Stupidity Reigns Supreme

Why are people so stupid, childish, deceitful, immature, and useless? Why are there so many wastes of space and good air on this planet? I've been thinking about people in general a lot lately. It seems that every time I start to regain my faith in humanity as a whole, someone comes along, and does something (big or small) to ruin the itty bitty piece of hope I had regained. Alas, people are stupid. *sigh*

Ever notice how people on the internet act like their dicks are gargantuan when they are online, but they really only have a tiny baby finger in real life? I'm so ridiculously tired of people whipping them out in online chat rooms, message boards, and forums, and then end up having no backbone in real life. These same people back stab and lie to make their own pitiful real lives look so much better. I guess they figure if they talked themselves up online, but they are really nothing in person, they should tell some stories to take the focus off their own inadequacies. I often just want to get all these people into a room at one time and say, "What grade are you in?!?!?!?! Act like a freaking adult!" But I know that probably wouldn't help the spineless bottom-dwellers either.

Why are there so few people in the world that you can trust to be truthful, friends. So many people think they are great friends, but really only keep their friends around to serve a purpose. I can honestly count on one hand the number of people I can call in any situation, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they would come running to help me. Those same few people hopefully know that they can count on me in the same way. There are another handful of people, unfortunately, that think they can come running to me with every hangnail they have, and I'll sit and listen, and help them. Those people would be nowhere to be found when I needed them though. Those are not true friends, although they claim to be.

People in Corporate America are often just the same. No one actually seems to care about their employees anymore. They are mostly just money-grubbing boot-lickers. *sigh*

I have no faith in humanity.

Don't &*%@ with my Family and news for the masses

To those five or six people out there, and you know who you are, let last night's events be a lesson to you. Don't ever fuck with my family again. Burn in hell.


And now, for news that concerns the rest of the population.

I saw the knee doctor again on Monday. He cleared me to fence again! Yay! He's really happy with my progress, and says my left knee is now tracking even better than my right. He told me to go ahead and push my knee. He said the most he thinks I'll experience is a little soreness if I over do it, and that should go away in a day or two.

The weird thing is, I'm going through a really weird learning curve trying to trust my own leg again. You see, I've still got quite a bit of numbness in it (the doc said that could take 6-8 months to go away), so I can't always feel when it's underneath me where it should be. It's a really strange process, trying to trust that my knee is going to be where it should be.

So, I'll be fencing epee this weekend. I can't change direction fast enough yet to fence foil or sabre, so I'm still trying to take things one step at a time. I'm really excited about it, even though I'm probably going to do dreadfully awful since I've taken the entire summer off. Oh well. I've got to start somewhere.

In other news, we have a new edition to our family! Flick the rat. (No, that wasn't a typo, we really did get a rat.) I never in all my life envisioned myself owning a rat as a pet, but he's actually really sweet. He likes to sit on my shoulder while I'm on the computer. We really got him for my son to learn to take care of something, and so far, it seems to be working out. He gives the rat plenty of attention, and helps me check on his food and water every day. *sigh* A rat.

People Suck

Why do people have to make up blatant lies about people they don't like. If you don't like them, ignore them! What grade are you in?!?!?!?!?! Quit trying to ruin people's lives and crawl into a hole somewhere. GO TO HELL. You know who you are......

Knee recovery and my yearly sabbatical

So my knee surgery went pretty well.....

The doctor is confident that it's going to heal up very well, and that eventually, I'll be able to fence without a knee brace. (That would be a first.)

When they got into my knee, it was immediately apparent what had been causing my pain for all these months. Apparently, your kneecap is supposed to sit in a "dish" sort of thing. My kneecap, however, was perched on the upper rim of my "dish". This was causing in to slide out of place, and was causing my pain. He ended up cutting some stuff in my knee in order to move my kneecap 2 cm, and make it sit back down in my "dish". I know 2cm doesn't sound like a whole lot, but when you think about the general size of your kneecap (which is really only about 5 or 6 cm total), it is kind of a lot.

So the healing is going pretty well. The swelling has gone from melon sized, to approximatly a grapefruit, and the soreness gets a little bit better every day. I'll probably still have a bit of a limp for a while though.

The hardest part is that I really want to fence. I know I can't do it now, or really even make an attempt for at least another 2 months. *sigh* I feel like a useless lump at the moment. I guess it gives me plenty of time o concentrate on my refereeing skills in order to get my rating up.

This weekend, I'll be taking my yearly sabbatical to Asheville, NC for the Bele Chere Festival. No husband. No child. Just me and my three closest friends in our mountain getaway. The festival, and really the majority of the the town is full of a bunch of hippies and lesbians, and their art, their music, and various other things to see and do. It's one of those fantastically relaxing and mellow places, and I wish I could go every weekend. *double sigh*

Anyway, there's the update on my recovery.

Where for art thou?

For Elizabeth (and anyone else who might care): I am back. Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but the weeks leading up to Nationals were crazy busy, and then I was at Nationals in Atlanta for the entire 10 days. The recap:

My nerves really got the best of me in my epee events, and I did terrible. It was a bit better the second day, but I know I can do much better if I get my head under control. I actually did better in the sabre, which was a complete surprise since I really don't practise the weapon at all. I had a wonderful time though.

My teammates did very well bringing home the bronze medal in Div. 1A Men's sabre, 8th place in Div. II Men's epee, and the GOLD in team Men's sabre!!!!!! I was so proud of our boys.

I had several fantastic coaching moments, bringing people back from behind and such. I've actually been considering quitting the competition part of fencing, and just concentrating on coaching and refereeing, since I'm much better at those aspects of the sport. I guess time will tell.

I took the National referee exam, and passed all 4 sections on the very first attempt!!!!! I'm really excited about that, and I can't wait to take my practical exams and get my rating up. I know I'm a great referee, so I should have a much higher rating than 10 in no time.

Our hotel was terrible. I even found a used crack pipe in my bed. Very scary.

Tomorrow, I go to the hospital for my pre-op bloodwork and tests before Friday's knee surgery. I'm pretty apprehensive about the whole thing, but I'm hoping the knee will be fixed once and for all, and I'll come back as a stronger and more agile fencer. I'll be out of the sport for 2+ months, but I'll be continuing to blog about my recovery and therapy while I'm not fencing.

I'm running a referee development class in my area in August, so hopefully, it will keep me from going stir crazy while I'm away from almost all other things fencing related.

Hard work and bruises

This past weekend, I had a choice of going to a tournament in Myrtle Beach with a few teammates, or staying home and attending weekend epee camp at our school. With Nationals quickly approaching, I decided that the latter was much more beneficial to my fencing.

I think, however, that "beneficial" is a definite understatment. I fenced my normal lesson and boutwork on Friday evening for about 2 hours. Saturday I fenced almost consistantly from 9AM to 8PM. Saturday, I had quite a bit of trouble getting out of bed, but made it to camp about 10 AM, and fenced again until around 5PM.

I learned an entire new cache of skills. Moves that I knew could be done, but I myself had never been taught before. For example, I can now flick! I had the motion down almost immediately, since it's fairly similar to sabre. I just need to work on my accuracy in the next few weeks. I think it'll be pretty handy against girls. From my observations, women don't usually flick at all in epee until they are high level "elite" kind of athletes. We'll see how it works at our next tournament, as well as at Nationals. Worth a try, right?

There were all sorts of funky infighting moves and other things too.

The bad news: I can barely move today!!!!!! I am so covered in bruises from being hit in drills over and over and over again. My body looks as though it has been beaten continuously by a not-so-nice person all weekend. I have sore muscles that I didn't even know existed. Ouch.

For the first time in quite a while, I feel good about my fencing. I feel good about the practice I got, and good about the skills I feel I got the chance to polish over the weekend. :)

Conquering Technology

I know....I'm incredibly behind the times when it comes to any new technology. Examples of this:
1)I didn't get a DVD player until 2 Christmas' ago. (I probably still wouldn't have one if it hadn't been a gift.)
2) I don't own an ipod, MP3 player, or a portable music device of any kind. (This includes a portable CD player. Sad, I know.)
3) I have had the same alarm clock since I was about 10, because I'm afraid I won't be able to learn how to set a new one. I keep looking at the really cool one on QVC that automatically sets the time when you plug it in. That seems like something I might be able to handle.
4) As you probably read about three posts ago, my four-year-old kicks my ass at video games.
5) (This one is what this entry is really supposed to be about.) I cannot burn a CD.

When we bought our home PC, I asked my husband to make sure there was a CD burner on it so that I could burn CD's. I had these wonderfully lofty dreams of creating personalized music CD's for friends and family. I dreamt of having CD's for all of my regular moods, so that in my car, at the touch of a button, I could have all the perfect songs at my fingertips on one disc. We bought that computer (with CD burner included) over 2 years ago.

Today, I conquered technology. It took quite a bit of cursing and a few phone calls to my technologically gifted friends, but I've done it. I've copied around 50 songs from CD's onto my computer complete with album and artist info. I've conquered playlists and genres, and selecting tracks. And finally, I've finally figured out how to take those beautiful playlists, and burn them to CDs. Think it took me long enough?

I no longer have to fear technology. It can be conquered in one single evening when no one is online or at home to answer the phone, and everything on TV is a rerun. :D