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