Valentines/Busa

"Happy no-one-bothered-to-give-this-day-a-spiffy-name-but-who-needs-a-holiday-to-give-a-pretty-girl-flowers day" <----------- That's what I'm talking about!

I've come under fire from all sides for not wanting to partake in traditional Valentines day celebrations. I never minded it as a single girl, I thought "aww, nice" and went on my own way. but now as someone in a relationship I've decided that Valentines day is crap. If you want to do something special with your special someone, why not do it any other day of the year? Why wait for Valentines day when every other couple will be doing something and you're just one in a million? Why should you feel pressured into doing something special just because society tells you you have to? Why must this day exclude all the single people? I've been asked why I love Christmas and don't particularly like Valentines. That's why.

My Valentines night was nice, I came home from uni to Eamon, went for a nap, woke up to find Will in the house as well, and a little bit later Ian came by with strawberries! We hung around, went to get some chinese takeaway and came back and hung around for a while. It was nice.

BUSA took place this weekend - it was very tiring and I lost my first fight so that sucked. :( I contemplated giving up on fighting altogether considering that I have been training on average 4 days a week for the past 4 weeks and I still couldn't get through my first round, but I'm not going to. I'm going for the SUSF. Many many years ago I came last out of about 40 other girls in a 50m Butterfly event. I'm a slow starter, but I just have to put in more fights. More swims, more fights, and possibly some contact lenses! Saying that, there were some very good fighters in my category who have probably put in if not as much, more hours than me in training and well done to them for making it through.

Unfocussing on me, I was very very proud of our team, Zoe won a gold in her category and Lisa picked up a silver in her category in front of her father and 13 year old brother who were immensely proud of her. I enjoyed the company of the Shukokai and look forward to seeing them at the SUSF where we can exchange friendly blows. :D Edinburgh went on to win overall at the BUSA for the third time in the row and the fourth time in five years. Beautiful. I think we also would have won the loudest cheering squad, though closely followed by Bath who put in a good showing. The men's Middlesex kumite team were amazing and very very scary!

I felt quite down after my initial loss but have been assured by many that the judging was unfair although my technique could have been improved. After my grading on Tuesday/Wednesday I'm going to take some time out to give my many injuries a rest and catch up with my work and see Ian and my friends more often before starting back on training for SUSF. And then it's going to be win win win all the way. ;)