C:\Marlow\

I’ve fallen in love with Animal all over again.

I haven´t had time to email everyone so I figured I´d do what I rarely do and write in this damn blog.

Things have been a bit difficult at times, but amazing so far. For one thing, I definitely underestimated the language barrier. It´s been a while (about 3 years…?) since I was in a country that didn´t speak a language that I spoke, and I guess I had forgotten what it was like. I had assumed a lot of things:
Everyone would speak at least a little English, Spanish is similar enough to French that they´ll understand you, and finally, that I can get by with hand gestures alone So lets address those one by one, shall we? Nope, nope and nope.

Very few people in Argentina can speak any English, even the younger generation! This was surprising to me not because I´m incredibly ethnocentric, though that´s a possibility, but I guess because when I was in Korea all the students had to take English much in the same way we take french but they took it through public school as well as high school.

The Frech-Spanish similarity is actually not so far fetched, some words are similar enough, but not to the extent that I understand what the hell anybody is saying. If I hadn´t started listening to a speak spanish mp3 class thing I´d definitely be completely clueless.

There´s a joke to preface the third. If an Argentinian falls off a boat without a lifejacket, how do you keep him afloat? Keep talking to him. Buh-dum bum.. Argentinians are very expressive with their hands and actually have a sizable gesture-vocabulary. So when a Canadian guy comes bumbling along, gesturing wildly like a gorilla having a seizure, they are completely lost, bewildered and most likely scared they´re going to get knocked silly by a flailing limb.

Despite the communication problems though things have been amazing. The weather has been amazing, the men are incredibly friendly and helpful (women tend to avoid eye-contact oddly enough, I guess I look like a sexual predator…) and I´ve met some incredible people.

This past Saturday I went to a bboy jam that was partially organized by the crew I´ve been hanging out with, United Rockers Crew. Christian, the bboy that I met off of www.bboyworld.com that certain co-workers assumed was going to rape me/harvest my organs, was DJing the event and Rafa was judging. Their crew was entering the battle and were a man short so they asked me to battle with them. Despite having sprained my ankle about 4 days prior and again the day before I was feeling up to it and Christ was playing some good tunes so I couldn´t help but join them.

It was a bit crazy because some of the other crews there were absolutely amazing. URC´s rival crew, LACREW, were in the opposite bracket to us  and got eliminated in the semis in one of the most intense battles I´ve seen live since Rivers vs Mind 180 in S. Korea. It was a shame Lacrew lost because I really wanted to face them in the finals, I really liked their style and they had incredible blowups and power, even if they had a bit of a bad attitude while battling. So when we got to the finals the crew that had just barely beat Lacrew (it was a crazy close battle) had used most of their power and blowups already. We were able to control most of the battle using the commandos and routines we had come up with before the battle started and it worked because we got a unanimous victory from the 3 judges My ankle is suffering for the victory but it was worth it and it seems to be healing up.

Anyways, I´m off to Corrientes today for a crazy boatride through the wetlands and then off to Iguassu afterwards to see their world-famous waterfall(s).

Peace!

stranded sick in bed,
I sweat into my cold sheets.
as my day crawls by.

I’ve always been a huge fan of old school rap from 80s (as early 80s as possible) and my awesome buddy/coworker Vince got me onto this track recently. It is the new/old hotness.

Crash Crew – On the radio

I figure while I’m on an old school hip hop tip I might as well share my two favourite tracks of all time.

Fearless Four – Rocking it

The Sequence – Funk you up

Animals with good senses of smell are not complimentary to women. My attempts included:

1. Dog
2. Truffle pig
3. Elephant

Compliment fail….

This morning I went to the dentist (student dentist @ U of T’s Dental School) to get depulped. Why? Well, it’s the first stage of a root canal.

This involves me getting my tooth hollowed and scooped out. Yup, fun times. I pussied out last time I went because I get really anxious with local anaesthetics, whether it’s the needle or the feeling of losing control of my own body, I don’t know. But yeah, I pussied out.

So this time, I get the nitrous!

My teeth don’t feel too great but I’m looking forward to this weekend.

I’ll be going down to Hamilton with my crew, Skillz 2 Kill, for Steel City Cyphers. There’s going to be a 5 on 5 competition that we’re entering. I’m excited to be getting out to jams again and competing. Throwing down in cyphers, soaking in the vibe, and hanging out with some great people.

If anyone is in the area and wants to come out and support my crew or even just party after the jam then give me a call. I’d love to see some familiar faces in Hamilton.

Look out for me, I’ll be the one killing beats like Dwight Shrute

Peace!

God damn it’s resolution time again this year. That means it’s time to make that statement, that no one believes, that I will post to my blog more often. Well hear it comes….

I promise I will post more often in this coming new years.

Damn. Even I didn’t believe it. I seem to be in a constant state of flux these days. I’m trying to re-arrange and better myself in so many ways that nothing about me seems concrete recently.

Personal resolutions to myself (I started in Nov, don’t worry, it’s not a “lame” new years thing), time management, friends, hobbies (and adding hobbies, I still need to start salsa lessons), etc…

I’ve been brutally disorganized in some aspects of my life and horribly unmotivated in others. I think that I need to write down and prioritize all my current and ongoing goals for the future and set up next tasks (a la GTD) as well as make moves into completing others. If you’ve any suggestions for how you motivate/force yourself into doing certain things I’d love to hear them. Whether they happen to be mindsets when approaching tasks (chores, excercise, projects, etc…) or organizational tips to do/remember other things (room cleanliness, blog posting schedules, etc…). Please comment away with suggestions, ideas or even encouragement

I think for the blogging I’m going to set up a schedule. I will update what day of the week I will be posting new entries (1 post/week to start) and then see where we can go from there. I was thinking of micro-blogging (twitter) but don’t think I’ll follow through on it with consistency.

Hope everyone had a grand old year so far and I wish you all the best in the new year.

Peace and Love,

- Christopher Marlow

Ok, I’m super psyched and this post is going to be shit on content. I’m going to B.C. for two weeks!!!! What WHAT?!

So yeah. That’s pretty much that.

Anyways, I’ll do my best to upload pics of what’s going on and all that, I’m going to be shooting like a mofo while I’m there (crackheads be damned, Nara!). So if I can get to the interweeb on a regular basis expect some photos in my updates, ok?

Lates guys! See you in Vancouver!