As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

A Kitten Named Onyx... Tuesday, August 19

At 3am I woke up and little miss too-tired-to-be-mad cat was now a super hungry cat, with my ears apparently looking delish for it to nibble on.  Went to the store, picked up some more food, and then fed it.  

At 6am I woke up and little miss no-longer-super-hungry cat was now super thirsty, so I sat with it while it sipped on the milk I had given it at the start of the afternoon but that it had yet to drink.

At 8am I woke up and little miss no-longer-super-thirsty cat was now a super happy cat.  She purred so much and drooled so much but in between all her purring and all her drooling she'd sneeze, sending her little kitten snot all over my hands and face... great.  

Snickers slept through the entire thing and when he woke up at 10am and saw me with my baggy, swollen eyes, he asked me why I was so tired.  "If a kitten is anything like a baby, I'm so not interested.  That kitten kicked my butt!" I told him.  I was serious, that kitten had seriously left me so exhausted.  I looked like a mess and felt like a mess but with members coming to train and me having to get my training in, I basically was a mess as I desperately pushed myself through training.  Training was super rough but I looked rougher. Working even rougher.  Hulkies noted my puffy eyes that lasted well over half the day, such a Korean thing -- people noticing flaws and totally pointing them out.  I couldn't exactly joke them off as a boxing injury so I didn't even try and my energy today definitely depended on that second cup of double espresso. 

Later in the evening I got a second wind though and it was thanks to two men who came walking into Hulk's. They were boxing equipment sellers, originally from Pakistan but living in Seoul.  They heard about our boxing club here in Cheonan and so they decided to pay us a visit.  They brought with them various pieces of boxing equipment that their factory in Pakistan manufactures.  We've been needing to get more equipment so their timing couldn't be more appropriate.  The plan is to possibly buy some gloves off them.  Their prices are pretty competitive with the Korean brand we've been going with, Acropolis, but the thing that really differentiates them from Acropolis is the fact that they'd print both our logo and name on the individual gloves -- a point that really sealed the deal for me.  In a couple of weeks they'll be sending us a sample pair of gloves for us so tonight we simply talked about it and checked out the quality of their items.  

I was particularly interested in the sandbag gloves they had brought because I've been needing a new pair. The pair I have was picked out of the trash.  Someone at my old club had thrown them into the boxing club's trash so I asked if I could have them.  My coach cleaned them off, stitched up part of the inside and I've been using them ever since -- about 6 years now.   

When the two men went to leave our club, one of them turned to me and told me I could have the sandbag gloves they had brought for me to check out.  I was so excited and tomorrow you better believe I'm going to work these bad boys out!!!

Earlier on in the day, around noon, Snickers and I had taken the stray kitten to the vet but it wasn't until late after work that we sat down to talk about it.  We had gone after work to a late dinner with one of our long time Hulkies who had also helped us with the kitten yesterday.  The kitten is dying, that's what we were told.  It is about 1.5-2 months old but is suffering from pneumonia.  The vet noted that he will give it meds and keep it for anyone else who wants to take it home but the fact of the matter is this beautiful kitten will be living a very short life.  We're not particularly cat people and given the fact we have three dogs already, a kitten just doesn't fit our scene.  Having said this though, at the thought of this poor kitten living the remainder of its short life in a metal cage at the vet and dying without really have lived a life or been loved, well, that's just so sad.  Snickers and I are contemplating taking back the kitten because we both know that if there's no hope for it to get better then there's no hope for someone else taking it home.  

I had told myself not to name the kitten and even told Snickers not to do so.  We didn't want any attachments to it.  It was simply a visitor at Hulk's until we could take it to the vet.  After talking about what the vet said though, well,.. her name is now Oynx.

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