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[Translation: The end of the semester]
Note: I apologize in advance for this copious journal entry. It makes up for the fact that I haven’t had time to update this in a while.
So today was my last final. *Cheers* Now I can sleep in tomorrow and not go to school! >w< Here are the results of my finals:
Math: final=137/150. Ultimate grade: A.
Spanish: Probably an A.
English: . . . I think I passed. I have a 94%, not including my book project, latest essay, and final. Those three along can bring my grade down substantially, of course. -_-
History: final=91%. Ultimate grade: 94%. An A.
Advisement: A
CA History: ...hopefully an A.
~*~ Next semester I'm going to have the elective I asked for: Creative Writing! ^O^ ~*~
In other news: I have my 3rd degree black belt now. I tested for it last Thursday and Saturday.
On Thursday we were supposed to have a grueling portion of the testing called "The Wall." It wasn't grueling for me, much to my disappointment. I just sparred twice, and one of those times was with my boyfriend (and only because he's taller and a higher rank than me). Unfortunately, I injured my poor boyfriend during the testing:
During black belt testing one must perform a specialty, which is a form that one makes up with either open-hand (without weapons) or any weapon(s) of one's choice. I chose to use kamas (sickle-type things), and open-hand. I started off with kamas in my specialty. Then, as a transition between kamas and open-hand, my boyfriend was to attack me from behind. I would beat him up, then he would roll off to the side as I continued my specialty. Now, last Wednesday, when we practiced the attack, he gave in and moved back when I kneed him in the groin (this was fake, of course: it was all for show). He then fell down by himself to act as if I had injured his precious jewels.
On Thursday during my Wall, however, he did not move back when he was supposed to. Kneedless to say, I kneed him in the groin pretty hard (much harder than I expected, since he was SUPPOSED TO MOVE BACK!!!) and his eyes popped out of his head as he fell down backwards, genuinely hurt. Because I was performing, I couldn't apologize or help him at the moment. I had to continue my form as he ran into the bathroom. The moment I ended my form, I ran over to the bathroom to see how he was doing. His dad came out of the bathroom laughing after seeing his son's reaction to the hit. I felt so bad about hurting my boyfriend in such a way!
On Saturday I performed my specialty again, in front of everyone in the studio, white belts through black belts, including their parents and kids. This time, though, I whispered for him to move back before I kneed him and pushed him down. I didn't injure him on Saturday.
However, there were some injuries during the testing on Saturday. A black belt instructor that broke a brick with a palm-hand strike injured her wrist so badly that it needs to have a pin in it, and in a month or two she's going to have to have surgery on it. Another instructor threw out his back during a sparring performance.
On Sunday all of the people that tested for their next rank went to a holiday party for the studio. Everyone that tested for his or her black belt had to make a thank-you speech in front of the whole crowd. There were fourteen people testing for their recommended black belts, most of which were under the age of 10. The youngest was Katharine, a five-year old that I knew wasn’t prepared to test for her black belt—I had taught her for the past few Fridays, and I knew that she just didn’t have the motor control that black belts are supposed to have. Black belts are typically known to have superb balance, control, and/or speed. This kid is absolutely adorable and definitely has the charismatic abilities of a leader, but I think she’s simply too young to be a black belt.
But I digress.
Because I was the only one testing for my 3rd degree rank (which is the highest rank anyone is, aside from a 4th degree instructor (who left last year to become a sheriff) and our Master), I was the last to receive my belt. I was nervous the whole time, and I really hated having to go up on center stage to deliver my 3-sentence speech. But I did anyway (despite the tight belt that the Master had tied around my waist), and here it is:
I’d like to thank all the instructors for preparing me for my testing, especially Master Kim, who critiqued me on my specialty. I’d also like to thank Andrew for allowing me to beat him up on Thursday [this sentence caused Andrew’s family to cheer, particularly his mother]. And I’d like to thank my parents for paying for me and bringing me to and from class. Thank you.
This was one of the shortest speeches out of all the (15? 20?) speeches that were made that day from the black belt testers.
After the holiday party (which was from 12-5), I got a ride from one of my fellow instructors over to the staff party at the Master’s home. His house is one of the newer ones, only a few years old. I wonder how the Master feels about having a hot wife, a nice house, and three adorable kids. XD His youngest is about 19 months old and is the cutest thing ever: the kid always seems to be in a good mood (unlike his other two kids when they were one or two years old) and loves the attention of all the instructors, who all find him to be absolutely adorable.
At the staff party, we had leftovers from the holiday party and played a few games. One was a gift exchange.
Gift Exchange: Rules.
1. Take one present from either the table or from another player. 2. Each present can only be stolen up to three times. 3. When a player steals a gift from you, you may either steal someone else’s gift (not the one that was just taken from you) or you may take the gifts that are left on the table.
At first, everyone just took a gift from the table. I was fortunate to get an X-Men 2 DVD. But the last player decided to steal a gift from someone else, because they didn’t want the candle and Starbucks gift card that happened to be the very last present sitting alone on the coffee table. That was when the game really started. People kept stealing gifts from each other, like a hot chocolate kit (complete with a thermos and mug) and a Transformers DVD. Luckily, my X-Men 2 DVD wasn’t stolen from me at all. I don’t actually like X-Men very much, but I figured a free gift like this was great to give to my dad. So in the end, someone ended up getting the candle and Starbucks gift card.
Then we played another game: a cruel and unusual form of Catch Phrase.
Demented Catch Phrase: Rules
1. One player picks up a card with two words on it: a word worth 1 point and another worth 3 points. 2. That player describes one of the words in Spanish to his or her team (without giving away the actual word, ex. if the word is “Kiss” you can’t describe it as “Beso”), so that the team can guess what the word is in English. 3. If the team figures out what the word is in 1 minute, the team gets the 1 or 3 points.
When it was my turn to describe a word, I picked up a card and it had two words. The word that I knew how to describe best was the three-point word. So I began.
Me: Casar… Team: Marriage? Getting married…a married couple… Me: La…la mujer que casarse. Team: The bride! Me: Si!
One of the instructors on the other team asked how the heck I knew so much Spanish. I told him that I had just taken the Spanish 101 final that week. Then he laughed and told his mom (who’s also part of the staff) that Spanish 101 was the class he had gotten a D or an F in. I realized how rude my question was after it had slipped through my mouth, but I asked how someone can fail Spanish 101. He said curtly, “Simple: You don’t get it.” Someone that doesn’t know him would find that a fairly rude response to a rude question, but it’s actually his way of carrying on a conversation. There was one guy that hadn’t taken Spanish at all, so when he got the word “cough” he used the following clues:
Him: Hmm…el throw up-o… Team: Getting sick? The flu? Him: El sneeze-o but no Team: a cough! My Team: . . .
Everyone asked the instructor who had guessed “cough” properly how one could get the word “Cough” out of “El sneeze-o but no.” She just said that if you don’t sneeze, you cough. And, of course, the instructor that had gotten a D or an F on his Spanish 101 class told the non-Spanish speaker that the least he could’ve said was “El sneeze-o pero no.” XD
When I was about to leave, one of the instructors handed me an envelope with my name written neatly on the front. I thanked her and walked out the door.
When I got home, I opened up the envelope to find a $15 gift certificate to Jamba Juice. ^_^
~Owari.~
Sango_the_Tenshi · Fri Dec 21, 2007 @ 06:45am · 1 Comments |
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