Finally, after nearly six grueling hours, four of them before a panel of six judges, on the fateful day of Saturday, December 2… I passed my first-degree black belt test.
(哈哈，對了！你們沒有聽錯！My new belt even has my name embroidered on it!)
However, I must confess. Up to the beginning of this school year, I had never seriously envisioned myself wearing the coveted first dan black belt. And during the test, a part of me continued to pessimistically maintain that the instructors would fail me. But I still made it, miraculously. And my Taekwondo school is supposedly one of the toughest and most prestigious in our state, if not the entire nation.
Still, do I completely and wholly deserve this honor? Probably not. I mixed up two of my knife defends during the test, and my free sparring was… lackluster. They somehow escaped the judges' notice, apparently (but I doubt that, seeing as they would have to be complete dunces to do so). I'm assuming that they chose to overlook it, either generously attributing it to nerves, or because they simply weren't willing to refund the testing fees.
Anyway… today is my sixteenth birthday. Students under sixteen years of age receive poom belts instead of the regular ones, so I technically was a first poom for one day, although the school went ahead and ordered the first dan belt for me instead. Phooey.
最後，謝謝妳，K-chan！Many thanks for watching me test, as well as the congratulatory hugs.
- Listening to: "飛行部落" by F.I.R.
- Currently reading: Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark
So. Last Tuesday was the U.S. midterm elections. After two days of anxiety, the results are finally in.
Democrats took both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
In addition, Ohio is now a blue state.
Tracy Russo of the Democratic Party Web site offered this statement: "There are no words. This is amazing… This is what happens when you fight everywhere, when you show up, when you ask people for their votes and when you offer people something they desperately want — a new direction for America."
What can I say? I'm overjoyed. My fellow Democrats have finally triumphed, and the end of the accursed Bush regime is soon at hand.
Well, S-chan, this review is for you… I was formerly disinclined to offer my opinions about this novel, since I know you would be waiting for a chance to attack my anti-Bella views. But, being the benevolent (and rational) person I am, I decided in the end that strangulation at the hands of S-chan over a measly juvenile novel… well, just wasn't worth it.
At any rate, here is my very objective and unbiased review of New Moon, sequel to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.
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A while ago, I swore to myself that I would write less of these book, movie, and music reviews, but as you can see, this invariably resulted in failure… thanks to my overconfidence in my own willpower. At any rate, here is a lengthy review on Stephenie Meyer's young adult novel, Twilight. (Prepare to be bored out of your minds.)
When I first picked up this book at the behest of my friend, S-chan, I was both intrigued and fascinated by its premise: an average teenage girl, Bella, moves to a new town, meets an "exquisitely beautiful" boy, falls in love with him, and later comes to the realization that her beloved is a vampire.
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Gackt-sama! This is perhaps the only time I'll ever admit such a thing, but… I'm completely enamored with him!
In case you were wondering, Camui M. S. Gackt is a talented J-rocker from Japan. He sings, plays several different instruments, writes his own lyrics, and I also believe composes his own music. He is currently a popular entertainer and has a vast following from many different parts of the world. And if I remember correctly, he can also speak English and French with varying degrees of fluency… apart from his native Japanese, of course.
I still don't quite know how I've become infatuated with him, since I'm normally not a huge fan of rock, but I suppose some of Gackt-san's appeal (besides his androgynous good looks and his elaborate costumes) comes from his mysterious origins… apparently, Gackt has never disclosed his real name or age and claims to be a vampire born somewhere around 1540. He says he gained psychic powers after a near-fatal accident in his childhood and used to be possessed by spirits, and consequently, does not wish to have children so these paranormal abilities would not be passed to them.
Naturally, my admiration for him increased considerably after hearing this. Long live Lord Gackt!