graculus

I forgot to say, when I was posting about my holiday, how everyone at the place where the weasels were boarding fell in love with them. It's a side business for the local pet/hardware store (about 5 minutes walk from my house) and there were people coming in just to see them, apparently. The woman who runs it now, who'd never really had anything to do with ferrets before, was also smitten with them. This makes future holiday trips significantly easier!

In fencing news, while my club was closed for a couple of weeks, I bit the bullet and drove to another nearby club to keep myself ticking over. I've now also joined that club, which means from last week I'll be fencing two nights running. The hope is that, since I don't have anything to do with the organising of things at Club B, I can just turn up and get some consistent epee coaching - I could have that at Club A but I have to remember to ask for it, then I get dragged into other stuff and it just doesn't happen. Clear evidence of my need to become more consistent was provided by my first competition of the season where I started off really well, almost getting into the top half of the list, but then blew it completely in round 2. I then lost my DE fight 15-10, dashing my hopes of hitting that particular unfulfilled target. My plan is to do roughly one competition a month this season.

In support of that, I've also changed gyms as I hadn't been going and my brain just got worse and worse about the concept of going in when I've not been there for a while. The gym I was with was also attached to a local high school, so while it was convenient, they only opened after school hours during the week and for 6 hours a day at the weekend. The new one is a bit further away but it's also cheaper and has more stuff going on, as well as being somewhere I can go in the day if I'm not working.

New term starts next week for us and my days have changed slightly - the first challenge is getting back into a routine after a few weeks of getting up whenever I feel like it and loafing around. I also want to get back into walking, though I've currently got a lovely planar wart on one foot which makes walking uncomfortable. It's better than it was, as I've been treating it, so hopefully I can get out this month.

Plenty going on, none of it fannish so...

I'm in the final part of my course, which involves doing some research where I work and am currently buried alive under the related literature review reading. I only have 5,000 words and that's a big problem when my bibliography is already pages and pages, all of it due in about 4 weeks from now! As a result, I am not outside enjoying the lovely (unexpected) Bank Holiday sunshine but trying to get all the reading done so I can start writing. Next couple of weeks I need to do some interviews and get the rest of the writing done, so I fully anticipate my house will be very clean. ;)

The other part of my course was observations, the final one of which took place last week. In the first year, I'd been consistently graded as Good and this year I managed to push that up to a consistent Outstanding, which wasn't really something I was working for but it's nice to get anyway. Once I've uploaded everything relating to my observations and submitted the research, the next thing is to make a formal request for regrading as a qualified teacher.

I'm also organising my summer at the moment, booking ferries and stuff for the return to Mull and also keeping an eye out for when the cheap London rail-fares become available for Nine Worlds. What seemed like months away is coming soon and I have loads to do before then!

As for fencing, it's not so much a learning curve as a learning roller-coaster - after a few good weeks and feeling like I knew what I was doing, the most recent practice was just dire. I was consistently a fraction slower than my opponents (getting good hits but getting locked out by the scoring equipment) or falling a fraction short and not registering, to the point where I was so close to just throwing everything on the floor and walking off. It's hard to make a dramatic exit when you're clipped to the equivalent of an extendable dog lead and need to unplug yourself first, so that didn't happen.

No practice last week because the hall we use also gets used as a polling station, so back this week and we'll see how awful I am. The inconsistency is massively annoying and unfortunately I know the only way past is through - since I've been doing competitions I've met other folks from local clubs and have a standing invitation to go and fence with them too, so after the summer I'm planning to increase my fencing time by joining their club's practice as well and hope that helps with the inconsistency.

That's it, I think. So exciting. I'm sure fannish stuff will roll around again some time, I still have WiP I would like to finish and appreciate that I'm regularly getting kudos emails (and the occasional comment!) from my stuff on AO3. Nothing new has sparked my interest, though. *shrugs*

Whoops, where did January and February go?

So, an update on a few things, first off the current situation around fencing. A quick explanation of how competitions work, for those folks who don't know (as this will be pertinent to the title of this post) - you usually start off with a poule round (or rounds), where you fence 5 or 6 other people for 3 minutes or first to 5 hits to decide your ranking for the direct elimination (DE) fights which are up to 15 hits, over three 3 minute periods with a minute break between them. The better you do in the poule(s), the lower ranked person you fight next. Some competitions are closed, meaning you have to meet certain criteria to fence in them (e.g. regionals or beginners) and some are open, meaning literally anyone can enter them if they have the right licence.

Since I started doing competitions, I've been setting myself realistic goals, in increasing levels of difficulty:

Not finish last in an open competition

Get points off every opponent in my poule in an open competition

Get at least 7 points in a DE fight in an open competition

Win a poule fight in an open competition

Win a DE fight in an open competition

After this weekend, I now have only the last (and most difficult) to achieve. I was in a competition where, because of the weather, only 9 fencers made it so our second round was what we call a poule unique - I fenced all 8, having already fenced 4 of them in the first round. One of the fencers is in the top 30 in the country and she absolutely slaughtered me 5-0 in the first round but I beat her 5-4 in the second! Achievement unlocked! I also beat two other people but they'd both not been fencing long so I was feeling a bit uncertain as to whether I'd actually achieved my goal or not till this particular fight...

To be honest, I haven't been working as hard as I could have - I've been dodging going to the gym and haven't got around to asking for lessons yet either. It's about 5 weeks to my next competition so I will get on with that properly, as I really want to make a go of this, or at least as far as is possible given my age starting.

In other news, I'm now just one observation and one module away from my course being over, so the finishing line is in sight. I can't wait. I don't have my teaching schedule for next academic year yet but I hope to be able to continue to have some flexibility around competing and teaching, like this year, assuming I'm even working Saturdays again. It's been a real mixture this year, with one very good class, one not quite so good (nothing like as confident as the previous class at the same level, which was a learning experience) and one where both attendance and numbers have been an issue. That one's closing at Easter so I'll be picking up other stuff to complete my hours for the year and trying not to take it personally.

I also unexpectedly got 2 days off this past week, as we had a lot of snow (for UK definitions of 'a lot of') and the centres where I teach were closed - to be honest, we could have gone in on Saturday as the extra snow which was forecast didn't arrive after all, but I can understand why they didn't take the risk. That just means I have to tack on that missed class to the end before we finish, as I already got paid for it.

Last summer we got a new head of service, after our old one retired, and found out at the (mandatory) start of year meetings that she Has Plans. Firstly, that she wanted us to have a staff conference that everyone was going to need to attend and that would 'bring us together' and also help point us in the direction of getting a better grade next time we get inspected.

Because the timetables for the academic year had already been organised, when she chose a date for said conference (one day next week), there was some annoyance as that meant those classes had to be cancelled and then added in at the end of the spring or summer terms. We always try and leave some leeway just in case of bad weather or teacher sickness that can't be covered, so folks get the teaching hours they've paid for when they enrol on a course and everyone's happy.

What hasn't been mentioned, however, is whether teachers (most of whom work part-time and get paid on the basis of teaching so many hours over the year) would get paid for attending the staff conference since it's not part of their assigned hours any more. When we attend other meetings that are mandatory, we get paid, but there has been an ominous silence over whether this will also be the case for the staff conference. Not helped, of course, by the fact that the managers and admin staff will all get paid because they work regular hours over the year. There's been a few universal emails flying around about this but none of them have been responded to, which makes us cynics realists think they were planning to try it on...

Anyway, it's all turned out to be moot, since the staff conference has now been postponed supposedly as a result of the recent death of one of the management team. It's supposed to be next term some time, when we'll have the same issue yet again if classes are cancelled and added on later. I wasn't teaching anyway next week, it's all exams for my folks, but I bet some people are really vexed by all of this!

I've always thought of myself as the queen of not wanting to be told what to do but I've recently met my match, in fact I may have been replaced!

One of the places where I work, there's a particular teacher who always does too much, all the time. She's absolutely outdone herself this time around though, as she was in hospital last week for an operation, following which she came back to work yesterday. Not only that, but because she's been told she can't drive, she caught the bus from her house to the central bus station and then walked from there to our centre (2 miles) and from there to another place for a meeting (at least another mile). Oh, and she's back in for another operation next week!

When asked why she'd come back to work, she said she was bored at home. When asked why she'd walked all over the place instead of a) catching the bus that stops right next to our centre, or b) getting a lift off someone, she said she had to keep up with her steps. WTAF?

*head desk*

You'd be forgiven for thinking I didn't go on holiday this year, since I may have mentioned it in the run-up to actually going but then haven't posted anything about it over here - folks who follow me on Twitter will have seen some flailing about the trip, for reasons I'll detail in due course, but that's it.

A couple of years ago, I went to WorldCon in London (that's the World Science Fiction Convention, in case anyone reading this was unaware) and at the time there was a bid in to host a future WorldCon in Helsinki, Finland. In its lengthy history, the majority of WorldCons have been in the US and I was keen to support the idea of it being this side of the Atlantic again, so bought a supporting membership. The bid was successful and 2017 was therefore when it was due to happen - in 2014, it seemed like a long way away! Anyway, I felt I should support this plan in person and, if I was going to go to Finland, it seemed like a good idea to have other things to do...

Which is how I ended up with this year's holiday - first off, a week's hiking in a National Park near the Finnish-Russian before heading back to the Baltic, a few days in Turku (medieval capital of the country) and then back to Helsinki for the con and whatever else I felt like doing. That was also how I ended up getting up at 4am to drive to the airport to get a flight to Amsterdam, then to Helsinki and then another flight north, to Kuusamo. Or at least that was the plan, until Finnair overbooked my third flight and I got stuck in Helsinki for 18 hours.

I've travelled quite a bit and this is the first time that I've ever been caught by overbooking. I think I've been lucky in that I once got stuck in Paris on the way back from a trip to Canada, but that was because the flight in was delayed and I missed the connection, not the airline selling something it didn't actually have. What other business is allowed to work that way? The only positive thing I can say about Finnair was that as well as organising a hotel & meals, they gave me compensation there and then, while other airlines have a bad reputation for expecting you to claim later and then, oddly enough, taking forever to pay you back for what you've spent.

My main concern was that I was due to join a group and knew that they'd already left the Kuusamo area and travelled into the middle of nowhere, as well as being due to go bear-watching that afternoon and that was one of the main reasons why I'd chosen that particular trip! In the end, I spent the majority of my compensation on a very long taxi ride from the airport (200km, to be precise!) and arrived just in time to bolt down a cup of coffee, run to the loo and then go bear-watching. The bears were awesome and I'll post some pics at the weekend.

The rest of the week was spent hiking 10-15km a day, with our luggage being taken to the next place we were staying, then sauna and a swim in the lake if you felt so inclined (which I did, in two different lakes, while others in the group younger than me chickened out). I also had a go at canoeing for the first time - I've kayaked before, but this whole thing with one paddle and switching hands is far too much work! The only downsides to the trip were the mosquitoes, which loved me greatly despite bug spray, and that it was too early in the season for cloudberries by about a week! They were everywhere in the bogs we were crossing and I only found one that was ripe the entire trip. :(

Then it was a flight back to Helsinki and a train to Turku for a couple of days. It's a nice, compact little city and I liked it very much, though one of the main attractions was being able to go kayaking in the Baltic for the day. The trains in Finland are significantly cheaper than in the UK (though this isn't difficult) and I definitely recommend them.

Once back in Helsinki, we had a complementary travel card for the bus and tram system as part of being a WorldCon member and this got used a lot - I was staying in the city centre, near the train station, and could either get a commuter train (10 mins) or a tram (25-30 mins), usually depending on whether I could be bothered to walk to and from the respective train stations, since the trams were also frequent. I only managed to get a bit lost once, waiting for a bus that never arrived and then deciding to walk (and walk and walk) before spotting my hotel from a distance and navigating towards it by guesswork. That was also partly caused by my not trusting my instincts, as partway through this journey I'd got on a tram that was actually going the right way then second-guessed myself and got off a couple of stops later.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how easy Finland was for me as a vegetarian, though I think being a vegan might be significantly more difficult. Helsinki in particular seems to have embraced soy as an alternative to meat - the local burger chain, Hesburger, was doing soy burgers and tortillas, for example - while I ate a lot of potatoes and vegetables, it wasn't anything like as one-dimensional as my trip to Newfoundland a few years back where I pretty much lived on grilled cheese sandwiches for most of my time there.

Anyway, back to WorldCon. I think my main criticism would be about the panels, but that's probably because I've been spoiled by other conventions, NineWorlds in particular. The panels were short, scheduled for an hour but really limited to 45 minutes to allow for people to get to the next panel, which then turns into 30 minutes plus time for questions. There was a problem on the first day about getting in to some of the panels as well, with the convention having to organise some additional panel rooms for subsequent days, which meant that even then people were leaving panels early - I don't really see the point of going in the first place if you're going to do that. As a result, most of the panels I went to felt a bit lightweight and at least one suffered from a lack of robust moderation, or a moderator who wouldn't shut up and let the panellists talk. It was ever thus, I guess!

I knew a few people at the con but felt the lack of people to chew stuff over with, which I've become used to. Anyway, the next European WorldCon is going to be Dublin in 2019, so I guess I'm going to Ireland again in 2 years time! Hopefully more folks I know will go and help keep me entertained.

In general though, I'm glad I went and Finland is a very beautiful but expensive country. I ate a lot of chocolate and licorice, although the salty licorice they love so much (salmiakki) is vile and I don't know how anyone can eat more than one piece. I wish I'd been there for cloudberry season and also that the mosquitoes didn't love me so much. And yes, I did sauna naked - it's traditional, you know! - but put on a swimming costume for the lake because we weren't the only people there. I highly recommend the sauna + lake combination if you ever visit...

Jesus, critters, you've only been in my house a little over 24 hours!

Yes, we've just had the first weasel-related drama for these particular goobers, currently still unnamed. I'd put them in the carrier I've been using for about 10 years while I sorted out their hutch only to come back after a few minutes and discover that one of them had stuck its head right through the solid mesh that made up the carrier's door and was now, naturally, completely stuck. The holes in the door are 2.5cm x 3.5cm, in case you're wondering.

Fortunately, I had a pair of wire-cutters in the house and was able to cut through and then bend the wire in question to get the little fathead out no worse for wear. If not, I'd probably be at the local fire station right about now.

Guess I'm in the market for a new pet carrier...

Since poor Milo passed away late last year, this is the longest time I've been pet-less since I've owned a place of my own and now I'm starting to think about getting some more ferrets. He was on his own for over two years, getting older and scrawnier, so I didn't get any more as I'd been through the 'won't play well with others' with the terrible Buzz and ended up running two hutches as a result. Older generally also equals crankier, as who wants a young'un bouncing all over you when you're trying to nap?

Anyway, I have all the kit, including a big (expensive at the time) outdoor set-up standing vacant, and there's no issue financially around vet bills and the like. I've got someone local who can look after them if I want to go away and a vet that I trust to do his best and not gouge me for cash. So, you might ask, what's the problem?

It's the thought of going through all that shenanigans with illness and death again. Part and parcel of being a pet owner, I know, but that doesn't make me look forward to it at all. That's the main thing that's been making me hesitate, even when I know my hypothetical weasels would be spoiled rotten - how I feel about this aspect of pet ownership isn't going to change any time soon.

Anyone else felt like this? I know xochiquetzl has been through the mill in terms of emotions round her cats, so how do I get past this? Should I try and get past this? I'll have to if I ever want another pet in my life...

Apologies to anyone who followed me expecting fannish stuff - it'll happen, as sure as eggs is eggs, but at the moment I just seem to have more to say about fencing than anything else. *shrugs*

( The pointy end goes in your opponent... )

Next weekend I've got my first proper competition and I'm starting to get the jitters a little. First as in 'not just our club' and 'not just for beginners', this is anyone can enter and I could therefore get my arse kicked from one end of the competition to the other.

The frustrating thing is that fencing = learning a new skill as an adult, a new physical skill at that - it's definitely harder than I remember it ever being when I was younger and also much more frustrating at times. It's not so much a learning curve as a learning rollercoaster, one that doubles back on itself like crazy too, if I can stretch the metaphor. Usually we don't learn new physical skills past our teenage years, early twenties at least, and maybe I'd forgotten what a pain it is?

I've had a couple of sessions in recent weeks at the club where I was distinctly mediocre (that feels like a kind assessment) for no apparent reason - losing badly to folks who usually beat me, it has to be said, but against whom I pretty regularly get at least a handful of hits and who I occasionally frighten a little. Those kind of fights make me feel like I'm actually making progress and that all the effort I've put in hasn't been completely wasted. It's massively frustrating to be utterly unable to do what I know I should/can do because it's got to be me - meanwhile, in my head I know that next week I'll probably be better again but that doesn't stop me from feeling like crap about it, compounded by the fact that it's the wrong time of the month for anything to go awry.

There is, of course, no way out but through. I could really do with not coming last next weekend, though. ;)