Friday, September 29, 2006

And I Thought I Was Lazy!

My, my, I have been gone a while... But not nearly so long as some others on the links list. Hmm. And yet I keep getting bugged my the grand total of two, count'em, TWO people that actually check this page regularly, so I suppose I should go ahead and reveal a little bit of what's been going on the past coupla months since I last got the initiative to update.

First off, the most significant thing I got is my job. I now work late morning/early lunch at one of the local bread companies, and am enjoying it (or at least the paycheck; I don't care if it's only minimum wage). I make loads of sandwiches, I wrap lots of... stuff (muffins, scones, cookies, and the like), I bag bread, and I take people's money (that is, if they wish to leave the shop with anything without my chasing them down in the parking lot). Thus far, it's an okay job. It's not something I'd want to do for the rest of my life, but hey. They were desperate enough to hire me, so I'll take what I can get.

Taekwondo is going swimmingly. A while back I got initiated into blue 1st, meaning I now have a much longer stretch between tests. My red belt probably won't be acquired until between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and I got my belt in either July or August, which should tell you something about how long it takes. I've also lately been attending the Friday night sparring classes. I think that they're great fun, and I'm already learning how to fight a bit smarter. The bad thing, though, is that I seem to be getting injured a lot more, no matter how much protective gear that we have to wear. Right now my left knee is an interesting shade of green from the bruises (note the plural) I received last week, mostly from colliding with my partner's knees. There's a nasty tendancy for that. I've also been kicked in the face by a black belt. My nose was throbbing for a good three days, but it didn't bleed or break, so I am grateful at least for that. I've also been allowed to sing the National Anthem for the Missouri Taekwondo Invitational, which went extremely well. (You know you've done all right when your instructor admits to tearing up and hugs you onstage. Whaddaya know, he does have the ability to show emotion!) So now I'm booked for next year; hopefully I actually compete.

School is also going well thus far. I've made A's in all of my tests, which I'm sure you expected. Pur-leeeze, you thought I'd stoop to making B's? My parents would kill me.

My sister and I are going to be running around a bit tomorrow. We're heading over to Barnes and Noble to attend a book-signing by Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall series and a number of other books, one of which I am attempting to get read by tomorrow (I haven't actually read anything else of his, you see; I thought I'd at least read one of his books before going to shake his hand). The book is pretty good thus far, if a tad confusing with the sheer number of characters involved. Not to mention that it's the third book in a series... Bit of a dumb idea to start off with the third book in a series... Ah well.

Black Belt Club class tomorrow afternoon. This should be interesting, since I think that we're working with the escrima sticks. I'll do my best not to injure myself, although I might say that this has been a bit harder than it sounds as of late, as I've described above.

Well, I'd better get to bed. Long day tomorrow, and I took Nyquil an hour ago, so I'm feeling a little drowsy.

Current Mood: Sleepy

Random Useless Fact of the Day: In Nuweiba, Egypt, you can fork over about $400 to learn how to properly ride a camel. That's right, they have camel-riding school. Sure, it only lasts for three days because it's meant more for tourists, but you know what? You get the camle license. Sweeeeeeet.