#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

One of my all-time favorite BBC clips. It's so fantastically well done.

[eta: It's a pity the version they have online is so tiny. Makes it harder to see the spaghetti trees.]

#27: Michigan Shark Experiment

"Michigan Shark Experiment" would be a good band name....

I am completely humourless about April Fools. I just don't get it. The pranks started early at/about/around krav. Sorts of calls that got hung up on, or worse yet got taken seriously ("We've been broken into! The front window is shattered! The computers are gone!") and pissed off the recipient.

Sadly, what wasn't an April Fool's joke was that I failed the black belt test (I've been told to say "I didn't pass" because it'll get less of an emotional reaction, but y'all already know my no-hug policy, so I feel good). I have to say I threw it all out there on the floor, and I know my shit better than anyone else who took the test and can do my shit as well as most of them.

So I failed somehow else, and I can't lie--I'm feeling kinda gutted right now. I don't expect the sense of disorientation or sudden re-surprise to wear much away before I meet with the testing instructor tomorrow evening (I've already had his "You must test again! You'll be an asset to krav!" speech, but I can be an asset as a brown belt too, right? Having taken the test, it's more scary than it was before I took it, and I shiver at the thought of taking it again. I really don't want to. I've been told that'll wear off with time. It might. I feel hella convinced right now, though).

I threw everything I had out on that floor a week ago, and it wasn't enough. I don't know where to get more, so maybe that's where I'll let it lie. All I know I'll be in September is older. Experience tells me I'll also be in pain, probably more than I was last week.

I...Well, at least I have to stop being mad at the people that passed. That's just arrogance, and is unfair. They did what they needed to, and I could not. It's not a relative thing.

So, yeah, lack of hugs greatly appreciated.

Well, no hugs here, but I'm sorry you didn't pass.

I'm sorry, ita.

On my first black belt test, I got lost in a kata I had done hundreds of times before and then ran out of the room. It was not my finest hour. I know you did better than that. I'm not offering hugs, but I'm sure you realize you were under some extraordinary stressors over the past year.

I'm glad you gave everything you had and feel confident in your skills. That you were able to do so is kind of a marvel, all things considered, but I'm sorry it didn't get the result you wanted.

Maybe it wasn't a matter of how much you had to give but in how you gave it? Because that is methodology and that CAN be changed.

I'm glad you gave everything you had and feel confident in your skills. That you were able to do so is kind of a marvel, all things considered, but I'm sorry it didn't get the result you wanted.

Yeah, that. Sorry.

Damn, ita, that's too bad.