it\u2019s 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\u2019clock last night and it\u2019s like the warm weather just KNEW that it was supposed to be here.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t win anything but i didn\u2019t expect to, and it was ok but very tiring. I hung in there and didn\u2019t fall to the floor weeping or anything, which was an accomplishment.<\/p>\n
but this last tournament was a beginner\u2019s tourney and kevin kept saying “i think you\u2019re 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\u2019ve ever tried which is why i\u2019ve always avoided sports. sports against other people, i mean. <\/p>\n
in the beginner\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
i haven\u2019t written in a while because i haven\u2019t 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\u2019s all very complicated about the judging and the scoring, but the bottom line is that the judge i had for this round wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t listen, maybe he was on crack, i don\u2019t 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\u2019t have been bad if i\u2019d lost fair and square, but that didn\u2019t happen, and it was incredibly upsetting.<\/p>\n
i realize it\u2019s not a big deal, and as randy pointed out, it\u2019s not like i\u2019ve been dying to get a fencing trophy, but it was just so disheartening because it wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n