel back home, a short flight and subway away. Catsby yells at us, his way of saying he misses us. We go to sleep, determined to to return to our friends on Jeju soon. I vow to write a blog post. I procrastinate.

Life is little but the same cycles repeating, with joy in the wrinkles of variation.

Oh Hey, I Write Stuff Elsewhere, Too

I both thoroughly enjoy and have significant anxiety about the act of writing. Part of the reason I started this blog was to give myself a consistent channel through which to express myself in awkward, rambling written words as opposed to my awkward, mumbling speech. However, as time has gone by, I’ve been less and less reliable with posting here, with 2018 being particularly barren of content. This failure spurred me into seeking out other places to scratch my writing itch, and in April, I was lucky enough to find Comic Book Resources.

Comic Book Resources (CBR for short, because if I have to write that one more time I will just resort to copy-and-paste until the end of time) is what I would call a nerd culture site. It keeps those interested in comic books, superhero films, and most off-centre television up-to-date with the latest happenings in each field. After months of frustration at my lack of drive to write, I applied to be a freelance writer there. They seemed to like my writing style, and after an initial trial period, I soon melded with the sea of other writers on the site.

Writing for CBR has given me a great deal of satisfaction. Although I started out writing about Marvel moustache contests and Mark Hamill’s views on Luke Skywalker’s sex life, I have gained confidence in myself on the site. I have started doing more substantial pieces, like announcements for new comics from my favourite creators.

It has also been humbling to see the scale of CBR. It is one of the largest sites of its kind, and the viewership of some of my more popular pieces have been more than this blog’s entire history. While it is not surprising that more people are interested in learning who’s playing President Robert Redford in the upcoming Watchmen series than hearing about my mundane life, it certainly puts things in stark perspective.

Arguably the biggest impact that CBR has had on my writing is showing me the power of a good, dedicated editor. The editorial staff have been able to elevate some of my more pedestrian writing into sharp, focused pieces. I have definitely grown as a writer there.

So, if you’re interested in checking out some of my attempts at journalism, you can find a full list of my articles here. I’ve enjoyed the experience immensely, and the more regular output has helped me hone my skills as a writer. I look forward to using the lessons I’ve learned there to keep you better informed and entertained here.

Stifling Myself

Normally when I’ve had a long break between posts on here, I’ve been incredibly busy doing something like visiting another country, playing Ultimate, or just working hard at whatever teaching job I’ve had. That’s not the case this time. There haven’t been external factors preventing me from sitting down at the keyboard to type up a few words to share with all of you. There has only been one obstacle: my own fear, anxiety, laziness, and perfectionism.

In the time since I last wrote here, I have been entirely unemployed. I haven’t had a job to fill my time. I decided to try and strike away from teaching and get a job in the field I have skated alongside the edge of for years – the games industry.

I spent two months studying for a software testing certification. I was going to write a post about that, sharing my feelings of anxiety about the test. I chose not to write anything until after I passed or failed the test. I ended up passing the test comfortably. I was going to write the perfect post summarizing my journey. Then I thought I would wait until I actually had a job and share my happiness about that. I spent two months searching for a job. I was going to write a post about how despondent and disheartened I was becoming, but I thought that no-one would want to read such self-important garbage. People want to feel happy when they take the time away from their own busy, draining lives to read some mangled collection of words on the Internet. So I kept waiting for some positive news on the job front.

Every morning when I brushed my teeth, I would tell myself that this is the day that I would write that accursed blog post. I would find a particular angle to my experiences to try and spin it into an inspirational story about how sometimes chasing your dreams doesn’t quite work out the way that you wanted, but you learn from the experience. It would be motivational as hell. Then I would sit down at my laptop and never even open my blog. I was emotionally and creatively suffocated. In this time, I’d tell people I was funemployed, trying to change my career path. In reality, I just sat staring at translated versions of job postings, applying to any and every position I was even remotely qualified for, and many that I wasn’t. Days blurred together to the point that I would forget whether it was Monday or Wednesday. With every day that passed, it became harder to share what was happening.

All the while, I was going on miniature adventures: visiting friends across the country, exploring Seoul, completing video games, playing in Ultimate tournaments, even bonding more with my cat. I also have many events to look forward to. I’m heading back to South Africa in just over two weeks. I even have an interview for a potential position soon, and I am excited. It is partially a teaching position, and I will share more as time goes on. It has been something of a backup position for the past few months, and I am glad that it may work out. However, the knowledge of this position hasn’t changed for weeks. These experiences and anticipations were fogged by the drudgery of my job search. Not even the constant, unwavering support from my amazing wife stoked the fire of creativity within me. I felt that nothing I was doing was important or interesting enough to share. Until today.

Today, I just sat at my laptop, as I’ve done countless times in the last few months. I procrastinated, as I have so many times before. But then I actually opened my blog and started typing, like I should have months ago.  I knew it was an option but was still too caught up in myself to write. I’m not perfect. I’ve been less emotionally available in the past months than I can remember being. I’m working on it. It’s not easy. But I’m still here, and starting today, I won’t leave you in the dark, for both of our sakes.

 

A Month of Morning Pages

Every day, I am frustrated that I have lost momentum on this blog. I look at the number of articles I publish every month and I hang my head when I compare my output to that of when I first arrived in Korea. However, I have actually been writing more than ever, just not on this blog.

A few weeks back, in one of my favourite digital newsletters written by comics writers Kelly-Sue deConnick and Matt Fraction (which you should definitely subscribe to here), I was introduced to morning pages.

What are morning pages? The concept could not be simpler. Sit down soon after you wake up, while your body is still rousing itself, and write three A4-sized pages of stream-of-consciousness writing by hand. No more, no less. You never have to look at them again after you’re done. They are intended to be impermanent, fleeting glimpses into what you are really thinking and feeling, etched down before your mind has put up its defenses. Kelly-Sue deConnick praised how the simple act of writing three pages every day calmed her and gave her a grounded beginning to each day. I thought that it was something worth exploring.

I thought that such writing would spout forth ideas for future creative projects. As it turns out, I have used this morning ritual to clean out my mental cobwebs, almost like a journal. I rant about what happened the previous day. I set out my plans for the current day. I generally muse about whatever I’m thinking about in the bleary-eyed hours of the day. In my first full month of habitually doing morning pages, I have only had one creative session. It was a reflection on the beauty of Seoul and people in the early hours of the morning. Apart from that, the chicken-scratch-etched pages like those in the featured image above have largely been filled with mundanities.

I too have found them to be immensely calming. They allow me to get my bearings for the day, vent any residual frustrations, make more concrete any ideas I might have had in the night. On the days when I do them when I am more awake, I find that they are harder to write and less effective at guiding me.

All in all, I am excited to continue spewing my morning self onto paper. The process can take between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on how well my mind and pen are flowing, but it is time well-spent. I highly recommend trying it out, even if only for a couple of days. Buy an A4 notebook from your local stationery store. Get up when your alarm sounds in the morning, and spill your soul onto the blank pages. You might be surprised at what comes out.

Writing Overdose

Writing, normally, is something that I have at least a moderate urge to do every single day. Whether it’s just sending a witty tweet out into the ether or sitting down and writing a long piece, most of the time, I have some drive to move my hands across a keyboard in a way that produces intelligible words. However, after completing NaNoWriMo with only hours to spare, I was completely and utterly drained, devoid of all will to produce any content whatsoever.

Most of this probably comes down to the way in which I completed NaNoWriMo. Despite my earlier post asserting myself to staying on track even though I was behind, I found myself increasingly distracted and busy during November. A substitution job that I thought would only last a couple of weeks turned out to last the entire month – there were hours of potential writing sessions, gone. I even managed to pick up extra work, which further whittled into my writing time. I also found various excuses on each day itself, justifying why I didn’t have to write that day. “I’ll just catch up on the weekend!”; “I can’t complete a chapter, so I might as well not write at all!”; “Oh no, I overslept!”; these were among the more justifiable of the ‘reasons’ I found to write little or not at all on multiple days.

As a result of this procrastination, I was left with the dubious task of writing over 30 000 words in the last five days of November. If I had kept pace with the recommended daily writing goals of NaNoWriMo, I would only have to write 1667 words per day. Instead, I needed over 6000 words per day to reach the finish line. And yet, somehow, I was determined to make it. I sat down, every day, churning out chapters for at least five hours every day. I finished the construction of my world, worked through the disasters and resolutions, and completed the story, all in less than a week. I pasted my text onto the submission form to confirm my victory and completion of 50 000 words. I was just over 600 words short. Somewhere in the 30 days of updating my word counts, I messed up big time. I added in some more detailed descriptions and additional dialog, and resubmitted. I hit 50 000 words exactly. I was done.

That’s what my word count graph ended up looking like once the dust had settled. I was incredibly proud of myself, particularly for pulling up my socks and getting the words out in the end. I also resolved to never fall behind like that when I do NaNoWriMo again next year. You hear that, Future Jodi? That doesn’t happen again!

Once the feeling of pride faded, I was left feeling completely devoid of will to write. I wanted to write a follow-up blog boasting about my victory, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Now, after days of playing HearthStone, Dota, and generally just resting my writing brain, I’m back and ready to share my experiences with you all again. With a trip home, a new year, and my own wedding coming up soon, I’m sure that there will be tons to share!

Keep Pushin’ On

Writing 50 000 words in a month is no easy task after all. When I announced that I was going to do NaNoWriMo 2016, I was remarkably confident. 1667 words per day? Easy! And it was. The first few days went by with me exceeding the necessary word counts on a regular basis. I was doing great!

Until I wasn’t. The first signs of a downturn came on the first Friday. I had planned the week so that I wrote enough extra words in the four days to make up for the fact that I wouldn’t be writing at all on teh weekend (it was an Ultimate weekend, so no writing for me then!). However, I just wasn’t feeling writing at all on that Friday. No matter how long I stared at my computer screen or tried to scrape words out of nowhere, they just weren’t coming. So I said I would make it up on the Sunday evening when I got home and had a relaxing day instead. I’d deserved it, I thought. I had worked more than I needed to during the week, and I would be okay.

When Sunday came around, it is probably obvious to everyone that I definitely didn’t do any writing. I was wrecked from the weekend and just wanted to chill. So I did.

This pattern of saying that future Jodi will make up word counts has been an alarming trend of my NaNoWriMo 2016 so far. I did the same thing this past weekend, sacrificing what was going to be a word make up day to hang out in Seoul. Now, I sit almost 10 000 words behind where I need to be, with nearly half the month gone. I am essentially one quarter of the way through my words, but I’ve spent nearly half of my time to get there.  Eep.

But all is not lost. While I may not have the entire month anymore, I still have more than half of it. I have more than 12 000 words now than I had two weeks ago. Thinking of how far I’ve come helps me get motivated for the mountain that I still have to climb. What has also helped is people randomly asking me ‘How is the book coming?’ or saying that they can’t wait to read my book. I have often given up on goals in the past because there was little riding on them apart from my own personal pride and enjoyment. This is bigger than that. By putting it out there that I am doing this, people are waiting for my end result.

Currently, this end result is a long way from finished and even longer from being any good. And yet, with every day that  chip away at the word count, it gets closer to becoming a reality. The road ahead may be harder than it needs to be, and that added difficulty comes entirely from my own poor decisions. It may be uphill, but I am looking forward to puttering along that path, seeing where my story goes, and coming out the other side with a first draft I can hopefully craft into something worth sharing. Now, back to writing!

One Week to #NanoWriMo2016

November as a month is one that normally means two things: my brother’s birthday and my father’s birthday. Apart from these two significant events, it is a wholly unremarkable month. There are no Korean holidays. It is not the beginning or end of any season, but it does mean the end of the ROK-U Ultimate season (sniff). November 2016 is set to be drastically different, all due to one simple hashtag – #NaNoWriMo2016.

For those who are wondering if I my mind has finally succumbed to the numerous pulls on my sanity and I have begun spouting gibberish, fear not. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, is a movement that began in 1999. Its goal and purpose is simple – every year, aspiring novelists all around the world take up the challenge to complete an entire 50,000 word first draft of a novel during the month of November. It is a concept that caught my attention a couple of years ago, and was always one of those things that I said: “I should do that next year!” but never got around to. Until this year.

This year, I decided that the stars have sufficiently aligned in order to give me the highest possible chance of success. So, a week ago, I committed on Twitter to conquering the monemental task of 50,000 words in 30 days. Since then, I have been immersing myself in as many videos and articles about writing and NaNoWriMo as I possibly can. Yesterday, I sketched out the basic storyline and did character outlines for five characters. I am giving myself as few ways out as possible.

I do all of these things because I know myself. I have seen the story so many times. I begin with an earnest, heart-felt committal to better myself in some way. This could be achieving legend in Hearthstone, becoming a gaming streamer, or making myself into an eSports journalist. And yet, when things get a little tough, when I reach that first hurdle, I will turn around and say, “Well, I guess that wasn’t for me after all.” I’ll quit. And I’ll generally feel fine with myself for a little while afterwards, until the next hot idea burns its way into my head.

Not this time though. I have had the honour of a loving fiancee working hard full-time while I mess around in part-time work with the excuse that I am following my dreams. For the month of November, that will actually be perfectly accurate. Even if nothing comes of the novel – it can sit on my computer in first draft forever – but when I sit on the 31st of November with at least 50,000 shiny, new, creative, probably moderately unreadable words forming what I hope to be a coherent story, I will have proven that I can actually do the things I set out to do. I will show myself that I am more than just a lazy ass who plays games all day and sometimes writes about them and life and stuff. And with a few months left of part-time work before I have to re-evaluate my priorities for next year, that motivation could be what I need to take the next step and complete those goals I’ve failed to do up until now.

November will be a long, hard month. Although I only have to write about 1667 words per day to stay on track (about 3 times my usual blog post on here), I know that having to do so every day will be a challenge unlike any I’ve faced this year. There will be times when I want to kill my characters. There will be times when I don’t want to kill my characters but I’ll have to. There will be times when my cat will walk across the keyboard and delete my last half hour’s work and I’ll want to punt him across the room. And yet, I know that if I push through the hardships, I will have created a story that I’m proud to share (after many edits, of course). More importantly, I will have given myself something I have doubted up until now – the knowledge that I have the drive wthin me to complete my lofty goals after all. So bring on #NaNoWriMo2016. I’m ready. I think.

Breathing in and Collecting

There have been many analogies for the creative process, and how it is to live as a person in which the creative fire burns hotter than the average. Two of my favourites come from The Oatmeal and Amanda Palmer. One likens living as a creative to breathing, and the other sees the creative process as a process of join-the-dots. Right now, I’m struggling to do both.

The breathing analogy comes from The Oatmeal, explored in this comic. It’s great and you should definitely give it a look, but slapping it here would disrupt the flow of this piece and might get me a grumpy email from him, so I’d rather not. Essentially, he details how his friend told him that creativity is like breathing. Exhaling is the production of your work, be it cartoons, writing, songs, or whatever creative outlet you could possibly choose. The inhaling is taking in all of the influences around you – your social interactions, books you read, games you play, adventures you go on. Inhale, then exhale. While most people see only the exhalation of words onto a page or melody in their ears, inhaling is also vitally important. Without inspiration and experiences to draw from, it is hard to find a unique perspective on anything.

Amanda Palmer’s image of creativity is as unique and striking as The Oatmeal’s. She divides creativity into three stages: collecting, connecting, and sharing.

Collecting is similar to The Oatmeal’s breathing in – the creative looks at the world around them and sees an array of dots – ideas that are poignant, striking, mundane yet interesting, or in any way worthy of retaining in their creative toolbox. After they have been collected, the creative will then connect these ideas in ways that most people wouldn’t see. They can make deep connections, humorous connections, or even bizarre connections – everyone connects differently. Once the connections have been made, they are shared. This can be a blog post, a tweet, a painting, a song, a piece of graffiti, a game, anything.

For the past few months, I’ve been inhaling and far more than I should. I’ve been lucky enough to have a supportive fiancee who has taken most of the financial responsibility in the house whilst I find myself, my medium, and my material. It’s not fair, and I see the jealousy in her eyes every day. What she doesn’t see is my agonizing over being able to find my mysterious, yet-to-be-harnessed ‘voice’. How do I express myself? Am I a singer? A writer? A caster? What am I? I still don’t even know. I’m still breathing in. Every now and then I let out a little puff of work, and I feel satisfied for a day or two before once again looking at the precipice of my own mediocrity.

Where I should have a deep pit of connections to share with the world, I look into my hands and see an embarrassingly small collection of mangled, fragmented ideas that still need nurturing, care, and forging before they can be deemed worthy of sharing with anyone.

I have been said to be living the dream, and most of the time I share their sentiment. I’m living comfortably with the one that I love and a cat that is not always an utter asshole. But on days like today, I wish that I would be satisfied with this, and not feel like I should be doing something more, something else. I wish the grass didn’t look so damn green. I wish that I didn’t see the twinkle of uniqueness every once in a while just to tease me into believing that I would have something interesting to share with the world. I wish my brain would just shut up and be content. But it isn’t. And it won’t. I’ll keep on collecting, connecting. Breathing in. I hope I can take a long breath out before I burst.