galaxies

Welcome to more news from the home front, coming to you live and in color.

First things first, I've got some good news. I took, and passed my gold belt test. Now, being gold belt, I'm sure some of you are going "Heh, like that should be that difficult." But here's the thing about it all. My partner, as I've mentioned before, had twice the training time I did. Basically, I had about 22 hours of total instruction before I tested. It kind of puts that into perspective doesn't it?

All in all, I did pretty well. The Black Belt that was testing me made me improvise some holds and evasions. I came up with an amusing one on a cross-body wrist grab which ends in a hip toss. Don't ask me how, I went on automatic pilot. I ran a kata, and was finished before I realized that I'd begun executing it. My terminology was off, but I've got some Spanish, Russian, and a smattering of Italian running through my head at any given time, adding Japanese wasn't going to happen quickly. Hell, I'm amazed I can count to 10, let alone keep some of the names of my techniques in my head. Eh, I'll learn in time.

Anyways, the amusing part came when I asked permission to run a Bo Staff kata for additional points. By that time, the Instructor had wandered outside to shark me (wander around in circles, watching, waiting, that kinda thing) and once I'd finished up everything, I asked. The instructor and the black belt testing me looked over my sheet and I was told "Don't worry, you don't need it."

Now, I want you to bear in mind something. I wasn't sure if that statement meant "You've got enough points, don't bother wearing yourself out further." OR, what I was worried about "Don't bother; your score is so low that the bonus points wouldn't do you any good."

Fortunately, it was the former. I sincerely don't know what my percentage was. I'll pester about that one later, just, I passed.

Now, I've got a rant.

There's something that troubles me greatly. It's when Americans, educated in America, spell Color, Neighbor, Honor, Armor, words like that, with the letter U, which gets you Colour, Neighbour, Honour, and Armour.

Ok, we weren't taught to spell like that, and if someone were a complete dip-shit, the spelling would be more off, more than likely. No, this is the act of a pretentious ass trying to be all European and cool and shit, and you can tell, because they know at least enough to use the letter U.

This kinda goes along with my Louisville rant, actually. It's like so. That letter U in those words doesn't belong to us, it's not ours. It is, in fact, someone else's thing, so stop trying to Bogart someone else's thing. If you're an American, educated in your own country, then use the spelling we're meant to use, not someone else's.

Obviously, I make concessions for education outside of the US, otherwise, it wouldn't be all that fair of me, and while I am being a prick, I'm going to be a fair one. It just drives me up the wall to see people trying to be pompous, pretentious asses. It seems like such put-on airs, in my opinion.

By the way, I think we've all heard the Louisville rant, so I'll spare that one.

So, end of rant, end of good news.

Have a good one, we work hard for them.