graculus

So, September. What is time anyway?

Since last post (in May, sorry about that for anyone who's actually still reading these things - hello out there!), I've guesstimated some exam grades for people, then done pretty much nothing except eat, sleep, read books and watch TV. I fell heavily down the rabbit hole that is Chinese and Korean drama despite the many many long episodes of both and boy, there's some good stuff at the bottom there.

I'm currently watching Nirvana in Fire, long after fandom found it, and have so many shows lined up I had to start a proper list (on a very helpful website called MyDramaList) to keep track of them all. Historical costume drama is my main bag, to be honest, mostly because of the excellent hats - somehow a lot of the modern day stuff just doesn't have the same pull unless it's something utterly ridiculous like Guardian.

Lots of comfort eating and not much exercise over the past few months - sadly, no stabbing people since March! - mean I've put on a good bit of weight and feel like a tub of lard. My knees dislike running, even if I didn't think it utterly pointless anyway, and I only managed to finally get hold of a bike a few weeks back. The gym has reopened, at least, but it's feeling a bit of a struggle at the moment. One of my fencing clubs has reopened partially but I haven't even dared try on my breeches, since I know they're not going to do up, so I'm not there yet.

That's another source of annoyance. The club I'm on the committee of, I have to restrain my usual impulse to be the boss of everything and everyone but some of the other people are all so vague about everything. We just found out our usual venue won't be re-opening till at least January, so not only are we vaguely thinking about how we can re-open at all (in line with both government guidance and our NGB's rules, so we're covered by insurance), we're now vaguely thinking about somewhere else to do it. *headdesk*

Anyway, work is also looming. I'm currently doing assessments for new learners, which is fine, but when actual classes start it's all still a bit up in the air. My usual classes are 12-14 people but the size of our rooms = 5-6 + me as a maximum number. Which means, I don't know, alternate weeks in class? Online stuff and paper-based stuff for people to do at home? Some learners are going to be fine with this, others I really worry about, and I have the privilege of teaching the people who are the most able in terms of their English. Meanwhile our processes around getting funding from the government, showing learner progress and putting people in for exams are all still very paper-based with signatures from me and them - already a nightmare if people call in sick, how much worse if we know people aren't going to be in every week? Watch this space for more incoherent flailing...

Other than that? How was lockdown, I was asked the other day - well, I live on my own, so that but for much longer, was my reply.

Apparently I can just recycle subject lines from previous years and they still work. :P

Yes, it's February and we're officially not part of the European Union any more. What a shitshow this has all been. Decisions made based on lies peddled by the media and lapped up by people who want to believe that somehow the EU has been holding us back and we're just going to gambol back into the sunshine as an 'independent' country now they can't do that any more. Bollocks. We're stuck with a government which is massively uncaring (if not openly hostile) to much of the population and little sign of that changing any time soon.

I'm currently also chewing over what to do personally in terms of holidays, as there are plenty of places I want to visit (and have to go for years, in some cases) but there are all sorts of philosophical wheels churning in my head. If I don't see these places soon, some of them might just not be visitable in the future because of climate change and general human fuckery, but if I go then I'm contributing to climate change etc, but if I don't visit them then the people who rely on tourism will suffer. Jeez, life is so much easier if you have no conscience about these sorts of things, isn't it?

Work has settled down a bit, despite the best efforts of the IT changes we're currently undergoing to make how we do our jobs as complicated as possible. I currently have 2 work email addresses and can only print anything at work by emailing stuff to one of them, which account currently takes me 7-8 minutes to log into at work because of the process involving in actually getting in (multi-factor authorisation and so on). After a further run-in with the QA woman, which led to her complaining to my boss about me, I've decided the best way forward is to ignore her completely.

Started the new year in fencing terms with two competitions on the same weekend, which I won't do again if I can possibly help it, especially as there was driving between the different locations involved. The first was against a mixture of UK and European fencers and I had the pleasure of running someone off the back of the piste, as well as roundly beating another who did very well in the national veteran's championship last year. She was having an off day, but I'll take that result anyway! It took forever to then get to the DE fight and I'd checked out before it started, so I didn't do particularly well. I then fenced much better on the Sunday but ran up against someone in the DE who usually has one really good competition result a season and happened to inflict it on me this time around. My next competition is this coming weekend and I'm looking to improve on my result last year, where I finished DFL.

I'm back to working on my overall fitness as well, with attempts at getting into a routine of going to the gym. January is rarely great for this, as the gym is full of new folks with resolutions, but I know what I need to do and it's just a case of going regularly, doing more each time I go, rinse and repeat. At least I have a reason for going, as I can see the difference in how I fence when I'm fitter overall, I just need to keep reminding myself about this!

Just spent the weekend doing a team competition and boy, I am really not a team player any more. We were supposed to have a team of 3, which means lots of fights but I figured the more fights the better as it might even out my inconsistency, then suddenly it was 4, then 5 when we arrived on Saturday. Which meant long periods of watching other people do the stuff I was itching to do myself and that definitely had an impact on how I did when I actually got on the piste. *sigh*

It also made for a relatively expensive weekend, in terms of bang for your buck. I like to get my money's worth when I travel to fence and more fights = better. The annoying thing is that early on we were approached to see if our fifth person would like to fence for another region, who didn't have a full team, and she declined. If I'd known how I would feel now about it all, I should probably have been the one who jumped ship. At the time I was just 'why the hell should I?' but that seems to have been a poor decision on my part.

The previous (solo) competition was much better - had a very good round 1 then tanked a bit in round 2 and ended up blowing the elimination fight as I got someone tougher than I should have. Still, I did well enough to get ranking points and that was a major aim, even if the two toughest people who'd entered didn't turn up in the end (which means less points for the rest of us, as a good result in a tough competition gets you more points than the same result in a weaker one).

Next competition is in November, so we'll see how that goes...

We're in the last throes of the academic year, with exams to mark and just 2 more classes to teach then that's it for the summer. We're supposed to be doing mandatory CPD stuff next week but I have already reached my hours for the year and also there's absolutely nothing being organised that is of any interest or relevance to me - there's stuff via the internet I can log which will be much more useful in the longer term, I'm sure.

I have my timetable for September onwards, so I've been able to start planning exactly what I'm doing in terms of both work and generally. I'm still teaching on Saturdays but have told my boss this is the last year for me, as this will be my 4th year and it feels like it's someone else's turn to do that. It's also been a bit of a pain to try and organise around competitions, as any Saturday I book off is just added onto the end and we also have weekends we're not allowed to do for various reasons - it's technically possible to get cover but I like things done the way I want, so I've never even tried to do that. I'm still in the good books though, as I've agreed to take on an evening class (another thing many people don't want to do).

I still have planning to do for September and really want to at least make a start on it this month so I can have August off completely. However, as I am the queen of procrastination, it might not happen! At least I've organised my trip to Ireland, with WorldCon in Dublin and then a week on the west coast, which I'm really looking forward to. At the moment I'm not taking any books for signing as I don't think anyone I want to fangirl at is going to be there except for people I've already done that with. This makes the weight limit on the flight much easier to achieve!

Had another good survey at Easter, with fantastic weather every day - makes spotting much easier if the seas are calm and you don't have rain blowing into your face! Some great sightings, including minke whales closer than I've seen before, but one of the highlights for me was on the way back into port when a white-tailed eagle flew right across in front of us. I'd seen them at a distance but never really thought about how bloody huge they are till I saw one about 15 feet away lumbering across the Sound of Mull. Taking a break that way was definitely the right decision.

It did mean I missed the regional championships, which was a bit annoying, as it was also a qualifier for one of the national competitions. Next year, then! However, I did fence quite well at the British veterans nationals and am now really working towards the new season from September. Unexpectedly, this weekend I got a call-up to the regional squad for a long-running national team competition and got my regional badge (which you can only get by being selected). This competition is often dominated by folks in their teens and twenties but we lost a few fencers to a national achievement camp so I got asked this week if I was available. We did really well as a region, considering the panicky last-minute nature of the call-ups, finishing 4th out of 11 teams overall. I only ended up fighting 4 bouts and just managed to win 3 of those 12 fights but they were all against people ranked higher than me, including one woman who's just been called up for the GB veterans world championship team. :P

So now I've sewn my regional badge on to my jacket as I continue to prepare for the veteran's version of the same competition, which is in September - I've already been called up for that one and had thought that was the only one of these I'd ever get to do, since it's a bit more self-selecting!

In other news, I've been working my way through the Hugo bundle and reading all sorts of stuff. There's nothing fannish which has particularly grabbed me lately, although I recently binged my way through the 3 seasons of Versailles, which I missed first time around. I was dragged into it by Tumblr, I must confess, with the promise of an OT3 which very much lived up to what I wanted from it and therefore does not generate fic ideas at all. Boy, that theme music is massively annoying though, with the whiny vocals. *shudders*

I've also been getting back into podcasts, even though I don't really drive as far as I used to - there's some really excellent ones out there and I think I'll do a separate post on them in the next couple of weeks, in the hopes this account doesn't get left to lie fallow all summer. No promises, though!

Sorry folks (the few who're still reading this), I'm not sure what happened to January at all as I'd been meaning to post an update but it just didn't happen. So, let's talk about life and all that...

First off, I now am significantly poorer but also have central heating that actually works. This, along with a big fleecy jumper, has been a godsend on a few days here but so far the winter has been pretty mild in this part of the UK. A few miles further north, where it gets hilly, there was snow for a while but I've literally had just a sprinkling here and nothing more. Still, I'm completely sold on the concept of heated windscreens for cars, as by the time I've scraped the other windows, the screen is clear and I'm ready to go.

I did some work for the local university but not as much as previously, due to my other commitments. We're reaching the tipping point there between 'this money is useful to pay for my expensive hobby' versus 'I hate getting up at the buttcrack of dawn' - the next big lot of exams isn't quite so bad because at least it would be daylight when I got up, but we'll see how I feel after that.

Work trundles on as usual, except for the fact that I now have two job-sharing bosses instead of one single one. The single one has been talking for years about retirement anyway and the appointment was from inside the team, so someone who knows how we work and doesn't want to fix a system that's not broken. That seems to be the more senior management's job, which is one reason I didn't put myself forward for a minor job enhancement opportunity that came along recently - extra work and the hours to do it but otherwise just what looks like a lot of hassle. I'd rather spend my time and effort getting as good at what I'm doing now as possible than try and take on more, especially potentially-stressful more.

I'm still fencing at two clubs, which is working out well even though I was so cold at one of them last week I had to give up early and throw on multiple layers instead. The epee coach is back, though there's still things she can't do, but I cooled down so much during the group lesson that I just couldn't get going again after and felt really rough. This week (tonight) is looking like being much warmer so I need to get my practice in, as I've got a competition coming up this weekend.

I'm still creeping up the national rankings and am just outside the top 200 in the country, so a good performance at this would hit another target for me if I jump inside that bracket. I'm massively inconsistent, though - had another competition a few weeks back with 2 rounds of poules where I did quite well in round 1 but failed to stick the landing (to mix sports metaphors). However, even the worst competition performances tend to come with silver linings; I finally beat the woman who's been my nemesis for a while and who I often end up fighting in poules - we started fencing around the same time and she's at least 20 years younger than me but this time I absolutely thrashed her.

I also need to get on with planning my holidays for this year. I've got an attending ticket for WorldCon in Dublin but haven't sorted anything else out yet - the hotels are fiendishly expensive, making Helsinki look quite cheap, which was a bit of a revelation. I also want to visit a few other places in the country (neolithic stuff, mostly) and would also love to get over to the west coast, but need to really sit and figure out what's realistic. If it weren't for WorldCon, I definitely wouldn't be there in August, which is crazy tourist time anyway. I'm also thinking about doing another survey at Easter but might run out of time to organise that, we'll see. It's half term soon, so I can do some proper planning then.

The weasels are fat and healthy, with big winter coats and shiny eyes. I need to get some current pics of them and spam everyone as they are so pretty. Hard to believe they'll be two in April!

Plenty going on, most of it not particularly fannish. It kind of breaks into three categories: stuff to do with my house, work and fencing.

First off, the house. When I bought it, I didn't quite realise the extent to which the previous owner was a devotee of the concept of bodge-it-yourself. I think people ought to do things themselves, if they know what they're doing, but in this case a) he didn't and b) he has caused further problems for me. A case in point has been my ongoing struggles with the central heating system and the discovery recently that the (plastic) overflow pipe from the cold water tank in the attic (whence comes all the water to feed the system, rather than from the mains) was held together by basically nothing. So when the ballcock started playing up and the tank overfilled, the water that was supposed to be diverted through a pipe to outside instead went into the ceiling of the room below. I've now fixed that problem myself but am well aware that it's just a temporary fix - in my near future is the expensive replacement of the heating boiler and the removal of all the tanks connected to it, which will doubtless end up costing me more as my plumber discovers all the other things that have been half-arsed along the way.

Fortunately, at the same time, work is fine. I've had something new to do this term, which is assessing folks for placement and that's been interesting. We take people into classes until Easter usually, so I'm signed up to keep assessing till Christmas at least. I got tripped up by some paperwork issues at the end of last academic year, so I'm trying to keep on top of everything as I go this time around - so far, so good.

I've had a very up and down time with fencing, having entered another competition and done the absolute worst I've ever done. I've finished last before but there's a difference between finishing last because everyone else was better than you and finishing last (like this time) because you sucked. I've been describing it as a 'frustration death spiral' - I fenced badly, so I got frustrated, then I fenced even worse. Then I had some really good fights in practice last week, as well as practice last night where I had two fights back-to-back at one point, the second of which I won against a woman who usually beats me fairly comfortably. After that competition, I was left wondering if I was kidding myself about how well I can fence but results like that one make my head spin again. Anyway, another competition in a couple of weeks, so we'll see if I can get my head together and actually fence as well as I think I can.

To be honest, I had a bit of a mental health wobble the morning after the competition and felt very low. That seemed to lift as I was at work throughout the day, so it's probably a good thing I now work straight after the weekend and don't have yet more time to mope. ;)

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.

On a Thursday I get a couple of hours of fencing, though not continuously because I would die, but the last session of the month is always fight night. The coaches are still around and we still warm up and do a bit of footwork practice before we spar, and a few folks also had lessons during this (when there was space!) but mostly it's about getting as much actual fighting done as possible. So I ended up fighting 4 epee bouts last night, which has me aching all over this morning. I also discovered that the muscle I pulled in my thigh a couple of weeks ago is still not completely recovered, which is another story and part of the general suckage of being an old.

Anyway, I regularly fence the teenage lads to 15 points and usually, on a good day, I get 7-8 points off them. They've all been fencing for a couple of years and I'm also old enough to be their grandma (yes, I did the maths!), which means they're also usually going to be quicker than me most of the time. For them it means I give them a bit of practice but it's pretty comfortable because they know they're going to beat me; for me it means I can try particular things out and not worry about losing because I always lose, then come back next week and try again!

So last night I was fencing one of the lads and everything just seemed to click (for me, at least!) - I started off with a couple of good hits on him and went ahead from the outset, then he pulled back, then I went ahead again. Since it's not a competition, we do talk to each other during the bout - between points, not during the actual fighting - and towards the end he was going 'I don't know what to do!'. In the end, I lost 15-13, which is my best result to date in epee. Of course, next week he may absolutely slaughter me, but it's good evidence that I have improved even though sometimes it's not always obvious week in and week out.

In other news, the ferrets now have names (Hoshi and Yuki) which they needed in order to go to the vet and be spayed yesterday. Jill ferrets have to have something done to them if you're not going to breed them, otherwise if they come into heat and aren't bred, they will literally die. I was quite pleased that the vet called me to check I was aware of the non-surgical options, which I was, before just going ahead and doing it. They both came home in the afternoon and seem fine so far.