JAPANESE LIFESTYLE

I have been chosen to prepare two students of the school for the 6th and highest level of Italian, so that they will firstly take the school's degree, and then they will have the exam of Italian as Second Language, that is called CILS, which is the official degree for foreigners regarding Italian language, being held in Siena by the Università per Stranieri. It's a tough exam, including many different tasks, from usual grammar tests, to written essays, to different tests of listening, comprehension, and so on.
Naturally, I am happy they asked me to prepare the girls for this exam, but there's, as usual, a price to pay.
First, to teach this class I have lost my conversation class, this meaning that now I teach four hours of grammar every day. Second, I've never prepared the students for this exam, so I feel pretty under pressure, a bit like having to pass the exam myself. Finally, the exam is held in December, and this means that I won't be able to have any holiday from now until the end of the year. I never thought about refusing the teaching opportunity, but then I realized this drawback and and well, it didn't make me very happy. In 2009 I've taken an amazing total of four days off, enabling me to ask for Japanese citizenship.
Say goodbye to my Uk trip, say goodbye to my Swizzy trip. Say hello to rushing weekends to the boulders, long drives on Friday nights, long drives on Sunday nights, two raging days of pulling.
Still I don't feel ready to start a structured training plan, I keep pulling in the gym, but I started feeling the magic fading. I am running low on setting creativity, until now I have set many problems, nothing particularly hard, that I have been able to climb in one or two sessions. I feel my arms and core quite strong, again nothing special, but decent. I feel my fingers weak, not in an absolute way, but not as strong as I'd like them to be, especially when full crimped. I want them to be so strong that no hold will ever be too small.
Last, but definitely not least, I hope I can steal another Dolomites trip before General Winter comes; chances are low, but who knows.
This makes me a bit sad now.

ON MY OWN

I didn't do the problem. This is the fact. Now if you like, you can stop reading, because after the facts, there will be the thoughts. If you're interested into knowing my thoughts on the facts, go on.

I wrote it was time to deeply look inside myself. I've done it, and despite feeling very sad at the moment because I couldn't climb the problem I wanted to climb, I think I have to be happy about what I found in the dephts of my person.
I found out, once again and for sure, that I am dedicated. I drove 419 kms all alone on a friday night, in a small car filled with crashpads and with no car stereo, to go to the Dolomites, to climb a boulder problem that I have tried once one year ago. I've experienced many different feelings. During the drive, I surprised myself because I wasn't bored, I wasn't tired, I was sure abouth the choice. I was happy, I had raised the bet and put everything I had on the table, and I was confident of the victory. Well, I can't find my victory in the climbing, but I can find it in my attitude.
Yesterday morning, when I was carrying three pads to the boulder, in a freezing wind, without a single soul in sight in the whole mountain, there wasn't another place in the world where I'd rather had been. I was there with my whole body and mind, and I was very very happy. The rock was frozen, dry as hell, my skin was perfect, my form was perfect, my mindset was perfect. I was happy because I was feeling the purity of what I was doing.
I encountered a number of problems though.
First of all, one session a year before is not enough to perfectly memorize a sequence, especially for the footholds and the body positions. I had to do it all again. Then, it was so cold that the rubber didn't stick well to the rock, so I needed to have a few warm up laps to get the wheels on temperature. Then, the two crux moves are damn hard: I am happy though, because this time I could do them with different, more basic sequences, namely just putting my feet on very low and distant footholds and using alot of body tension, and this is something that I couldn't do last year, meaning that I had to use two horrible, contrieved and dangerous drop knees. Simply put, I just felt stronger. Finally, the wind dropped and it started snowing. It was so beautiful.
Then, here it came my mistake.
I tried another sequence. Tsk tsk, amateur. To get a better hold with my right hand, I had one go using another starting sequence, and I nearly did the problem, but on a hard right hand crimp that I didn't use with the normal sequence, I just ripped my index finger. My skin was so dry that it ripped just where it plies, on the first pad. I knew it was all over, so I instead of taping it I decided to go for broke, and had my last go. I fell and my finger was deepley cut. I started packing, and with the snow quickly covering the boulders, the trees and the road, I decided that I was leaving the mountains again to their winter, in peace for another year.
My finger was unable to climb, I was afraid of getting stuck in the snow with my small car, and I wanted to get back to my girlfriend at home. After just a couple of hours, my proud adventure, my moment of glory and happyness had already ended. I drove down the pass in the snow, then in a second it was the motorway, then home.
I'll never stop saying it: the dedication is a reward in itself.

THE LORD OF COLD

It's currently freezing here. Clear, blue, sunny skies, cold air. I will go to the Dolomites. More than 150 days have passed, not it's time to look inside myself. Deeply.