My dad’s retirement party was amazing. He was the president of a branch of an insurance company for transportation vehicles, basically. I had panda eyes from my fight so I paid $60 bucks and got a professional make-up job done at an Ulta near Boston, so I would look good in front of other executives and former co-workers. And I drank lots of tea. 😀 (fight smack talk reference)
I’m glad I did. I had lots of people come shake my hand and say that my dad has talked a lot about me and they always wanted to meet me. I hope I made a good impression. It was so cool to hear other people talk well about my father. ^_^ I think my father is great, amazing, and wonderful, but IS HE REALLY?! The answer is yes. He really is. I’m so proud of him. He’s my hero. He taught me by example many things. I always saw him working hard to achieve his goals. If he fails at something, regroups and moves on to even BIGGER successes. He taught me how to take a big problem and break it down into little, achievable steps. At the top of the staircase is the end goal or a positive result. I’ll always remember him drawing my diagrams of stairs and labeling them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he always drew me pictures of concepts he was trying to explain, with lots of symbols. Everybody has a preferred learning style – visual, kinetic, and audio/verbal. The way he explained it covered both visual and audio. (I’m actually an audio learner but visuals help me remember).
He has faults but they aren’t important. LOL I love boasting about how great he is. He won’t let me post pictures of him, so this journal entry will have to be good enough.
I was bragging to my dad about some of my accomplishments with my fighting and kids classes. He made some comment about how I should be more humble. Oh I’m humble, for sure. But listen!
So guys, psychologically, humans tend to see negative things first, I think. For every one good thing, human brains can think of more negative things. John quoted some ratio but I don’t feel like looking it up now. Therefore, in order to not get down on ourselves, we should take a moment and praise ourselves appropriately. Make sure you GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT for good things you do. On the other hand, if we have a tendency to praise ourselves too much, we should remind ourselves of things we have to improve. I think balance is important for a healthy psyche. For example, during sparring yesterday, I shot a poor take-down and got flung into the cage, did a forward roll, and almost knocked myself out. It sucked. I was hurt and upset. Trudging out of the gym, I told myself, “You could be in better shape, and you have to be careful how you drive sometimes. However, you did the combos that Rich and AJ taught you, so good job on that.”
Regarding my fight, I did that flower sweep on Antonina. “You’ve been drilling that move and you’re good at it! Now you have to learn the arm-bar and gi-version to really become a master at it, cuz you haven’t gotten it down yet.”
*nod* Treat yourself in everyday life like you would a child, or a car. You have to praise the child to encourage him or her. You have to do maintenance on your car with the appropriate things. Once you know yourself, you know what you need.
So anyway, fought April 20th, flew home April 21st, spent a few days in Vegas, and took a night flight Wednesday evening and arrived in Boston Thursday the 25th. I got to go have breakfast and tea with my dad! 😀 It was so nice! Thursday evening was the retirement party. After I got my make-up done, I did my first “Cameo” video! I’ve gotten some requests to sign up for the website, where people can pay me to give shout outs for events like birthdays or whatever. I resisted at first, but multiple people emailed me about it, so I decided to do it. I’ve done two so far. It’s fun! https://www.cameo.com/roxyfighter
Well, here’s a picture of me and my step-siblings and step-sister in law at the party. 🙂
The next day, I got to hang out with my dad in the morning and he took me out for THE BEST PANCAKES EVER (other than my mom’s). Walnuts and butterscotch! omg That evening I got to see my college friend and Japanese classmate Q! <3 That was super nice. <3 <3
Saturday, more quality time with dad despite him making me read political news and economic news papers. lol That’s okay, it’s his job to expose me to different things I normally wouldn’t seek out myself. u_u #parents #boring
Saturday afternoon, I got to see my high school friend Kate, who I haven’t seen in ages! Her apartment is just like mine, except my posters and action figures are 70% anime, 30% other action heroes/Star Wars/Star Trek. Her percentages are the opposite, but the contents were similar. HAH THIS IS WHY WE ARE FRIENDS. I walked through squealing, “Omg that pillow! omg that poster! OMG that FIGURINEeeeee!” I wanted to touch, handle, or play with everything but used my adult powers to resist. hahah!
We went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and saw this fashion exhibit thing, which was cool. Then we explored further and saw Egyptian stuff and European metal works, which was the coolest thing for me. How do they make such detail!?! The most interesting fact I learned was that they believe painting birds on sarcophagus with their wings spread protects the dead.
We walked past Fenway Park and then ate LOTS OF DELICIOUS SUSHI. We were both celebrating respective professional accomplishments. Heck yeah, homie! 😀
I returned to Vegas on Sunday. Spent a few days in Vegas. Then Thursday, I went to Kansas City to corner Manjit Kolekar in Invicta. She was set as an alternate for the Phoenix Rising Tournament and slated to fight Amber Brown, which sucked for me cuz I like Amber, but that’s the way it goes. Then TWO fighters missed with in the tournament, (COME ON LADIES! WTH) but both Amber and Manjit got bumped up to the tournament for a chance at the belt…and more mulah. 😀 yay
Unfortunately, Manjit lost by a slick arm-bar to the person, Brianna Van Buren, who eventually won the tournament and became the champion. Van Buren is a beast! I gotta give Manjit credit, though. She trained hard for this fight. She came over from India in early February expecting to fight in Invicta in April, but then that fight card got scratched. Her strength is in boxing but she’s been doing lots of grappling classes. She’s improved so much! She is a more well-rounded fighter now. She didn’t really get a chance to showcase that in her last fight. (Thanks to all the fans to sent her some sponsorship money. She was only able to pay for private training and lessons thanks to you guys!!) That’s the world of fighting, though. It’s merciless and heartless. Like when people get knocked out in the first ten seconds of the fight. I hate seeing those kinds of knockouts because, while the crowd is like “oooooh! Wow! Cool!” I know that the knocked out fighter put their heart and soul into a long fight camp and didn’t get to show anything they trained in the fight.
If you don’t train hard, you can’t win. But just because you train hard, doesn’t mean you’ll win. This is why when people say “Good luck with your fight!” I say, “Thanks! I’ll take all the luck I can get!” If people say, “Good skill!” I think it’s silly. I have good skill. I also want luck. Hahaha I want ALL THE LUCK!!
So that was a huge bummer. I’m proud of Manjit, though. She has LOTS of potential. She HAS improved and will only continue to improve with more training and hard work. This fight just didn’t go her way.
Serena and I got back on Saturday and still had back to back tasks. We never really rest ever. LOL Sunday I went to yoga, then met Serena and our friend Charlie and we FINALLY saw Avengers Endgame.
I somehow avoided spoilers despite not seeing the movie as soon as it came out. I haven’t had time because I’ve been EVERYWHERE doing everything. btw I’m back to training hard. Yay! Training! Then after Endgame, we had a jiujitsu team meeting to discuss stuff because Team Vinny Magalhaes moved back into Syndicate and the merger is complicated. @_@
Then what. Oh yeah, I went shopping, rushed home, and scarfed down food in time for my 7 PM interview! I’ve been getting a lot of Post-Fight interviews, which is cool, since usually news sites just want pre-fight.
Here’s one! http://www.fighthype.com/news/article38035.html
I’m ranked number 5 now! 😀 No, I don’t care who I fight next. I just want my next fight set. Not Cyborg. 😀
I’ve gotten a lot of fans sending me stuff from my Amazon wish list, especially before my fight. Thank you so much, guys! It’s so appreciated.
I don’t want people to think I’m begging for stuff, though. I am trying to find sponsors. I’ve gotten gear from RDX Sports, I had a few temporary month deals with TastyClean , Jerkypro, and My Consumer I.T. is my monthly blog sponsor. Dominate Your Game gives me some supplements and nutritional counseling. Those companies and people are all so helpful! Thank you! <3 I’m looking for other sponsors, like clothing or whatever kind of company to sponsor me on a monthly basis, or even short term or one-time. I’m ranked #5 and I can’t seem to take advantage of it. 🙁 I feel like the fighter market is over-saturated with fighters looking for sponsorship that companies can’t pay fighters much these days. If anybody is interested or has recommendations, please contact me at basilisk875 at yahoo.com Or if you just wanna say hi. 😀 I love people.
It’s so good to have NO TRAVEL on my calendar for now!
Jeslen won her fight! YAY!!
And thanks to My Consumer I.T. for your support! Please consider them! Their business offers structured Cabling- Fiber, Cat5 and Cat6, Coax and Wireless, MCIT can do it all!
