miss_yt

It's been a good weekend. tempus_aeterna, drakonous, arcessita, ironroot and I had our first Mage game of the year on Saturday. We should finish the game in a few sessions, after which we may resume our long-on-hiatus D&D game. ironroot and arcessita have found a couple of likely replacements for our fighter players.

Sunday was very busy for me. My carpool partner has been unable to go to kendo for the last three weeks, but he was available today, so I was able to go. I participated in an iaido (sword-drawing) class and finally bought my gear. I now have a gi an a shinai, although I do not yet have a bag to keep my shinai in. Next week I should be able to get a bokuto. The bag might come with that, but I'm not sure. For now I am keeping the shinai in the plastic bag it came in.

I also participated in the iaido class on Sunday and learned how to do the opening and closing bows for iaido forms (although I will no doubt forget soon). I think part of the purpose of the opening and closing bows is meant to teach you how to put on and take off your sword, how to place it in certain circumstances, and how to handle the cords on the sheath (which are long, and used to tie the sword to the sash). I am actually planning to do only kendo classes, not iaido yet, although it was good to try.

I learned some other valuable things in that class - for instance, how to tie on my hakama. Apparently hakama are supposed to have a tab in the back that you can slip into the tied sash to keep the whole thing from falling down. My set does not have a tab: I don't know if it ever did. But it seems to stay on pretty well. It didn't slip down at all during class (fortunately). Another thing I learned was how to push off my back foot when standing up from a kneeling position, or doing a strike. In kendo, it is very important to push off the back foot when you are striking, because the power of the stroke should not come from your arms in most cases but from your body weight. Pushing off your back foot also makes it easier to get up from a kneeling position. Speaking of that, I learned how I am supposed to sit. In kendo it is customary to sit down in a certain way and kneel with the knees slightly apart. The problem is, women are supposed to sit with their knees closer together. We had a female iaido sensei visiting, so I asked her what I should do. She said that as a woman, I should be careful to keep my legs closer together when actually in the process of sitting down, but I could sit with my knees slightly apart when I was actually on the ground. I had been wondering about that, so it was a good thing to get resolved.

I got back from kendo later than I thought I would (it's in New Jersey, and I have to take PATCO and an hour-long car ride to get there). ironroot and arcessita were having a Not Watching the Super Bowl Party at 5 PM, and I got back around 3:30. I had to go home and take a shower though, in order to be decent. Then I had to get to their house by bus. I had a bit of a misadventure with the second leg of the trip, because the person I asked for directions told me that the bus goes down Morris and up Tasker - she did not mention that after going down Morris it reaches the end of the line. I had to wait an extra 15 or 20 minutes until the loop started up again. But I reached my destination..

I helped ironroot and arcessita move into their house, but I hadn't seen it since. It looks really nice now that they've settled in. r_grayjoy and tempus_aeterna came to visit¹. There were also a couple of people I hadn't met before, Seth and Emily. Emily and r_grayjoy may very well be joining our D&D game, when we start it up again. We had to convince them that we don't play stereotypical D&D. Part of this process involved ironroot basically calling my elven cleric character a loose woman (my words, not his). I pointed out that I only picked up guys in bars once or twice during our game. Of course we also had some other weirdnesses in our favor, such as our socially inept druid, our dwarven wizard and our bar wench rogue (tempus_aeterna, drakonous and arcessita).

I think the kendo lesson and the beer I was drinking finally got to me, because around 10:30 I started drifting off on the couch. ironroot drove me home - in the course of dropping Emily off, too - and I ended up going to sleep around midnight. I got up late this morning and didn't exercise, but maybe I will do some kendo practice after work, since I have my shinai and all. I might be able to do it at the gym if I go to an unoccupied room or something.

Oh, one of my co-workers is selling Girl Scout cookies today, since his daughter is in the Scouts. I got Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Lemonades, and of course Thin Mints. I put those last in the office freezer because Thin Mints are really good cold.

Well, I better get back to work. I have to format some Greek.

tempus_aeterna knows about Janet Monge's monkey story, but r_grayjoy still hasn't remembered to ask about it, even though she's taking a class with Monge.