Hello All! :D How are you? :)
Well, I shall tell you about what happened yesterday. It turned out to be a busier day than I thought it would be, which was surprising.
So at about 10:50 my brother and I headed over to the Dojo for our class. We arrived with twenty minutes to spare, which was nice, because the other times I had been getting there with at least three minutes to get ready because of the time I'd have to leave circus at.
The class started fifteen minuted later, and to my disappointment none of my friends were there, because I was hoping that one of them would train with me after class. My Sensei decided to put me with the older and more advanced students (She divided the class) even though I'm a white belt, but I suppose it was because I've trained with adults and was going for my brown-and-white belt (the first belt in the Adult's grades).
It was a pretty good class, and I enjoyed it. At the end the older students and I were having a good laugh.
Then my training partner, who I hadn't seen for weeks and had stopped replying to my emails about when we should catch up to train, suddenly came into the Dojo and asked if we could do some training. I said yes, and so we started, but about ten minutes in we had to stop because the gradings had started.
I didn't watch the first grading - I had vanished into the change rooms to plait my hair. We're judged on appearance, performance and on how well we know the history of the Dojo, and at that particular moment I looked scruffy, hot and sweaty.
My grading was at the very last of them, with my training partner (If two or more people are doing the same belt, they will group them together), and because I didn't feel like walking around town for three hours I decided to stay. Plus, unlike all the people who are doing their first gradings I never went to see what a grading was like, so it was better that I stayed and watched.
It was cool to watch, and the kids who were under ten (I'd be guessing that they were somewhere between seven and nine) were fun to watch.
My turn came out, and I was really nervous. Now, believe it or not, I have never done a test or a grading or anything like that before, because I'm homeschooled. So this was my first time, and it's no surprise I was worried about not doing something right.
The grading started out fairly well. I actually surprised both the Senseis with how good my strikes were (snap-kick and punch with step), which was really good! I felt encouraged after that (my blocks had been a bit shoddy).
Anyway, it all went really well until reflexes. I suddenly had a mind blank, and forgot which block/lock I was meant to use on the different attacks. So I ended up completely failing that section.
Anyway, my Sensei's called me up after they had talked for a while and sorted out our grading sheets. From the looks on their faces I was fairly sure I'd failed, and to be honest I didn't feel surprised, because for the past few days I'd felt like I was going to fail. xD
But actually, to my surprise, I had neither failed nor passed. I stood there, I bit shocked, as my equally surprised (and maybe confused...? xD) Senseis told me that I hadn't failed enough sections for them to say it was a fail, but I hadn't passed all seven sections, so they couldn't give me my belt. I, however, had passed five out of the seven sections.
So, because my Sensei's want to give me my belt and certificate, they told me that I have the whole of next week to practice and fine-tune the sections which I had failed, then on Friday we can finish off the grading and then they can present my belt to me.
I ended up as the only person who didn't get their belt that day.
My brother and I headed home, and when we arrived Mum and Dad were packing food for the picnic we would have while listening to the
Symphony in the City. Their friend Edward was there too.
We left again thirty minutes later (maybe it was fifteen minutes...) and when we arrived at the park it was getting really full. I'd guess there were roughly 15,000 people there already.
So while we were hunting around for a free patch of grass to sit down and have our picnic at we saw a Cyberman from Doctor Who. I got super excited and would've taken a photo, but there was a crowd of people around it.
After settling down I had a run around and saw the TARDIS!!! I took a few photos of it:
After I took these photos the Cyberman appeared again, about three centimeters in front of me, and probably would've walked into me if I hadn't jumped out of the way. I would've taken a photo of him that time, but he was going 'away' (in other words the person inside the Cyberman out fit was getting hot and needed to get out, and was going backstage). So that was the end of getting a photo with/of him.
So I went back to our picnic, and the Symphony started playing shortly afterwards.
The MC had the coolest last name ever - it was Perfect. No, really, his name was Eddie Perfect. xD And the assistant Conductor was called Christopher Dragon. Maybe I should change my last name to Unicorn. Then I really would be Willow Unicorn... :P
Here are some more photos I took:
Waiting for it to start.
Took a photo of the sun setting over the river.
Can you see the Christmas hat?
Can you spot the hat in this one?
Fireworks!!
The hundreds and thousands of people who were watching Symphony.
OK, I gotta go now. I have stuff to do.
Merry Christmas!
Spinj xoxo
(A few weeks later...:
(Hey all! Sorry I didn't post this when I meant to, stuff got busy. X| I thought I'd tell you that I ended up with my brown-and-white belt! It was so cool, and I was so relieved to get it.
(I'm writing a post on my LEGO blog now - catch you all later!)
