Day 895: Figured You Out

So I was crazy stressed yesterday. Like..woke up and wanted to puke up my guts stressed. As it turns out, that was more an issue of biology than psychology, but...whatever. The day ended pretty well. As soon as I got done with work, I went roadtripping to deliver break-up papers to a client. Thanks to the magic of the GPS on my phone of awesome, I found the right house (although I will totally confess to having knocked on the wrong door first - luckily no one answered). I knocked, but no one answered (I did spy a mailbox full of mail, so her lies about not getting her mail were, well, lies). I went around back, but no one was there. I knocked again, and some strange man came from around back. I told him I needed to speak to my [former] client, but he said she was in bed, so I told him not to wake her, just to give her the papers.

As I walked back to my car, I called my partner and reported the official time of death.

Then I went home (long enough to scrub off my make-up and print up new rank requirements, because I keep losing the stupid sheet), and then I went to training.

Awkward of all awkward? Only two of us showed up, Larry the red-belt being the other. We talked as we stretched out and I learned that he's an engineer who helps design and build bridges. I learned that Sensei Raymond is playing Assassin's Creed 2 and is less interested in winning the game so much as seeing all the new ways he might be able to kill someone with a pair of knives, or perhaps a medieval warhammer. Listening to him was like listening to my guy friends back home. And then I remembered that he's only 25...like my guy friends back home.

We had one try-out, a twelve-year-old, so Larry and I took turns coaching him about rolls and basic strikes while Sensei ran us through our rank requirements for testing. I learned several things last night: 1) I am terrified of distance dives and high dives; 2) I am incapable of using a staff and still squeak like a poked hedgehog after Sensei chokes me out five different ways with a staff; 3) Sensei can pick me up with one hand (how strong he is for how small he is is frightening, but if I ever fall over the side of a cliff, I totally want him to be the one to catch me and pull me up); 4) I'm ridiculously self-conscious (perhaps, as a realization, this is not so new).

I attempted to have a conversation with Sensei Raymond after class (and I still couldn't bring myself to call him by his first name to his face, but then there was no one else around, so I didn't have to struggle about it). The conversation went like this:

Nagi: *mumbles* I'm really sorry about last week.
Sensei Raymond: *looks confused* What?
N: *is nervous and earnest and really wants him to accept the apology and just move on* I put us in an untenable position, and it was wrong of me, and it'll never happen again.
SR:*clearly, no such luck for Nagi* 'Untenable'? What does that mean?
N: *stutters* Well...it comes from the Latin, er, and it means...
SR: No Latin, just English. That I understand.
N: *sounds distressingly like a regency not-heroine* Untenable means, erm, a position for which you should not stand? Or a situation which is not to be borne.
SR: Oh. Well, it was my fault anyway. I put us in that position.
N: *wilts in relief*
SR: See you next week.
N: *flees*

So that was Tuesday. Caught Monday night's episode of House while lace-making and had running commentary with my friend Amber via text-message. Taub and Foreman getting high in records? Awesome.

I have figured out why my entries are suddenly insanely long. It's because I'm starting to think like a lawyer. And because I've been working at the clinic. At the clinic, I have to keep track of my time in six-minute increments, which means I know what I've done all day, every day (sometimes, when I'm not in class, I find myself tracking my hours anyway). At the end of the day, when I consider all I've done and whether I'll write it here, I know all the stupid details. So I write them. Because I have to record them somewhere, after all.

This morning I got to school in time to read for Native American law, take a brief nap, and then do intake. Dan was awesome and took calls for me because I'd taken calls for him on our previous shared shift (I worked on lace when I should have been reading). I survived C&S with Neumie, and I had leftover spaghetti for lunch, and then I was on intake (one call, otherwise chatting with my partner Jen). Once intake got done, I worked on my last divorce hearing, as well as getting some important files closed out (including the client we dumped yesterday, and really, the parentheticals are getting out of hand, aren't they?).

I got done with that business and went to hang out in the corner for the first time in a long time to make lace, chat with Katie S and Catie E and Kent and some of the others in the gang who I hadn't seen in a while. I also pointed out to all of them that belt testing is, in fact, on graduation day, but it's in the afternoon, so I can do the ceremony in the morning and do the test in the afternoon. When I called to tell my parents on Tuesday, my father insisted he didn't want to watch. Mom wants to watch me in action. Now I really have to get over my self-consciousness.

I met up with one of the girls in my presentation group and we went over our presentation. There was no quiz at the beginning of copyrights like there usually is. And then we did our presentation. No one was listening, but we didn't care. The first girl was crazy with the notecards. The second girl was lively. I probably talked way too fast, but at the end I was the one who fielded questions from the professor, so hopefully I'll get a good grade. I sat next to that kid Tyler, the one who knew what 4-chan was. We somehow got to talking martial arts, and I told him I'd learned to put a guillotine on someone (thanks, Sensei Raymond). Tyler's response? "That's really awesome...and kind of frightening." He said it just the way Logan would say it. We talked some more, and he told me he'd learned some BJJ while in undergrad. He seems like a cool kid. I'm kinda sad I didn't get to know him earlier - he reminds me of the gang from home.

After class I came home, changed into workout gear, stretched out...and fell asleep on the floor until Angela called. We did line drills up and down the wall out front of my flat - it was an attempt to improve at line drills, to improve balance, and to also get over people watching me. Because Sensei Raymond the Elder was at class last night, and it totally made me nervous. (Also, we kicked each other a whole lot again, and my leg still hurts.)

Angela and I ate more leftover spaghetti, watched Criminal Minds, talked to my parents, and then watched the season premiere of Glee, which was pretty darn awesome. Great music, superb drama twists. Loved it. Now it's time for me to finish some lace...and get to bed.

- because Chase got the emotional shaft.