Greetings, my faithful blogger readers. (No greeting to those who only read now and then, even if you are reading this post) I didn't post any last week because I skipped fiction writing class because I had a huge project due in my late Wednesday night class. But that project is done (we get it back graded today!) and so I am back with a vengeance and ready to blog away!

So...what's been going on...I guess I'll start with the missions tournament and then talk about developments and frustrations at work.

Missions tournament is my favorite of the year. Everybody has a good attitude and the competition is intense but somehow it doesn't matter all that much if you do poorly. I was a little nervous about doing my kata, because this was my first time to compete at the black belt level in kata. I did Ten No Kata (as I've been doing for the past two years) and got 8.5, 8 and 8.5. And a "good job" from Mr. H. I placed 4th out of 5 black belts. That doesn't sound so great until I mention that first place went to Jason Murry, second to Kai Mitchel and third to Luke Rosebure. Scott Brown gave me some good tips on how to improve the kata and I'm thinking if I make those changes and work hard I should be able to beat out Luke.

Fighting was a blast. Luke has been hitting the cheeseburgers too much and is at 180 pounds, so he was in the heavy weight division. :( Ethan was allowed to fight up into the black belt division since he needs that for his black belt test. Jason and I were the only other people fighting in that division (if any other light weight black belts are reading this, let it be known that you guys really out to step up to the plate and fight...there were a lot of black belts there, why didn't you guys fight?) So the light weight was just Ethan, Jason and I. Ethan and I fought first. It was a blast. I made several good kicks on him. He rushed me and I folded instead of going around him. :( He won. He then went on to fight and beat Jason. First time a brown belt has won the black belt division at Missions Tournament, as far as I know. We were all thrilled for him.

This was also my first tournament to judge. I worked with Scott Brown and Greg Partridge, so it was fun. But man...judging is really intense! I hadn't expected to be exhausted by it, but mentally is is tiring.

So, frustrations at work. There is one worker in particular who has not been teaching her classes per Gymnastics City guidelines. My boss has had many discussions with her about the problems. Now my boss has decided that I will be in charge of running all classes for the next two weeks and making sure that everybody is doing what their supposed to do. I didn't ask for this job and I'm not really enjoying it, but at the same time I see that we do need somebody doing it, and I've been there long enough to know exactly how my boss wants everything done.

Last night was interesting. I was able to help several coworkers get some stuff figured out and to just move around and give tips on teaching. I think we need more of that at the gym: too often our teachers are thrown to the wolves, as it were, without as much preparation as I would like. But a couple of the teachers were very resentful of my instructions. It was all very frustrating. Because I've got work to do with my students (we've got a meet this weekend and need to be getting ready for it!) yet instead I'm fighting with these folks who don't want to do a good job. It's very frustrating.

What else to write about...next week is Thanksgiving break! I'm excited about that! It means no class next Wednesday and then Thursday down in Texas visiting with Mom's family. I might use the time to finish up some paper work and writing stuff for my internship. I'm glad the semester is just about over. I've only got a few more assignments left to finish and none of them are really huge.

I recently downloaded a song by Blue October called Hate Me. It's an incredibly sad and somewhat disturbing song but the lyrics are very tightly written.

On a totally random note that most of you probably don't care about, my archer character on Conquer is now a level 120 and has five sockets, each with super dragon gems in them. I'm two-hitting birdmen on scatter. That's cool.

And now I'll leave you.