~JcZw

I thank God that I'm still alive. Seriously.

Fencing today was as well as it could have been I suppose... Coach went through the theory of dueling, n the psychology of the match. After that we suited up n got some free fencing in. Coach also gave us a pep talk about our attitude towards the novices which we'd do well to heed. Another immortal line to add to his quotes... heh

I was fencing with Clarissa of S28.. Dunno why, but she holds her epee angled upwards a la foil instead of straight to the ground. If anything, very unorthodox. I had already clawed back a 2 point deficit and had to go in for the 4th point to make it 4-4.

Half lunge, then I beat her blade. The German blade screamed on its China counterpart as I knocked her blade down and began my fleche, sprinting forward to try and hit on the first step. I hit first n the green light came on... Very nice. But then her blade which I had forced down started coming up as I ran past.

Try this if you don't understand this... Stand up, balance on the right foot and lean to the right, stretching your right arm up above your head. Your shirt most prob will be pulled up by the elevation of your arms.

So as I fleched, my protective suit, supposedly able to withstand 800 N, was pulled higher, leaving the side of my abdomen exposed (though covered by my shirt, which offers minimal resistance). Clarissa's blade, on its upward climb, went under my suit and plastron (the inner protective layer) and lacerated the right side of my stomach.. got a pretty scar there now.. Lucky negligible amount of blood...

THANK GOD it was not a direct hit. My mother is firmly convinced (as am I) that if the hit had been direct it mayhave done something to my liver... Not penetrated probably, but yeah it would have been damaging. Given her knowledge and my own first aider info, I'm inclined to believer her.

Maybe next time I should wear my breeches instead of trackpants eh? But barely 1/6th of the club wear their breeches to training... they are soo... constricting..

N i'm fencing poorly now... bleah... too predictable, no creativity... sighz..
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Do you have memories that are so precious... yet they are so beautiful that it hurts to think of them?

Cos they kept me awake last night, replaying in my mind over and over again.

There are a lot of things that I'm wishing for now...

that I wouldn't hurt myself, nor hurt my friends.
that I could help myself and some people with some things.

Upon reflection... I tried to help, I tried to reassure.. But I have duties to myself, my parents and to my future too... So in fact it has backfired. I thought I could sacrifice cos I've sacrificed a lot in various situations in the past 4 years.

But there are some things that cannot be sacrificed.

I think I should just pray more.

AND! for the few of you who get a kick out of speculating... I'm not in love. Won't be for some time yet =)