Hoo kaers bout spelin an gramer an shyt!?!?!?!

Spending time on Internet fora introduces me to a plethora of bad spellers and posters with barely even a touch of grammar, much less a grasp.

Sometimes I complain.

That doesn’t go down well. (Complaints rarely do – isn’t that strange!?)

The main argument for not bothering with such mundane and 20th century shit as spelling, grammar or style (for the advanced culprits) is, in my experience:
“Who cares if it’s perfect as long as everyone understands what I mean?” (or rather along the lines of “Who cares if its perfic aslong evr1 no wha I meen?”)

Well… I just recently thought of an analogy that might explain why I think everyone should be more careful with their language and their expression.

If I am sitting at a table with a 1-and-a-bit-year old kid, I sure as hell will understand both “Wanna go potty”, “Gotta go potty” and even just “Pottyyyyyyy!” Fine.

If I am sitting at a table with a 32/42/52-year old who goes “Me too gotta go potty!!! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!!!” I still will understand it, but … Yeah. Point made, I think.

The occasional mistake and typo will not make you look like an arse. Expressing yourself on the level of a pre-school kid and claiming that it’s not your problem, but the receiver’s … well – it just makes you look like wanker.

My, how time flies!

I’ve been quite busy preparing for the trip to London, looking for jobs and attending my riding classes, and in an instant the blog goes silent for almost a month. Sad, I am.

Toulouse or not tou louse…

Three more lessons on neurotic, nervous nerve wreck – last week Wednesday and Friday, and this week’s Wednesday.

Nothing much happened. We did make some progress, but because of the spookiness, kept returning to zero to start over again. While I really love this silly beast, she sure as hell ain’t helpin’ mah ridin’ improvement.

And this last Wednesday the lesson itself was a nightmare for anyone on Toulouse’s back – exercises that often ended up in facing other horses coming the “wrong” way. Anything that’s out of the ordinary helps making her more tense. Probably a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s making me tense as hell too. I am not really scared of hurting myself, but I really, really, REALLY don’t want to be involved in a collision between horses in the arena because I fear the horses wouldn’t come out of it in tip-top shape.

So, riding her is a feckin’ chore, but when it’s good, it’s gooooood.

Oh, for the love of sanity…

The Friday class yesterday was good … ish. The fan in the arena is very loud, and a rather massive downpour started about the same time as our lesson, so the noise from rain hitting the roof mixed with the fan to create quite a din.

Toulouse

Toulouse, of course, found this highly unpleasant. Because of the high background noise, she had to listen extra carefully to everything around us to stay on guard against all those millions of things that, you know, are going to EAT HER ALIVE. After half an hour, she was soaking with sweat, despite us only working at walk and trot (mostly walk).

I kept working on the stuff I learned on Wednesday evening. The exercise we did yesterday was well suited for it, and I imagine we made progress, both me and Harey Mare. She is a wonderful horse to ride when she relaxes. All those seconds of relaxation you can get during an hour of riding make it worthwhile. At least I try telling myself that, so I won’t get too fed up with her skittishness. I would love to learn to ride this horse well, she seems to have much to teach me, and much to give once I learn it.

So, we meet again!

Riding class, Wednesday evening, horse assignment held no surprise in store for me.

So, it was time for a fight with Miss Nutcase again…

Remembering last Friday and the little war we had every 20th metre or so, I psyched myself up a bit before mounting, deciding not to let her get away with the old spook shenanigans. So up in the saddle I get, and … Nothing. She’s as cool as a very hip jazz cat.

Toulouse

We worked hard with trying to get both sides to work as balanced and even as possible, with straight-ish horses on a round track (the 20 metre circles). After a brief while, Toulouse decided this was a bit of a chore, and then – of course – signalling potential spooking was suddenly relevant to her interests again. Ears pricked, head up, intense staring at the TOULOUSE-EATING green separating wall… I kept her from throwing herself hither and thither and mainly on the right track, but her tensions sure as hell made working with her rather difficult.

At times it really did go well, though, and I could feel that we were working in the correct way. Those times were just too short and too few for my liking…

Maybe I get another chance on Friday.