*is a ninja*
Whew, what a weekend...
Karate tournament went - quite well, all things considered. Lots of apprehension (I hate that my response to stress tends to be so much dizziness/trouble breathing), though not quite as much as I'd expected until the very last moment. We've had so much come up this last week that... honestly, I just didn't have time to get nervous. Didn't really have time to practice, either, which makes me all the happier for how things went.
Aside from the general nervousness, conditions weren't exactly ideal - I'm pretty sure they were still running heat in the building, which was absolutely ridiculous given today's temperatures, and rather awful when combined with lots of people in an enclosed space and intense physical exercise. Then our time slot for competing got postponed, which added 'bout an extra 45 minutes of jitter-building time. Then they moved our competition to a different ring. Without telling us or making any announcement. *dies* We ended up running over and getting signed in just at the last second before they were getting started.
And then... Eric and I were slotted to go first for our division. Now you have to understand, this is not only intimidating - because you don't get the chance to observe someone else before going yourself - but in karate competition you really don't want to be among the first three people competing. Those three tend to be the benchmark scores, which others are compared against, and so tend to get marked lower than they might later in the competition.
But in the end - we got fourth place for our division! Considering how intense the competition can be, and what we're up against at the red-brown/black teen and adult level? I am very, very happy. ^.^ And... we were actually just One. Point. Away. from third place. The judges even commented on how close the decision was - we were one of the few teams to which none of the judges gave a score lower than 990 (the highest possible being 999). I'm fairly confident that if we'd either been able to get one more person on our team, or had enough practice time to introduce one more creative element, we'd have easily made third place, possibly even second.
So. Awesomeness. :D Gonna get either a plaque or a medal, not sure which for this division - they apparently underestimated the number of competitors/had some delivery issues, so some trophies are getting delivered to the schools rather than presented there. I've been so ridiculously keyed up that I've been practically vibrating ever since we finished. Except now that we're home I'm kinda crashing. So tiiiired. And hungry. *g* Between the stress and the intense physical exercise... I think I got all the reserves sucked out of me. I had a hotdog and ice cream there, M&Ms when we got home... think I'm gonna have a slice of pizza now. XD
Oh! And the writing conference yesterday was quite awesome as well. Lots of very useful information on the publishing world, submitting manuscripts, what and how to negotiate on the contract... Very good. Also, one of the more interesting aspects of being an editor: people at conferences randomly giving you books they've written because they hear you're currently editing something related. XD This person wasn't just looking for free editing/in-depth critique, though. Must remember to read a bit this week and send him a note.... Hey, not such a bad deal - free books! *g*
Karate tournament went - quite well, all things considered. Lots of apprehension (I hate that my response to stress tends to be so much dizziness/trouble breathing), though not quite as much as I'd expected until the very last moment. We've had so much come up this last week that... honestly, I just didn't have time to get nervous. Didn't really have time to practice, either, which makes me all the happier for how things went.
Aside from the general nervousness, conditions weren't exactly ideal - I'm pretty sure they were still running heat in the building, which was absolutely ridiculous given today's temperatures, and rather awful when combined with lots of people in an enclosed space and intense physical exercise. Then our time slot for competing got postponed, which added 'bout an extra 45 minutes of jitter-building time. Then they moved our competition to a different ring. Without telling us or making any announcement. *dies* We ended up running over and getting signed in just at the last second before they were getting started.
And then... Eric and I were slotted to go first for our division. Now you have to understand, this is not only intimidating - because you don't get the chance to observe someone else before going yourself - but in karate competition you really don't want to be among the first three people competing. Those three tend to be the benchmark scores, which others are compared against, and so tend to get marked lower than they might later in the competition.
But in the end - we got fourth place for our division! Considering how intense the competition can be, and what we're up against at the red-brown/black teen and adult level? I am very, very happy. ^.^ And... we were actually just One. Point. Away. from third place. The judges even commented on how close the decision was - we were one of the few teams to which none of the judges gave a score lower than 990 (the highest possible being 999). I'm fairly confident that if we'd either been able to get one more person on our team, or had enough practice time to introduce one more creative element, we'd have easily made third place, possibly even second.
So. Awesomeness. :D Gonna get either a plaque or a medal, not sure which for this division - they apparently underestimated the number of competitors/had some delivery issues, so some trophies are getting delivered to the schools rather than presented there. I've been so ridiculously keyed up that I've been practically vibrating ever since we finished. Except now that we're home I'm kinda crashing. So tiiiired. And hungry. *g* Between the stress and the intense physical exercise... I think I got all the reserves sucked out of me. I had a hotdog and ice cream there, M&Ms when we got home... think I'm gonna have a slice of pizza now. XD
Oh! And the writing conference yesterday was quite awesome as well. Lots of very useful information on the publishing world, submitting manuscripts, what and how to negotiate on the contract... Very good. Also, one of the more interesting aspects of being an editor: people at conferences randomly giving you books they've written because they hear you're currently editing something related. XD This person wasn't just looking for free editing/in-depth critique, though. Must remember to read a bit this week and send him a note.... Hey, not such a bad deal - free books! *g*