Wednesday, August 25, 2004

If I can't have you, I don't want nobody baby...

*points up* Random song lyric that jumped into my head. O_o'

So, on to today's news.



THERE IS NO TODAY'S NEWS! ARE YOU INSANE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY OF THESE I'VE WRITTEN CONSECUTIVELY?! HUH? DO YOU?!

*twitch* You'll have to forgive me, I'm feeling much more random than normal. Tis weird....>_>

So, my mom was on call last night, and apparently she got called in to work, as she was not here in the morning to wake me up. Therefore, I did not go to the gym, because I did not get up until 12-ish. When I woke up, there was nobody else in the house. o_o;;

I ticked off family members on my fingers. Mom: At work. Dad: At work. Tim: ???, but he doesn't live here anymore so it doesn't really matter. Jess: Work. >_> Ben: Home. Emily & Michael: Probably with the grandparents.

Having come up with a decent excuse for everybody to be away, I set about....doing stuff. I read some MyOs, I checked out OB, I talked to a couple people on AIM, etc., etc.

Eventually, my dad came home from working at the golf course. He plopped down on his bed and started watching The Rock. I went downstairs to watch the movie with him for a little while, and then I got a call from Mr. St. Louis. >_> It was about 3:00 at the time.

He told me that he was going out somewhere at four, and asked if I could come to cut his yard later, perhaps at 6:00 or 6:30. An alert flashed in my mind: "Negative. Fencing begins at 7:00. You'd never make it on time and you wouldn't be ready to fence." I told him that I was otherwise engaged this evening, and asked him if I could come over right at that moment. It doesn't take me an hour to do the lawn anymore, and so I could be done before he left. He agreed, so I went over to cut the lawn. My dad dropped me off, and then drove off to do errands.

Mr. St. Louis pointed out to me that after the last time I cut his lawn, he had noticed that some areas were not cut perfectly straight. (The area in question had a freaking bush in the middle of it, making circles easier than straight lines.) Now, the first reason he gave me, as it always is that he doesn't want me to get tired out by turning the lawn mower. The ease with which I do my work is foremost on his mind. The second reason, though; (not terribly important compared to the first, of course) it looked nicer when straight lines were used. The lawn was aesthetically more pleasing with rows, apparently.

*mutters darkly about elderly perfectionists*

I finished before four, got paid, and walked home. I came upstairs to my room, and found that several of my friends were away, with similar away messages. They were playing Literati. So, I signed onto my long-forgotten Yahoo username and joined their room. I watched and chatted as they finished the first game, and then I joined them in a second. Partway through, I left and got a protein-milkshake-thing for lunch.

I was winning for a good portion of the game, but then I got down to three letters by mistake. I hadn't noticed that there were no more letters to be taken. So, Sara began to trounce me with her vast vocabularical might.

(Un)fortunately, I had to leave before the game had found its conclusion. It was about 6:45, and fencing began at 7:00. My coach had strongly suggested I attend the special session on Tactical Footwork that was to be held this evening, so I decided that I would. I loaded up my gear, and my dad drove me over to the East Lyme Community Center, where the club meets.

Upon arriving, I put on my knickers and found my friend and teammate, Tim Tartarus. Tim and I decided that we'd stick together throughout the "class" as instructor called it (including the quotes). His name is David (pronounced Da-veed) and he'd been fencing for 30 years in all sorts of national and international competitions. Never the Olympics, though. I knew him as the coach from Bacon Academy. Anyways, he took us through all sorts of drills and exercises that first stretched out our legs, and then put them to work.

Lots of movement back and forth across the room, and quite a bit of bouncing tossed in as well. We all looked ridiculous a lot of the time, but I still had fun. ^_^

At one point, he made everybody get up and do a move called a Balestra, in front of everybody else. A Balestra is, basically, a lunge preceded by a small hop. The hop covers the distance to your opponent quickly, and then you go in for the touch. I executed mine without much trouble, as I've done the move many times before at practice. Heh, other people weren't so advanced. ^_^;;

Then David had pairs of us race across the larger length of the gym. I was paired up with Tim, thankfully. He beat me by a slight margin, but the emphasis of the race was speed with form. As he put it, after someone went faster than he did: "He won, but who looked better?"

Heh, David looked much better, formwise. He had much more control over his movements, and was able to stop himself without slowing when he reached the wall.

After the races, we were permitted to free fence. I suited up, and then watched a couple other people as they fenced, particularly David. A lanky fellow came up to me and asked me to fence, so I got off my arse and fenced him. :D

He continually used a strong move he called a "Windmill" in which he would basically swing his foil around in a wide, strong circular motion. It was very annoying, as it kept smashing my blade out of line. What really irked me, though, was when he advanced on me with the huge flailing motion, and then caught be across the thumb. x_x;;

That hurt. A lot.

So what did I do? I didn't let him start the move. I kept pressure on him, and whenever he attempted to start the move, I'd attack from an outside line. If he didn't stop his motion to protect himself, I got a touch. If he did, it stopped the Windmill. A couple of times I was quick enough to simply attack right before he started the Windmill, and head off any further damage to myself. Eventually, though, the rubber tip of his foil flew off and hit someone in the head. That ended the bout, as I hadn't really wanted to be poked by an uncovered metal foil. >_>;;

I got out of my fencing stuff and waited outside for my dad. He was late, and I later found out it was due to traffic. I came home and cooked up a couple of turkey burgers for dinner. Then I came upstairs, where I am currently.

In Other News:

I've got exactly a week left until school starts for me. I still have to read Booknotes: Stories From American History for my AP History class, and then write a summary of it.

I still have another book that was on my reading list, called Four Classic American Novels. In it are the stories: The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Billy Budd. I'm retaining a small bit of hope that I don't need to read the book quite yet. It's a required book for my English course, and I'm hoping that means that we will be reading it and discussing throughout the year; and that I don't have to read it now. >_>

If I really was supposed to read it this summer....well....there's always cliff notes. v_v

Tomorrow I've got another day of work; 2-5 PM. I feel like such a dork, because I'm actually looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. =P

Friday we're moving my sister up to her dorm room, provided that she fills out all of the forms and such that she left to the last minute. If she didn't, well--she'll have the shortest college career we've seen in a long while.

Okay, I'm done.
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