sorrowmonkey

Just got back from fighter practice. I fixed my gauntlets (at least for now) on Tuesday, so I fought polearm the entire time. Like you would expect, I sucked. I fought it once or twice before, but it's been a year since then.

My targeting with sword and shield, but my targeting with glaive is hopeless. I've been meaning to put a pell in the back with such other accoutrements as are necessary for training (i.e. the hovering tennis ball game), but clearly that's going to have to happen.

On the high side, I killed a newbie with it. Nice kid, shows real promise, if only because she loves it. It's nice to see that kind of energy again. Worked a bit on blocks (thanks Ivar) and some on thrusts (thanks Torin and Balfar), but just generally tried to remember how stuff works.

I'm tired in all sorts of new places. I need to fix my shoulder armor: it's not really in the right place anymore (I think I've lost about 50 pounds since I made it), but more importantly, the para-cord that holds it to the body harness is just about kaput. If I'm going to have to re-thread the leather mounts with the para-cord, I should probably move the damn things to the right place too.

Soon enough, it starts to look like just building a new set is the right thing to do, but I'm just not ready to commit to that project yet. The body armor is too big, but almost completely sound. Some of the other stuff is really getting in the way of my game. I really need some sort of new forearm protection, and a pair of tough demi-gauntlets.


At least the gauntlets finally survived an entire practice.

Made it up to regionals today. I think I got into the church almost an hour after the scheduled start time, but I was already in armor before the melee actually started. Things went fairly well, overall. Okay, they went fairly well considering I haven't been at a practice in a long time. There were some high points, killing Cedric and Collin in quick succession as one example, but also some low points (apparently I almost took Cedric's head off with a face thrust).

Still, there was an awful lot of running around, and I felt quicker on my feet. I think perhaps the DDR has made a difference. I'm still dreadfully out of shape though. I met some new folks I hadn't had the privilege to meet before, which was also nice.

I'm pretty sore, and definitely exhausted, so I'm going to turn in so that I can hopefully get my schoolwork done tomorrow (since I have it off).

Friday, we went to this fabulous ME restaurant on Campbell Ave. The food was delicious, the service was good, and the rice pudding was among the best I've had in my life. Saturday was super-homework day: I wrote eight briefs, read ten pages of torts (mmm, delicious causation), then worked on my research assignment for legal studies. Sunday, I got up, worked on my outline some (i.e. started them), and worked a little on the research assignment. Then, about noon, we left for Old Saybrook, to the fighter practice at Karl's.

Practice was fun. I think there were five of us total: Karl, Feral, Stephen (LLywelyn? Feral's squire), Viktor (another of Feral's squires), and myself. Karl was sporting a fairly new gothic setup I hadn't see before. I did better than I would have expected, but then again, with that cast of characters, I did expect to get pretty beat up. I got some good advice from Karl and Feral, hopefully some of it will stick.

I probably have about 20% of the research assignment left, but I have lots of work on the outlines to do. Hopefully, now that they are started, I will quit avoiding them. It's a thought, anyway.

So, at fighter practice last night, Victor (no idea how he spells it) and I were the first ones in armor. He was fighting two-sword and we fought about five bouts before he crushed me in the front of the shin. That smarted a bit, I'll say.

I took a little break until I could tolerate the discomfort and then fought for a bit. I got in fights with Adrian, Victor, alpha_duke, and Ivar, I believe. Then we ended up taking a break long enough that the endorphins wore off. So, I took the armor off and waited for alpha_duke to be done.

I went home, showered, and iced it before I went to bed. This morning, I'm icing it some more, but it is a lot better (thank heavens).

It still looks like I have two knees, though.