it’s funny that today, the first day of spring, it was crazy warm. it was a little cool yesterday, but then it got warmer as the evening progressed, and i think that spring officially arrived around 6 o’clock last night and it’s like the warm weather just KNEW that it was supposed to be here.
so. on sunday i was in my second fencing tournament. you may recall that i was in a team fencing tournament a few weeks ago and had to fence against very good experienced fencers and it was exhausting and i didn’t win anything but i didn’t expect to, and it was ok but very tiring. I hung in there and didn’t fall to the floor weeping or anything, which was an accomplishment.
but this last tournament was a beginner’s tourney and kevin kept saying “i think you’re going to do better than you think you will,” and so i started getting my hopes up, even though i have a very long history of sucking at every single sport i’ve ever tried which is why i’ve always avoided sports. sports against other people, i mean.
in the beginner’s tournament there were lots of people so we were divided into smaller categories. my category was women, i think it was women over the age of 14. most of the other fencers were in college, except for one or two younger girls.
i haven’t written in a while because i haven’t wanted to write about the tournament. it started out fine, and i felt good about it, but then i had to fence against somebody and it’s all very complicated about the judging and the scoring, but the bottom line is that the judge i had for this round wasn’t even watching the event at all, and the person who was watching (one of the other fencers) was saying that i had won the point, but the judge didn’t listen, maybe he was on crack, i don’t know, but all of a sudden even though it seemed that i should have won, i lost. there were only seven women competing, and i think i came in 5th. this wouldn’t have been bad if i’d lost fair and square, but that didn’t happen, and it was incredibly upsetting.
i realize it’s not a big deal, and as randy pointed out, it’s not like i’ve been dying to get a fencing trophy, but it was just so disheartening because it wasn’t done according to any kind of rules or logic or fairness. to finally be kind of good at something (at least kind of good amongst the other beginning fencers) and then to lose because of bad judging was just…awful.
if you want to read about it, here is a link to the springfield fencing club website. kevin wrote about the day, and the fencer who he wrote about who was screwed in the judging is, of course, me.
Springfield Fencing Club Website
yuck. i was in such a very bad mood about it that it made me in a bad mood about almost every other thing in my entire life, and then it was all a big downward spiral, and you should be glad that you didn’t see or talk to me on monday. not a happy person.
but then i got over it, as i seem to usually do, and by monday night i was fine and tuesday night i went to fencing club and people who had been to a competition on friday night talked about the unfair judging that THEY came up against and people commiserated with my lousy time and i had fun fencing and it was all good. and i heard joanne make the wise comment that “it’s not like we’re training for the olympics or anything.” she also said it’s all a good learning experience and even though i usually HATE it when people say that, i do think she’s right.
and then today, TODAY, it must have been EIGHTY DEGREES here and so life is good. i spent a good amount of time outside, and it was sunny and lovely even though it was supposed to rain and it’s supposed to rain till monday but i just don’t see that happening and life is, indeed, good.
and soon it will be the weekend, and NO FENCING TOURNAMENTS!
ok then,
grace.