面面面面面面面面面面面メーーーーン!

I woke up with my knee hurting like mad and me having no idea why. Good omen, eh?
The seminar was as hard as expected. Am feeling like jelly now, or maybe whipped cream, but at least I finally understood the third part of Nihon Kendô kata. The testing was both harder and shorter than expected because we had really motivated examiners for a change. The last time, one of the sensei had us do multiple suburi and some uchi-komi and kiri-gaeshi, same stuff for 6th and 5th kyû (well, the 5th kyû testees additionally had to dis- and reassamble their shinai, but otherwise, they had the exact same programme). 5th kyû testees wore no armour, either.
This time, the 6th kyû testees had to do suburi (including jôge-buri, which in my opinion are very badly disguised attempts to have the performers beat their own backside with their own shinai), but for us great advanced 5th kyû testees, that stuff was skipped altogether. We had to do some of the more complicated uchi-komi and kiri-gaeshi techniques, and backwards techniques which are even more complicated. Then we were asked to dissemble our shinai while the testees for 4th kyû had to perform, once they reached kata we had to put our shinai together again, and afterwards we were told that everyone had passed, although, of course, everyone has to work on their techniques yadda yadda.
Yeah. So now I have the 5th kyû in Kendô. Woot.

QotD:
Roland: "Ichiya-sensei used to say that one breath has to suffice for one part of the kata. Now Ichiya-sensei has ceased breathing altogether, but the advanced among you should still try to follow his advice."

PS:
On the way back (storm force 10, yay), they were talking on the radio about their special Valentine's Day raffle (did I mention I loathe Valentine's Day?). First prize: A trip to South-Africa. The speaker was then raving about how great it would be to escape the February cold for the far south, which made me smile. Oh yeah, baby. Two weeks from now, we will probably already see the lights (and bush fires *cough*) of Cape Town below us. Weeeee!

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( Men Men Men Men Men Men Men Men Men Men Men Meeeeeen! )

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Pointless Même, Ere I Break Down

Aaah, Randomness.
Stolen from ladylaurelote.

Go to your info page and find the seventh name listed on your friends list. Go to their info page. Find the seventh name on their friends list. Repeat until you are seven LJs from your own. (If you come across someone who doesn't have seven friends or the seventh friend is a journal you have already visited on this trip, randomly pick another name and continue).

1. camwyn
2. ahmeemee
3. bppv
4. starblaezer
5. laughterhere
6. tulipdelux
7. trevmex

Now, use the info page and recent entries of that 7th LJ to answer the following questions:

1) What is the title of this journal (NOT the user name)? -The blog of jumex

2) How many communities does this person belong to? - 2

3) List any interests you share in common with this user. -Douglas Adams, Science Fiction, Japanese

4) List any friends you have in common with this user. - none

5) Where does this user live? - Iinan, Japan

6) What is the seventh sentence in this user's most recent journal entry? - 生徒の皆さん、ありがとうございます！
(Weeeeee, I can translate this! It means, "Thanks a lot to all pupils!")

7) What is the first sentence in this user's seventh most recent journal entry? - 今日はリラックスな日でした。
(Which means, "Today was a relaxed day.")

Well. Not as exciting as I had thought it would be, but at least it gives me the feeling that five semesters of studying Japanese weren't totally in vain.

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( Ein Même vor dem Schlafengehn )

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