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Get on the fence

Dinner last night ended up being quite interesting - we made this concoction from one of Mario's cookbooks, involving chicken, cream of celery soup and apples. I also 'made' roast potatoes but didn't leave them in the oven for long enough so half of them were soft inside and the rest were still firm. Ah well, they still tasted quite good. We ended up watching Farscape on Channel 5, even though I have the whole four seasons plus the special on DVD, but it was the only decent thing on. Ended up turning it off at about 11 though as I needed sleep.

Today I spent the whole day on the Wirral doing this child psychiatry thing. It was quite interesting, better than the adult stuff anyway, but I'm still having trouble believing ADHD is a real disease. It seems to only exist in the westernised world, so it seems like it's more of a cultural diagnosis than a medical one, and I'm still waiting for someone to convince me otherwise.

We found out today that the ladies' team will be fencing Aberdeen on Saturday. I'm not sure how that's going to go, as they've only played four matches prior to this: St Andrews (L), Glasgow (W), Edinburgh (L), and Leeds, which they won. Mind you, Leeds only beat Bradford during the whole season so it doesn't really surprise me that they lost to Aberdeen. Still, Heriott-Watt beat both of their opponents before losing to us, so I guess it could go either way.

I had a thought today about classical versus sport fencing. The two books I acquired around Christmas are both written by a fencing teacher of the classical school and it made me think a lot about the difference between what he teaches and how I fence. Classical fencing is like classical ballet: technical, aesthetic, controlled, steeped in tradition, and difficult to fully master. Sport fencing is like dancing around in your bedroom to your favourite songs: sweaty, not always completely co-ordinated, totally individual, evolving, yet no less enjoyable. I wouldn't mind taking a classical lesson some day, but I'm happy fencing the way I fence with the people I love. I love learning the technical side of it, but even better is putting that into a routine with the coach or using it on the piste. For me, a good fencing day isn't when my blade is completely horizontal, or my hand completely supinated, or my non blade arm raised elegantly behind me; it's when the whole game comes together. When my body does exactly what my mind says. When I have one of those perfect moments of intuition when you know instantly and without doubt where the next hit will come from. When I manage to figure my opponent out before she figures me out, so that I know that the game is mine when it's only just begun. It's a bonus then if I manage to do all of this and look like a swan on the piste as well, but it isn't necessary. Ballet started to make me depressed. Give me dancing round my bedroom any day.

5:00 p.m. - 2006-03-09

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