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flexagonapparently I feel like chronicling, and besides, I have some news that I now feel more ready to share than I did when it actually happened.
Yesterday I went sparring for the first time for the first time in a few months. It wasn't all that bad--I still have some bad habits I'd forgotten I have to work on, but I can still get a return kick off pretty fast, and I still remember the trick of stopping a shorter person when they come running in. So that was good. The only bad thing is that I bruised/jammed my big toe pretty badly... today it's swollen and has purple bruise-stripes across the top of it. Wheee. However... as long as it's okay in nine days, I don't mind too much, because (here comes the actual news) I'm finally testing for my blue stripe belt on Tuesday the 29th! Yes... finally. I found out a few days ago but didn't want to tell anyone right away because my feelings about it were just too mixed--and actually I still haven't told any of my friends in the dojang, and I hope I'm able to avoid doing so. I dunno why. Part of it is that I think my particular fight to get this particular belt has become a really personal thing, and part of it is plain old embarrassment--I don't want people saying "Congrats! Gee, that took you forever, didn't it?". I'd rather just try to pretend I've been at the new belt level for months now. Despite that, I still feel mostly positive feelings. All that work is finally being recognized, I'm going to be categorized where I think I should be, and I finally get to learn a new form and some new moves, which is always fun and exciting/motivating. Who knows, maybe I'm even un-stuck enough that the next belt won't take me so long--it doesn't always get slower and slower. No point thinking so far ahead though. I'll probably be a blue stripe for at least half a year, and I think it'll be a good level to be at, so unless I monumentally fuck up the test somehow, I'm all set for a long time. I'm not too worried about that though. I feel like a wall that's been in front of me for months has suddenly been torn down.
The other thing we did yesterday is play games at T's game night (I played Steam Tunnel, and Bohnanza, and Evo, in case you care). It was hosted at someone else's house, older members of the game circle who volunteered to host while T's new place is still a mess. They had a teenage daughter, 18, who was home for the summer and had to be coaxed into poking her sullen head in from the kitchen and grunting at us. It was so funny... she was just so stereotypical... and of course she couldn't want anything to do with these friends of her old, boring parents who had gotten together on a Saturday night to play board games. The funny thing is that it was a pretty young and fun crowd. I guess I've never felt myself to be on the upper end of a generation gap from an 18-year-old before... and at 8 years older than that, there's no reason I should have... but no doubt about it, I was there as her parents' guest, and within that situation I thought of her as a kid--more specifically a silly sullen kid who ought to have come out and played with us. Maybe teenagers don't know how silly they can seem, and how older people shrug and say "yup, adolescence" and don't take it seriously.
Anyway, off to lifting. I'm still pretty psyched about that, too, assuming of course the toe will go into my sneaker without too much pain.
Yesterday I went sparring for the first time for the first time in a few months. It wasn't all that bad--I still have some bad habits I'd forgotten I have to work on, but I can still get a return kick off pretty fast, and I still remember the trick of stopping a shorter person when they come running in. So that was good. The only bad thing is that I bruised/jammed my big toe pretty badly... today it's swollen and has purple bruise-stripes across the top of it. Wheee. However... as long as it's okay in nine days, I don't mind too much, because (here comes the actual news) I'm finally testing for my blue stripe belt on Tuesday the 29th! Yes... finally. I found out a few days ago but didn't want to tell anyone right away because my feelings about it were just too mixed--and actually I still haven't told any of my friends in the dojang, and I hope I'm able to avoid doing so. I dunno why. Part of it is that I think my particular fight to get this particular belt has become a really personal thing, and part of it is plain old embarrassment--I don't want people saying "Congrats! Gee, that took you forever, didn't it?". I'd rather just try to pretend I've been at the new belt level for months now. Despite that, I still feel mostly positive feelings. All that work is finally being recognized, I'm going to be categorized where I think I should be, and I finally get to learn a new form and some new moves, which is always fun and exciting/motivating. Who knows, maybe I'm even un-stuck enough that the next belt won't take me so long--it doesn't always get slower and slower. No point thinking so far ahead though. I'll probably be a blue stripe for at least half a year, and I think it'll be a good level to be at, so unless I monumentally fuck up the test somehow, I'm all set for a long time. I'm not too worried about that though. I feel like a wall that's been in front of me for months has suddenly been torn down.
The other thing we did yesterday is play games at T's game night (I played Steam Tunnel, and Bohnanza, and Evo, in case you care). It was hosted at someone else's house, older members of the game circle who volunteered to host while T's new place is still a mess. They had a teenage daughter, 18, who was home for the summer and had to be coaxed into poking her sullen head in from the kitchen and grunting at us. It was so funny... she was just so stereotypical... and of course she couldn't want anything to do with these friends of her old, boring parents who had gotten together on a Saturday night to play board games. The funny thing is that it was a pretty young and fun crowd. I guess I've never felt myself to be on the upper end of a generation gap from an 18-year-old before... and at 8 years older than that, there's no reason I should have... but no doubt about it, I was there as her parents' guest, and within that situation I thought of her as a kid--more specifically a silly sullen kid who ought to have come out and played with us. Maybe teenagers don't know how silly they can seem, and how older people shrug and say "yup, adolescence" and don't take it seriously.
Anyway, off to lifting. I'm still pretty psyched about that, too, assuming of course the toe will go into my sneaker without too much pain.
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How's the toe?
Date: 2003-07-21 08:08 am (UTC)Teenagers are all dipshits basically because they think everything is caused by them, affects them, and revolves around them. Oh wait...maybe that's not just teenagers.
Stripey
Date: 2003-07-21 08:18 am (UTC)Thanks for the luck--I don't think I'll need too much. I am going to have to restrain myself from doing my toenails green with a blue stripe, though--that could be a jinx. :)
Re: Stripey
Date: 2003-07-21 11:07 am (UTC)Youch!
Date: 2003-07-21 11:10 am (UTC)Hmmm, let me think about that
Date: 2003-07-21 12:08 pm (UTC)All of which is a long-winded way of saying let's wait and see, and let me know if you have a conflicting game. :)
Cool
Date: 2003-07-21 01:36 pm (UTC)