Second Degree Black P. 2

I passed my second-degree black belt test.

And the first thing I did when we were all dismissed was the first thing I thought I’d do – I cried. Just held my face in my hands and sobbed.

Thanks to everyone for all of your good wishes and thoughts of me on Saturday; it made me realize how well-supported and loved I am. Thank you all.

Now, I’m exhausted and sore. Derrick stretched me out pretty well yesterday, but everything is still a little achy. If we hadn’t stretched last night, my shoulders would be killing me today; they’re the most sore of everything else, with my thighs and hips in a dead heat for second place.

I had a moment of enlightenment yesterday, thinking about the test and where I am now. I don’t know why or how, but I feel secure, stronger somehow, more sure of myself. It’s humbling but empowering at the same time.

Second Degree Black

So I will be testing for my second-degree black belt next Saturday. I’m so nervous I could puke.

Hell, I almost did this past Friday, gearing up for the review session with Master Clark on Saturday to see whether he would allow me to test. I’m getting so worked up I’ve started my cycle – a week and a half early. Well, I guess the bright side is I won’t be on it during the test. (Hey, I’ll take whatever bright side I can get right now.)

I wish I would have had more time to prep. My sensei Liz thought that the test was following the standard testing cycle (black belts typically test in March and September), but for some reason the schedule got super conflicted at headquarters (where the test will be, in California) and instead of on March 7, the test is February 7. I’ve spent the past year getting back into karate, just to be comfortable moving with everyone and hitting a little harder and pulling more moves out of my forms and material and just in general getting back in the groove. Now I have 10 days until I test for my hardest rank yet? Good fucking Lord.

I’ve never been this nervous about a test. I’ve also never been so emotionally attached to the thought of passing a test. I keep thinking of what I’ll do first if I pass, when it’s all said and done, and the only thing I can reasonably think I’ll do is cry. To think of all the work I’ve put into it, that Da put in, that Derrick and John both put in… I’m scared that I’ll fail and make everyone ashamed of me. I’m scared that I’ll fail and blow almost a grand in testing fees, airline tickets, a hotel stay, a rental car, and the marathon class I’m attending this Saturday to prep and gear up.

Which, by the way, airport shuttles are damned expensive. I thought a $30 shuttle ride from Broomfield to DIA, about 32 miles, was expensive? Bah! The cheapest shuttle I’ve found out there is $25 to go 12 miles! 12! It’ll be half as expensive if I rent a car for the whopping 24 hours I’ll be there than it will be to take a shuttle from the airport to my hotel and back. (The hotel is within three blocks of headquarters, so that’s no worry, thankfully.)

John’s friend Donovan and I have kept in touch, and he knows I’ll be in next weekend and wants to see me. I’m happy that someone in John’s circle is still willing to talk to me, but the last time I saw him was right after John’s service.

This whole trip will be a test.

Inauguration Day

Wow… just wow. Go Obama.

Video!

So here’s my video – I had some serious issues getting it to do what I wanted it to do in iMovie, so I did a bit of work in Flash to get the paneling I wanted.

This is kind of a tongue-in-cheek look at the fact that my birthday is right after Christmas and it always gets lumped into Christmas stuff. I used a part of a song from my favorite Christmas album, the Chieftains’ “The Bells of Dublin”.

Enjoy!

Click here for the video!

Screwed…

I wish I wasn’t so damn buried with class and work. I’ve been busting my ass for my five classes, along with my two part-time jobs, one of which is pretty damn demanding. Finals are next week, and I am screwed if I don’t get caught up by Friday in two classes and by Monday in the other two (the last class is kind of a joke; there are no assignments, so there’s no way I can get backlogged there, thankfully).

Screwed, I tell you! SCREWED!

Thanksgiving

It occurs to me that not everyone digs Thanksgiving. I didn’t until relatively recently, myself. The family, the cooking, the hassle. I can always do without hassle, but Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Family has come to mean a lot to me, and it’s kind of sad that we don’t have the Thanksgiving dinners we did when I was a kid, meaning with the ridiculous amount of family over at my house every year. But still, I love getting to see everyone, get caught up on how everyone’s been, and just have one day that is set aside to realize and be thankful for how good my life really is. I’m not a druggie or a drunk, I’m not beaten or abused, I’m not homeless or starving; I am surrounded by people who genuinely care for me and my well-being. I am very fortunate.

So Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, everyone. And happy birthday today, Mom – today I get to be YOUR groupie!

Derrick and Sun

So it’s was announced both in the company and in the press yesterday that Sun will be laying off up to 6,000 people. Kind of poor form to announce the layoff to the employees at the same time it’s released to the press, but there it is.

Derrick and I are of course a little nervous. Derrick’s been with Sun for almost three years now, and while he made it past the RIF (reduction in force – kind of a cheap way of avoiding the WARN Act, but better financially) in 2007 and the last round of layoffs this year didn’t effect his department, this time it will impact almost every department. The layoff packages aren’t too bad, so if he does get laid off, we’ll be OK for a little while while he looks for more work.

Honestly though, I think Derrick will be OK. Sun has put a lot of time, money and effort into having him there, and he’s put in a lot of extra time and work because he genuinely enjoys working for them. They are mutually invested in each other. He’s getting a laptop from them because his died and they recognize that he does a lot of work from home and traveling for them. Plus, he’s a rock star and they have made it pretty clear that they value having him on board.

There are butterflies of course, but I’m confident he’ll make it through this round, too.

…*knock on wood*

No carols yet! Please!

I know I’m being a little pissy, but why are we listening to Christmas carols already? For fuck’s sake! Can’t we at least wait till Black Friday? I’m still trying to plan out my (first!) Thanksgiving dinner!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Sorry, my birthday is Dec. 29, and I can get burned out on Christmas stuff pretty quickly. Last year was better than before, but my sister tormented me with Silent Night in July for years, so I get testy when I hear Feliz Navidad and Happy Holidays and other carols before December. The fact that they were playing at 7:30 this morning does NOT help matters. Damn you, KOOL 105! *shakes fist ineffectually*

Wanna hear a joke? The joke’s on me.

So I was going through my CAPP report for school to make sure I’d taken all the right classes and that I was still on track to graduate this spring, when I realized I did the math wrong this summer.

Metro State requires that 40 credit hours of the 120 you need to graduate are upper division credit hours, which are listed as 3000 or 4000 level courses – they’re basically junior and senior level classes. Well, I thought I needed an extra class to meet that requirement, so I signed up for a communications law class – can’t hurt to be beefed up on comm law as a journalism major, right?

Well, I just found out that I overestimated how many UD credits I needed because I signed up for a second UD journalism class at the last minute this semester, and my comm law class is completely unnecessary. It’s not in my major, and I’m already done with my minor, so it’s basically a general elective course. Oh, so pleased am I.

For next semester, that means I only have to take two classes – freakin’ sweet, compared to the five I’m taking now. But I have at least one other class I could have taken either this or next semester that I would have enjoyed a whole lot more. And the class I’m dropping next semester is my intro to photojournalism class, so that means my roughly $700 camera was a useless purchase. Granted, it’s not a UD course, but I thought I needed another elective within my major, and I just want it to be well rounded. At this point, I’ve been a Metro student for almost nine years. Frankly, fuck it; I’m done.

Hyper-linked Web pages from class Friday

Everyone really did a knock-out job with their pages! I love how hyper-linked everyone’s pages were, and there’s some pretty wild stuff that I’ve checked out as a result. It makes me pretty happy to see all these people starting to get their hands dirty in Dreamweaver. I’m really fond of this program. (If anyone wants a hand with it in the future, I’m happy to help.)

Here’s a link to my CLEM page. It’s linked to half the class, it seems, so you can check out a ton of the class’ pages here. http://clem.mscd.edu/~stevesar/index.htm

A couple great pages, in my opinion, were MMCIII’s and Jordyn’s. In MMCIII’s pages, the sound effects and distorting backgrounds were both annoying and intriguing – it definitely gave off the feel of a big maze. Jordyn’s had just a ton of crazy links and colors that fit her western theme really well!

There’s a third site that absolutely rocked, but I can’t remember who did it. The first part of the page had a guy taking a leak into a urinal held by another guy. The whole page was a collage of what looked like brick walls and different pieces of a city meshed in, with LOTS of color-changing GIFS. I must say that getting Rick Rolled sucks. Getting Rick Rolled in class REALLY sucks. Well played, madam.