The long and short of it.

Wow, I have got to come up with time on Mondays or weekends to write. I just skimmed yesterday's entry and discovered that I am writing a LOT on Tuesdays. That sucker is LONG. Granted, a lot has been happening; still, I ought to be web-courteous and avoid pages that take an hour to download. That type of length makes it generally hard to read.

Normally I don't go back and edit myself after writing, but I just went back and broke yesterday's entry up into smaller parts, each dealing with the day it's talking about. I don't know why I haven't done that before. It's downright inhumane of me.

I'm very disappointed that I didn't get to take my taekwondo test last night. Over the past few days, my dumb knee has gotten worse instead of better. I tried to really baby it last night, and didn't even participate in the beginner's class, except to occasionally correct someone's form. Still, by the time I got around to warming up for my own class, it was swollen up, stiff, and painful.

I stretched it, and warmed myself up, and tried firing off a couple of sidekicks against the wall. They were awful. I looked aside with a wince, and just happened to meet Master Ron's eyes with it.

He came right over, and I expected my awful kick to be corrected; but instead he showed an incredible level of understanding.

"I know," he said with a nod. "It hurts. Just don't be so hard on yourself right now. You've got to have patience."

I smiled, and nodded, and resigned myself to a long, slow, low-impact warm-up. I ran all my forms, and they went pretty well. I made minor corrections. Then I worked with several different groups of junior students, helping them to prepare for their tests, too.

Finally at 9:30 I decided I was as warmed up as I was going to get, and went over to take my test.

Master Kim looked at me very seriously, and said, "Why are you limping?"

I sighed, and explained rather frustratedly (but trying not to sound that way) that I had hurt my knee somehow a couple of weeks ago, and instead of getting better, it seemed to be getting worse.

Master Kim said I should take my test next week, or the week after.

So I didn't get to test. I smiled, thanked him, and went back to sit by the wall in the back of the classroom, completely deflated. I couldn't believe how disappointed I was.

Geez, I must really like taekwondo, if I enjoy doing my forms so much that I look forward to testing on them. I felt like a kid at Christmas, finding out that none of the presents under the tree are for me.

I must be crazy.

At least I could feel good knowing I had helped some other people to test well.

Anyhow, I'm determined to get rid of this soreness once and for all. I'm calling my doctor's office and setting up an appointment, hopefully for tomorrow, and getting the dumb knee examined. I hope there will be an easy solution that will allow me to take my test next week, but I suppose that isn't realistic. I realized last night that part of the problem is that it hurts when I drive, and I drive ALL THE TIME.

It also hurts to walk, and I do that a lot, too. It also hurts to sit in a chair with my leg in any unsupported position. Basically, if the seat of the chair goes all the way to the back of my knee, I'm okay. Unfortunately, the chair I have at work doesn't extend that far.

The world is a horrible place to have knees, I've decided.

Tonight is really the only night that Forest and I have to work together in preparation for our Halloween party on Friday. We really need to clean up our house, and haul some wood, and go grocery shopping, and all those wonderful things that go along with parties.

I actually secretly enjoy getting the house ready for company, though. It feels like preparing for something fun, instead of submitting to usual drudgery. I'm almost looking forward to it.

I still don't know how many people will actually be making it to the party, though. It may be a small group; many people haven't RSVPed yet. Of course that means I'm in the usual pickle of not having any idea how much of anything to buy; but that's okay, I've decided to get more than enough of everything, and then see if I can get company over the weekend to demolish the leftovers.

I will also be getting ready for things on Thursday night, but Forest has Judo, so I'm pretty much on my own. Friday night after work we can't do any preparation, because there is a black belt test at MSU which we are pretty much honor-bound to attend. It will take place at 5:30, and probably not end until 6:30, depending on the number of people testing. It's important that we're there because it lends an air of extremity to the event, making it more special and meaningful for everyone. Master Ron's done the same for our class before.

I'm glad Forest's not taking Judo in spring term. It will be sort of nice to have more flexibility in our schedules. I like to see him that extra night every week.

On a completely irresponsible sidenote, Jackie Chan's Drunken Master has just been released to theatres, and I really want to see it. It's supposed to be absolutely hilarious.