psyche

Ian (our current sabre coach) is leaving at some point, and will be replaced by Mathieu, a French Olympic medallist and leftie like Ian who fenced with Ian for several years in France. I think Mathieu hates me; he looks fairly neutral when speaking but when I am nearby he adopts a sort of sour expression. Perhaps I’m misreading it. I did the Junior Club Sabre because our retarded club (D) decided not to send anyone, and won my matches very narrowly, but the final result was satisfactory - goodness knows our club needs the points!

I’ll have to appear to be extremely nice and enthusiastic instead of arrogant and disillusioned to win Mathieu over!

Pax

Ho ho! Did the British Youth Championship national thingy today and luckily didn’t do as badly as expected. Came out of the seeding 4 up, 2 down and was seeded 12th - got a bye for the first round and then beat some Welsh guy 15-14 (I didn’t deserve to win) and then lost 15-10 to some other guy who hideously deformed the sabre I was using and smashed my hand. Heh. Anyway, yeah, it was alright. Came 13th overall - Hugh (Emerson) came 15th overall and Ian told us “Yay” (that’s paraphrased).

Pax

EDIT: Results

Today Elliot and I went to the “Camden International Cadet Sabre Competition 2007″, in which sabreurs under the age of 17 from several countries compete. First we were split into poules to be seeded (although everyone qualified for the sequential direct elimination). I did extremely badly, losing most fights 5-1 and a few 5-0 (lol). Elliot fared slightly better, at least once scoring more than one point in a fight. In the DE, Elliot, seeded 63, had to fence some guy, seeded 66, and beat him. I, having done worse in the poules and seeded 70, had to fence someone with a seeding of around 53. Despite one of the lenses of my glasses falling out half-way through the first half (before the one minute break at 8 points) and his higher ranking, I still beat that guy (awesome!). Elliot then had to fence seed 2 and lost 15-1. I had to fence a Romanian guy, seed 6, and also lost 15-1. I got a yellow card for doing a cross-over, which has never happened before, so I’d better do more footwork practice. Our final rankings are as yet unknown but maybe the results will be posted on the websomewhere so I’ll report back later.

Update: Argh I came 64th and Elliot came 62nd: here is the full list of results.

Pax

I really have no idea what’s going on. Sometimes I wonder, would life be the same if I understood the way some people are? I’m two-faced but being five-faced is bloody well pushing it. I am perfectly willing to pass problems onto others, and so is Elliot, and so be it. Alex chose to become the nucleus of this mess, and thus absolved me (to a relatively high degree) so I am, in fact, content. Sometimes showing off is okay - oh, wait, it’s never okay, my mistake. I remember when I used to wish I would see a line separating wrong from right. I just got a fuzzy rectanguloid thing, so I drew the line. I just drew it.

So, basically, 3/6 (4/6 if you count me) are, as Elliot rationally puts it, “compromised”. This mess is to me as the sea is to a scuttled ship. The caudices loci caudicum split opinion initially, but it turns out that in fact, people don’t mean what they say (at least to me). I should’ve seen it coming; it’s happened before. How long will it be before Hell is my home? Hah, not as long as I once thought, probably.

Pax

Windows Vista is floundering somewhere, Eton had cancelled earlier and nothing has happened. I realised at ten minutes to 1AM as I tried in vain to improve my very bad coursework essay that maybe I’m just not cut out for this “fencing” or “school” - I mean, I do try. It’s always too little, too late and the whole world is skewed in a way that means I can’t just put my head down and work. But I guess I’ll have to.

Pax

Interesting to see people, like myself, lit up with the glow of arrogance. The School will fence Eton, the sabre team of which is apparently several orders more powerful than ours, soon. I can only hope that people will learn how to pull through!

Pax

It’s really time for me to refocus; I sort of lost the thread somewhere along the line and people are sliding past me in terms of ability and interest. This can be remedied.

Many a time and oft I have wondered if I should give up - I have wondered this in every field, and every time I have thought no!. To this, my competitors either laugh in contempt or curse as I, the arrogant, persistent and unintelligent obstacle, prepare myself for the perpetually recurring “one last go”.

Tell me when you’ve had enough.

Pax