Stuff

[bloodygranuaile]

I have a blue belt! I probably should be happier about this than I am, but frankly, I don't feel like it's a huge accomplishment... especially since last year they bumped us up two kyu per test, and this year only one. If I'd been good enough to get blue with stripe this test, I'd be pleased with myself (one girl did, from WPI). I'd have to be pretty goddamn lame not to go up one kyu in four months when I had the best attendance record in the class, especially since according to the useless handouts Shihan hands out to intimidate you, blue belt is still on the "one kyu per two months" track. And the thing I am really still abysmally bad at is kumite. And since kumite is pretty much the measure of how good you actually are in karate (as Shihan likes to remind us constantly), it's not much consolation to be able to do everything else. Like... if I had issues memorizing kata, but could actually fight, I think I'd feel somewhat better about my overall abilities than I do having it be the other way around. And between WPI chick going up two levels today, and the fact that Tony got green at the end of last year, I really, really want to improve enough to go for green at the end of spring semester. But since I have absolutely *no* natural ability for fighting (being by nature both slow and highly timid), and not being able to wear my glasses makes everything out of focus and messes with my depth perception, as well as just psychologically slowing me down further (not being able to see makes me REALLY, really disoriented. I am an extremely visual person; I can't even "close your eyes and take a deep breath" to calm down when I'm nervous. Deep breaths help but the moment I close my eyes I feel unmoored and start getting really uncomfortable... it's weird). But frankly I'm not sure it'd be worth it to invest in contacts unless I had some other sort of indication that if I could see, I wouldn't still just be hopelessly bad. So yeah... I'm feeling like I made the minimum requirements today, big freakin' deal, and I have a SHIT TON of work to do if I even have a hope of progressing beyond the minimal level. And even then, I don't really know if I'll be able to pull it off.

For the moment, though, I need to stop feeling inadequate and do homework. I have two papers to write in exactly one week. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH. This probably means I also need to stop spending so much time poking around the AVEN boards, even though they are lovely and interesting and I feel like so much less of a freak there and they just make the world make SENSE. (AVEN is the Asexual Visibility and Awareness Network, btw. This be my official coming out of the closet statement, for any of you that were unaware of my asexyness (or have been misled by any of my lovesick ramblings, but you know what they say about exceptions and rules).)

I also got accepted to Heartless Bitches International but those forums (fora?) tend to have fewer discussions that are long long long and therefore any attempt to hang out there as a newbie is backreading like whoa forever. So no real time for that yet.

...I think I need a drink.