Thrust, Parry, Riposte (from 2005)

I was cleaning out some files on my computer tonight and I came across a little personal journal folder that was hidden away in one of the folders I kept the stuff for my poetry class in(contest: try to write a journal entry that contains a more mangled run-on sentence than the one I just wrote. Can you possibly manage? I dare you I double dog dare you). This particular entry was dated Sept. 18th, 2005, which makes it almost two years old. It's sort of funny and if nothing else is a neat little time capsule.

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Long ago, okay three weeks ago, I signed up for a fencing class. Why, you ask? a couple reasons. One was that I for some reason felt the need at the time to sign up for as many classes as possible (no seriously, they're not letting me take any more) and that was a one credit class that met once a week, with no homework. Bingo. Also, it meets on Friday. Friday is my one day with lots of free time, which is nice because if I am too spent at the end of fencing class, I can go home and nap.

Today was the first day I actually went to class. Why didn't I go the first friday? I was sick. why not the second? I couldn't find the gym. That should tell you quite vividly as to how in shape I am.

The instructor didn't believe me, but she let me make up the missed classes anyway. while the rest of the class was learning the jump lunge, I learned the basics, via the grad TA, who was sort of a drill sergeant and kept yelling at me when I wasn't pointing my foil directly at his head. "At my HEAD, okay? not my chest. my HEAD."

I found it easier and easier to rationalize doing so the more he yelled at me. If there is one sport that I figure everyone would be a big nerd in, it would have to be fencing. Must every PE class imply the title "Intro to ROTC?" You could tell he had played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons or Magic when he was younger, and in going into the training I took a lot of solace in that assumption, but he still managed to turn out to be a jackass. I bet all of his D&D friends thought he was a jerk.

So, in the course of an hour and forty minutes, I made myself learn the positions: on guard, four position, six position. Don't ask me what they mean, I just know how to do them. I learned advance and retreat and thrust and parry and riposte and jump-lunge and all of that crap. it was a lot for an hour and a half, even 'boot-camp,' the graduate assistant, had to admit.

-as of yet, we still have not learned the "Laugh, And Then Jump Off Something" move.

One girl was particularly helpful (and cute) with teaching me how to disengage, and didn't even so much as yell at me when I hit her in the vagina (it was an ACC-I-DENT) twice.

-the incident subconsciously reminded me how long it has been since I've gotten laid. And also that my next lay would probably not be that girl.