Tuesday August 19, 2014
7:00 a.m.
Not much on my mind this morning. How about some more UFC? I watched UFC Fight Night 47 yesterday morning – the prelim card and the main card. The fights themselves were fairly disappointing. As I mentioned the other day, MMA fighters in the US are moving away from technical fighting and just trying to punch each other. However, the Brazilians are sticking with jujitsu. You could really see that at this event. There were two Brazilians on this card, and they totally dominated their American opponents. They grabbed hold of them and held on like octopi and slowly advanced their position until the Americans were helpless and then they strangled them. The were very skilled.
As far as the Americans were concerned, one fighter impressed me, a guy named Alan Jouban. The fight was his UFC debut, and he looked very good. He was very nearly knocked out early, but he came back and knocked out the other guy. And that’s about it as far as excitement went.
There is a big UFC event this coming weekend. TJ Dilashaw is fighting a rematch with Renan Barao from Brazil. Barao was the champion for a long time and had an unbeaten win streak of something like 33 or 43 fights. I can’t remember which. TJ Dillashaw is a young American fighter – an up and comer – and he beat Barao in a huge upset back at UFC 173. Well, it was an upset for everyone but me. I’ve had my eye on Dilashaw for years. He was a contestant on the Ultimate Fighter show, and I was seriously impressed with him right from the start, and I felt that he was destined to be the champion. I knew he could beat Barao, and he did. This weekend is the rematch, and I have to admit that I’m a bit nervous for Dilashaw. Barao is no joke, and there’s a chance that the first win was just lightning in a bottle. Dilashaw certainly fought in a high-energy and somewhat unorthodox fashion. I’m not sure he can repeat that performance. It will be interesting.
That’s all the UFC chatter I’ll bore you with.
My time at the Internet café was not that pleasant. They weren’t running the air conditioner in my section, and it got extremely hot. Plus, a lot of students showed up. They weren’t gamers (they have to go to the second floor – thank goodness), but they were doing things in groups, so there would be one student at a computer, and three other students standing around him offering input and advice and whatnot. They weren’t doing anything particularly rude, but the spaces are so tight and they are so careless of other people that it got very uncomfortable. The computer desk right beside me was empty – the computer was broken. That meant that one of these extra people would stand there leaning against the desk and be tapping away on his cell phone sending text messages, etc. It just annoyed the hell out of me to have this guy standing there looming over me and crowding me. I felt trapped. I don’t think a Canadian would do the same thing. We would instinctively feel it was rude to stand so close to someone and crowd their space. I eventually drove this guy back a little by moving into his space and pushing back. For example, I started fanning myself with the mouse pad, and I did this by holding my arm far out from my face so that the rapid flapping motion was an inch or two away from his cell phone. He backed up and I kept extending my arm until I pushed him as far away as I could.
These students would also crowd me from the back and end up leaning into my chair and even into my shoulder and back. I generally dealt with them by the old “equal and opposite reaction.” As they pushed into me, I’d lean back with my head and give them a huge shove to give them the message. They’d back off, but over time, new students would show up, and I’d have to do it all over again. I held my temper, though, and did not start slamming heads together like coconuts. One student clocked me really hard in the back of the head with his elbow. It was a serious whack, and I had a millisecond of real anger, and I was very close to tearing into him. Lucky for him, I was tied to my computer with my earphones, and I had to deal with those before I could leap up and drive him through the wall. And in that time, the guy apologized in English. That saved him. Usually no one says anything. His apology was enough for me, and I let it go without responding.
Not much else on my mind. A couple of encounters here in the 7-11. I was at the counter paying for my coffee, and a young woman came right up beside me – actually touching me and pushing me a little bit to the side – and slammed her cold drink on the counter. She then picked up some candies and showed them to the clerk and asked in a loud voice how much the candies cost. I wanted to turn to her and say, ‘Hey, wait your turn.” When I looked at her face, I realized I had just seen her on the street as I walked to the 7-11. I’d noticed her partially because she was all dressed up and somewhat pretty but mainly because she had that unpleasant pretty girl petulant pout in her voice. There’s a type of woman that puts on that petulant pout – like a spoiled little brat demanding her way and always being annoyed and always complaining. And there is always some young guy trotting along beside or behind her constantly placating her and soothing her and listening to her endless complaints. I sat down at my usual bench with my coffee, and this woman and her boyfriend sat at a bench near me. She annoyed me immensely from even that distance. She had that annoyed pout on her face and that complaining tone in her voice as she went on and on and on loudly giving her boyfriend a hard time about something. She eventually turned right around and gave her boyfriend her back. She faced away from him and then sat there looking away all annoyed with her pouting lips drooping down. Her boyfriend was trying to soothe her and he reached out to touch her and she shook his hand off. I was so annoyed at her, mainly because she was so loud. She wouldn’t shut up and her loud voice was bothering me. I wanted so badly to get up and go talk to the guy. I would ask him if this was his girlfriend. And if so, he should dump her right away. I even thought about writing it down on a piece of paper and handing it to him.
I was also thinking this morning that in my description of this neighborhood, I left out one large group. This group consists of the transvestites. Two of them just sat down near me, and that made me think of them. They are very common in the Philippines, of course, and I see them everywhere. However, this downtown core is very popular with transvestites. There are lots of hair salons here, and many transvestites make a living cutting and styling hair. Not surprisingly, transvestites are very interested in foreigners like me, and they often try to make eye contact and engage me in some way. I’m not entirely sure why that is. Some are clearly prostitutes, but many aren’t. So I don’t know why they are drawn to foreigners. Perhaps it’s because they see themselves as outsiders and foreigners are outsiders, too. Lunatics and drunks are also drawn to foreigners. Cebu is probably full of hundreds of thousands of interesting people that I’d like to meet. However, the only people I encounter are the beggars, the crazy street people, the drunks, and the prostitutes. So I guess it’s no surprise that I end up with a poor impression.
Transvestites are interesting from a visual point of view. There are many things that they can change to look more feminine, and they are often very successful at it. They grow their hair long and they wear makeup and they dress well and in a feminine style. I’ve often seen transvestites from the back and thought they were women. But then something will strike me and I’ll look closer to see what caught my eye. And almost every time, it is the width of their shoulders and a bit of a extra muscle on the arms. That is very difficult to hide.