I�ve practically soaking in tea this morning. I just had such a headache and grogginess.

This weekend was full of reality problems, but I was able to lay low, for the most part, and not frighten anyone.

I did have an evaluation in karate. My master�s master was there. He ignored me the entire time. He gave a little talk at the end, it was full of praise, but he qualified it by saying how everyone in the group was still very young.

He�s not so ancient that he believes anyone under the age of 50 is young. It was more that everyone else being evaluated was under 20. Not by design, it was just a coincidence. However, that means that he either never bothered to look closely enough at my evaluation form to see my age or he was snubbing me.

I�m actually leaning towards the latter because he never once looked directly at me, except to make a joke about how he was going to make me fight this other student who literally weighs more than twice my weight.

This kid isn�t overweight, I just happen to be on the small side compared to hulking young men. He also doesn�t have the greatest control and judgment to not totally stomp a girl half his size in front of a bunch of karate masters. Even though I could have potentially been seriously injured, I am actually confident that I could take him.

Over all, I was pretty disappointed in my own performance. I went up to my own master afterwards and asked him if my jump front kick was acceptable because I�m sure I could get higher off the ground and while I was at it, I told him I was sure I could do my stances better�

He gave me a lot more positive feedback than I think I�ve ever gotten from him. Normally, he�s this nearly-insane perfectionist (which is why I chose him as an instructor), but there have been times when I�ve been in the women�s locker room after class close to tears. Not from the criticism, mind you, more that I was so disappointed in myself, and when you�re down on yourself, it does make a difference to get positive feedback.

He told me that he expected that I wouldn�t do as well there as I do in class, but even if it was not as good, it was still very good. Not only did he add that have I improved considerably since coming to his school, but that I have always been good, even before I got there.

Afterwards, I still got the nice group of people approaching me to tell me how awesome I am, to which I never know how to respond. I only hope that if they like my demonstration that it inspires them to do something similar.

I don�t mean they ought to spend as much time on it as I do, but that it�ll inspire a vulnerable woman to take self-defense classes or an out-of-shape person to exercise more.

Other than that, what good is it? I mean, besides being able to beat people up, and you never know, it might come to that over oil in a few years.

My mind has really been on other things, lately, but this particular topic can�t really be expressed anywhere else. And all the other topics are being censored.

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