eponymous_rose

Oh, dear.

I'm just starting on "The Sleep of Reason", yet another Eighth Doctor book, and I get to the fencing match.  Yay fencing!

But then the author clearly states they're fencing with épée (and, indeed, some of the hits could only possibly count in an épée bout), and then goes on to reference priority rules ("clearly out of time... no way her attack was going to count").  So close!  No priority rules in épée, I'm afraid.

Being a fencing geek is really, really depressing, because it's so rare that someone gets it right.  Now, is it that latest Bond fencing scene I'm thinking of, where they're very obviously fencing épée, but wearing lamés?  I know, I know, nice, shiny material looks good on screen.  But why not just fence foil?

... *clambers off soapbox*

But yay fencing!  Seven years of épée, and I still get all excited whenever anyone references my weapon. :D

Well, I predicted our little rainstorm today to within twenty minutes of its beginning, using only radar imagery.  Huzzah! 

That's the fun thing about weather forecasting - if you concentrate on a small enough area and if you know its general weather patterns well enough, you can, with a little practice, predict the next day's weather in an hour-by-hour format, and be just about always right.  And then you can extrapolate, using intuition and experience and whatnot.  I once sketched up a little weather map of the province based entirely on the clouds I saw on the bus ride to my parents' house - I managed to include all of the large-scale features, in approximately the right place.

What else is new?

Well, speaking of numbers, if you sum together the years I've spent fencing and the years I've spent playing piano, you get my age.   Uh.  Yeah.  Not really that exciting, but it'll only happen once.

Heat wave's broken!  My room's 29.7 degrees C and falling.  It smells like rain.

Yeah, another hyperactive night of fencing - great fun and quite a few new faces among the regulars, which is always a good thing!

The only other female fencer in the group told me about a romantic date she'd had the night before, during the huge thunderstorm.  She mentioned to her boyfriend that she was thinking of me (with the storm and all), which prompted some wacky sitcom-like jealousy things.  Heehee!

There was actually some coaching going on among the random bouts, and the aforementioned fencer was getting increasingly frustrated (of course, her instructor is an arrogant and tactless sort of guy who has the unfortunate characteristic of always being right, so who could blame her?).  At one point, the instructor shouted "stay cool!", which prompted a lot of rhythmic snapping from the Bernstein fans in the group.  And then, of course, someone started to sing "Cool" from "West Side Story" and that got us all started.  Even when we headed out to the pub after fencing (the others drank, I watched and told wacky stories), we tried to get some sort of choreography going.  Yeah.  We're cool.  Real cool.

On the not-so-cool side, I got a huge dent in my mask (anyone who's seen/tried to lift a regulation fencing mask knows those things are hard to damage) and a splitting headache as a result of the hit.  Urgh.  I guess that's what I get for fencing someone tall enough that my head is the easiest target to hit.  (Being five foot eight means I'm rarely in that situation when I fence other girls, but lanky guys is another matter!)  I fixed up the mask via the tried-and-true method of whacking it back into shape, but I wouldn't guarantee that it'd pass inspection at any tournament.  Hrm.  Maybe getting a new mask beats out getting a new weapon for the time being.  Dang.

So! It looks like I can finally catch up on the sleep I lost due to the storm.  Apparently, I'm on call tomorrow night for Torchwood ("on call" meaning that if the violin instructor can get his guests out of the house by 10PM, we're good to go), so that should be fun.  And gaming on Saturday... yeah, better get sleep while I still can!

But first... I'm gonna listen to another Eighth Doctor audio thingie.  Again.  I'm hooked, it's true.  *hangs head*

Hoo, still dementedly hot out, and it looks like people are settling in for the heat wave in much the same way they settled in for the cold snaps a few weeks back.  That is to say: they don't really care.  We're adaptable, we are.  *wince*  I first noticed the dry heat when my hair air-dried in ten minutes this morning.  Um.  Creepy.

Fencing was great fun as always last night - the "good try" sarcasm came back, as did my bloodlust and the ongoing jokes about a certain fencer's Mom and army boots.  I swear, though, this one kid's got a sharpened tip on his weapon - how the heck do you poke holes in thick sweatpants with a flat tip?  Also: why am I destroying all my pants this week?  It makes me sad.

Ooh, I got my Officialesque Statemente of Resultsimundo!  Um.  Or something like that.

Huzzah!  Results, for those of you keeping score at home/stalking me:


I think I've found a new favourite coffee shop - the guy running it insists on speaking French to me (which is weird, because this province is about as Anglophone as it's possible to be in Canada).  He also has a little letter posted at the till explaining, politely, that he's an alien from the 27th century and is plotting world domination - something to do with manipulating the world's caffeine obsession.  It could work!

Campus is a weird place over the summer.