...and of mixed events in general. At least I can commiserate with KU. We're thinking of skipping the May event--every month seems to get worse and worse for both of us. I've been taking an epee break, fencing some foil and playing with sabre every once in a while...Senior Sectionals are on 5/5, though, so I should probably get back into the epee swirl.

PS. Noisettes & TV on the Radio in concert = awesome awesome awesome and my best use of $10 to date.

Yesterday I spent several hours in New Paltz at the HB Div II/III summer national qualifiers. I didn't fence b/c I'm registered in the CT division (but oh how I wish I were a Hudson-Berkshire person...only 1 woman showed up for epee, 3 for foil, and 2 for sabre...); I was there as transportation and moral support for our 3 VC guys (MB, JCE and ZPG). They took 2nd in team, and the 2 eligible ones qualified for nationals--ZPG couldn't, seeng as he's an A05... I refereed an epee pool and got some unexpected $$ for my efforts, and BG upped my epee rating to an 8. I think I'm going to do another practical at Junior Sectionals--BG will probably give me an 8 in foil. If I get far enough in epee and ref well, he says I could foreseeably go up to a 7. I'm not even going near sabre.
((Speaking of sabre...K, J, and I went to Walker a few nights ago to fence it. We played around for about 2 hours. My arm was was sore afterward, and we obviously didn't really know what we were doing, but it was seriously fun. I've also been watching lots of sabre video clips...J and I watched a few videos of Sada Jacobson & Becca Ward to see the differences between their styles...Ward -does- fence super-differently, and she does a few things very, very effectively...I am kind of in love with watching high-level women's sabre videos. They may not be as fast as the men, but it seems like a totally different game...it also has its own type of grace that I can't really describe, but that is nothing like epee or foil. Good stuff. Maybe I'll take a couple of sabre lessons one of these days.))

Another mixed Fishkill tournament is on Wednesday. I'm kinda not looking forward to it, because I haven't been training...but I'm going to go anyway. Now that DC is a definite plan, I want to be ready to fence at the DCFC in the fall.

I fenced foil in the intramural tournament on Sunday...I went 4-2 and was seeded 4th after pools, although I REALLY should have gone 5-1 and thus should have been seeded 3rd. JCE really really really messed up a call during my bout against KU--at 4-4, I executed a marching attack on K and she countered into it, both of our lights went off and he called it as an attack in prep. BG was standing right next to J and CLEARLY disagreed...but he told J to call it as he saw fit. So instead of having a bye, I had to fence the 13th (last) seed. I've been getting over a bad upper respiratory infection, though, and I'd been having trouble breathing all evening. I was also a bit dehydrated, but I overcompensated and drank way too much water...all that water made me feel kinda sick. I was up 10-3 in the DEs when I just couldn't move anymore...the kid I was fencing started getting some touches on me, and I kept having to stop between touches to try to get some air in my lungs. Not fun. I withdrew from my bout and forfeited, thus placing 9th overall. If I had just been able to finish the bout before withdrawing, I would have been 5th. Oh well. It doesn't count for anything. Still, I wish my silver women's medal hadn't been so fake (there were only 3 of us--the third girl got knocked out the first round). I was fencing pretty strongly, and if I had been feeling well, I think I would have been able to make it to at least the round of 4. JCE won, KU was second, JMtz was third and a kid from the PE class was 4th.

In order to continue my "any other weapon but epee" streak, I think J and I are going to play with sabre tomorrow at Walker, and maybe on Thursday at CFC as well.

In other, more important news, I got a job teaching in the DC area!

Hooray!

I haven't updated in a while, mostly because I haven't really been training. I have, however, been going for walks on most days and changing my eating habits around, as I'm trying to get down to my fighting weight, and because the World Health Organization says that Asians with BMIs of 23+ are at as high a risk of developing hypertension and diabetes as other people with BMIs of 25 (the overweight cutoff). I know that BMI isn't really a great measure as it doesn't account for body composition, but as far as I know I don't exactly have the muscle mass an Olympic gymnast or speed skater. Plus, to have a BMI of 23 I'd need to lose about 20 pounds. That's pretty significant. So far, I feel really good...we've been cooking at home more and having group dinners instead of going out, which was getting way too expensive. In addition, with the exception of Saturday night, my weekends have been pretty low-key, which is fine by me.

Anyhow, the last time I fenced was on Thursday at CFC; I fenced KU, JCE, BA, and some high school kids. I was fencing really well against K and B. I'm starting to integrate the fleche into my game for real this time, although I've been having trouble with the extraneous movements I'm prone to make while trying to execue an action.

In other news, my job search continues. I have not heard back yet about the paralegal position for which I interviewed  twice, but I have a second round interview in Washington, DC for a teaching position a private school. They are flying me down and putting me up overnight next week. It would be so nice to be in DC, since J & C and some other friends will be down in that area, the museums and architecture are great, and the DCFC is awesome. I will probably work for 1-2 years and then complete my med school prereqs over the course of 12 months--summer, fall, & spring terms (fingers crossed).

I'm still not getting my work done, but I fenced with J for 2 hours today. He gave me a lesson:

C: present wrist target
S: short lunge to hand; flunge/fleche to shoulder/deep target

C: present outside
S: coupe ---> hit 6 OR take counter-4 w/flunge or fleche

C: present inside
S: take 4 w/flunge or fleche ((must remember to not let wrist go floppy))

After the lesson was over we free fenced...I was a lot more aggressive, moving well and getting some nice touches. It was nice after the travesty that was the Fishkill Tournament on Wednesday night. I would grumble about fencing mixed events here, but I won't. Oops, too late.

I want to get a deep tissue massage for my quads and calves.

Also, I need to start strength training, and maybe go back to using my Powerball. The other night I actually entertained the idea of buying Leon Paul ultralight epee blades, when the real problem is that I need to strengthen my hand/arm so that it doesn't tire as easily, thus causing me to tighten my grip and develop even more fatigue...

I also need to work on my endurance for DEs. I haven't fenced a 15-touch bout in who knows how long...if I want to be ready for Sectionals in 6 weeks, I need to start prepping!

I'm at school right now, though I was planning on going up to RPI this weekend. Nature decided to dump well over a foot of snow on us here in Potown, thus effectively foiling my plans to shadow in Danbury and drive to Troy. I spent the past couple of days with CT and her mom, as C's birthday was on the 15th. We went to dinner and all that. Today we were silly and girly--we got manicures and pedicures at a spa on Route 44. They've gone to Newburgh for the night, though, so I am all on my lonesome here at the house. I would go home, but my car is buried under a sick amount of the white stuff, and we have no shovel. I certainly won't be able to make it down to the Div II/III qualifier at CFC tomorrow. Sadness all around--woe is me.

I just did a badass 10 sets of 10 strong, long lunges while watching a pretty horrible Hilary Duff movie on Cinemax. It's part of my "develop a sick lunge" project, which plays into my larger goal of perfecting and strengthening my simple actions, thus allowing me to ace the weaker people against whom I always start overthinking, etc. etc.

I'm also working on using my feet to quietly steal and control distance. It worked well against BA at the club the other week (who, incidentally, gave me almost no trouble except a few times when my point was off).

Summer nats qualifiers are on Sunday @ CFC but I don't think I'm going to go...I can't go to nationals this year anyway, and I'm going to be in Troy that weekend visiting A. It would be nice to have a chance to compete against Div II/III people in a low-pressure situation...J & I are going to the Fishkill tournament next Wednesday. It's mixed, as always. I don't usually like mixed events, but maybe it'll be fun. I def. want to start attending more USFA events. There are a couple of D or E-and-unders in April that I might go to, if I have the time. Senior Sectionals is on Founder's Day, but I still might go to it since I can't recall a single Founder's Day that I've actually enjoyed. The PdT is in June, too...I would like to go fence the Open WE. I don't know if I feel like paying for another night @ a hotel to fence the unclassified WE event.

Dinner now.

I went shopping today! I got:

• this in green
• this
• and a really cool cobalt blue top w/a hood, but I can't find a picture online.

Then I found workout clothes on clearance at Bob's...I picked up a pair of capri-length compression tights (good for footwork/cardio...would also be nice for fencing if I didn't fence stupid epee), and 2 pairs of shorts. My original goal was to find a new pair of Adidas slides b/c my current ones are smelly and falling apart, but I couldn't find anything that I liked.

Tomorrow I have more doctor-shadowing up in Danbury. Monday went really well; I was on the pediatrics side with Dr. A's husband and her daughter (a physician assistant), and they were super-nice. I could definitely see myself doing something in peds one day. For tomorrow and Friday, though, I'll be on the internal medicine side...it'll be interesting to see how their IM practice differs from the peds side. I saw a little bit of IM when I shadowed that endocrinologist back over winter break, but since she was a specialist her practice was different from what I'll see tomorrow.

Time for lunges, ciao.

NECs were two weeks ago at MIT, and I won't say much about them except that I was sick for a good part of the morning, and my performance was lackluster. I split my bouts 5-5...all of my losses were from stupid mistakes against girls whom I've beaten before. Eh. Still, the WE squad placed 3rd overall, which was great. ME was 3rd as well, and WS was 2nd. We also got a bunch of people into the individual rounds. It was definitely our team's most successful New Englands yet.

IFAs were at Princeton--rather, a really nice prep school in Princeton, NJ--last weekend, and it was a long day. I

I didn't do as badly as the results would indicate, even though I only went 3-8 on the day in B pool and placed last out of the non-subs (I had -15 indicators, while the girl above me had fenced 1 fewer bout and had -14). Two of my 3 wins were against a B from Cornell and a C from NYU.  I didn't have any -really- unexpected wins this year, though, like last year when I took out Rowe.

Two of my losses went into overtime--including one against a C from Brown who I fenced a bunch of times as foil A-slot. I did have 3 really pathetic losses @ 5-0, but my bout against McGlade was the only one in which I wasn't at least moving and trying actions. She pretty much hit me 5 times while I stood in one place, but I expected that!

(As per usual, our 6-weapon team came in behind Cornell, which only has a women's team. Damn. Our women beat them 5-4! We're so inconsistent...)

....And...that's it--my collegiate fencing career is over! There won't be any Regionals for me, since I didn't fence during the first semester. Boo. We only qualified 7 women this year. KU might make it to Nat'ls, though, if she has an awesome day--she had a pretty sick season (56-12, or something like that). Anything's possible.