Vehklemine

My coach was right: sabre is boring.

I thought the fact that it involved more sideways movement than foil or épée would make it a nice flourishy thing, with elaborate movements and blocks. Not so much.

I watched some clips from the world cup on YouTube the otherday, and basically the sabre stuff was just a bunch of blokes hitting each other on the head with sticks before shouting "howzaaaaat!" at the ref.

The world champion épée matches had a kind of boxing-meets-tennis grace to them, but the sabre was more an exercise in controlled collision. Boring collisions at that.

I have a fencing coach now, by the way. I may have mentioned before that I was going to try fencing this year. Last year I noticed that the local fencing club had actually brought in a recognisable starting point by way of a beginners' class, so I signed up.

I'm about four weeks into the eight week course, and I've caught the bug.

I've got fencing on the brain, these days. I'm practising my footwork and trying to build up arm strength with the help of a baseball bat (bought back when I thought I might be interested in baseball - turns out I'm more interested in not being hit by a really hard ball moving quite quickly). I'm pouring over websites, watching YouTube clips and wondering if I can squeeze in a visit to the only actual shop in Australia that sells fencing gear the next time I'm in Sydney.

All this, and I haven't even had the opportunity to "play" yet. So far I've progressed to attacking a target hung on a wall.

Still, there's an extent to which I've been vaguely interested in fencing for years.

I remember seeing the university fencing club practising way back when I was a kid. My mother had dragged me along to campus to work in the computer labs, and these people dressed in white were mucking about with swords on the lawn. I couldn't stay to watch - my mother had places to be and things to do - but in the back of my mind I've always thought "I'd like to try that".

Then, of course, the university club promptly folded and wasn't replaced. There was no fencing in town at all for a very long time. I tried going along to the local historical re-enactment club to learn the art of mucking about with swords from them, but baulked at the idea of making my own equipment. I considered taking up one of the Asian-style martial arts that involved swords, but quite frankly my levels of motivation weren't up to getting me off the couch and into a dojo.

A new fencing club started up a couple of years ago, and I finally dragged myself in to take a look. I wasn't sure, at the time, if I wanted to take up fencing or something else, and they didn't have an equipment loan scheme at the time, so I thought I'd give it a miss. Now that they actually have a beginners' course and equipment for cheap hire, investing in an eight week course seemed like a safe thing to do...

Let's just say I'm feeling inclined to keep mucking about with swords.

Besides, it seems kind of cool to be able to use the words "my fencing coach says..."

Italy or Switzerland, etc

So, I can either spend two weeks having a really close look at Italy OR Switzerland, or I can try to cobble together a one week tour of Italy with a few things I want to see in Switzerland.

I'd like to see Liechtenstein as well, if possible - even though I can never spell it correctly without mechanical aids.

I am tempted to try to do the two "wow" factor train rides in Switzerland and then head into Italy for a shorter tour, but then I have to decide which chunk of Italy I'm going to skip... which is proving to be slightly challenging.

Decisions, decisions.

Also, for those of you keeping score, my bike fits under my new desk at work (yay!).

Also, once you start noticing that American spelling is more logical and practical than "real" English spelling, it's kind of hard to ignore. My prejudices aren't happy with me.

These things are not related beyond the fact that they all passed through my head in the last five minutes.

Arabic Calligraphy

I wish our calligraphy could do this:

http://people.umass.edu/mja/gallery.html

But, then, I'd probably never be able to read it...

Things that must exist: gauswheel

Some months back I wrote a post about impossible wheels, and how I was dissapointed with the fact that you couldn't punt with them, but thought a few improvements based on the same design principles might make it possible.

Well, now there's this:

Gauswheel



Comments on the "street" are along the lines of "less useful than a unicycle" "I'd rather stick with my skateboard" and "wouldn't that break your teeth/testicles?", but it looks like a huge improvement on the impossible wheel, if you ask me.

Fortunately, I'm saving up for a trip to Europe right now, so my own teeth have a bit of a reprieve.

Still, I wonder if you can buy the frame separately and use your own wheel...

Klassen

Meine Deutsch Klassen beginnt bald.

Ich bin sehr begeistert. Heute habe ich alle meines Vorlesungsskript für due ertse Woche heruntergeladen.

Dieses Jahr will ich mehr Posten auf Deutsch schriben. Vielleicht soll ich einege Geschichten auch schriben?

Special Collections

Please steal our books.

There are several good reasons for stealing our books:

a) It's really easy - the doors are propped open and we can't see who walks in and out
b) We can't stop you - we have to have some sort of security system that is actually in use for that to happen
c) They're probably better off at your place - I'm assuming you don't have metal filings over every surface and workmen propping pipes against the irreplaceable archives...

Clean

Several years ago I spent a month in Brisbane during the height of the water restrictions.

This was, of course, long before the weather that lead to the floods, and the dams which eventually (and disastrously) overflowed were dangerously low at the time.

Since the water supplies were so precarious, everyone in the Brisbane area was encouraged - nay, commanded - to save water by using less of it.

Probably a good thing, in the grand scheme of things. We use too much water in our modern, on-tap lives. I've long maintained that our water usage would be much improved if we all had one tap in our back yards and had to carry all of our household water into our homes ourselves. We would very shortly find out exactly how much water we need for any given task and be reluctant to use more than necessary. If it came down to a smack-down fight between our wastefulness and our laziness, I'm reasonably sure the laziness would win.

Anyway, one of the edicts of the Brisbane council during this time was the limit of four minute showers. Everyone was encourage to shower, rather than run baths, and to complete the showering process in under four minutes.

Now, I can understand why they did that. We waste so many litres of water by letting the water just pour over us (and down the drain) while we stand around enjoying the feel of it on our skin. It's not necessary, but it's also a really hard habit to break unless suitably motivated.

However - four minutes? Really?

Okay, the theory behind it is reasonably sound: get in, get wet, soap up, sluice down, get out. Simple and effective - and something conceivably achieved in under four minutes.

I'm sure this is exactly how twelve year old boys normally approach the bathing process. I'm sure it's exactly how men in a house full of women honestly believe their daughters could approach the bathing process if they just tried for once...

However, real people don't wash like that. It's unpleasant and not as effective as you might think. Sure, it's enough to get the top layer of dirt of your skin - but it can't really clean out your pores, help remove the dead skin cells or tackle 'serious' dirt like grease and grime. And heaven help you if you wanted to wash and condition your hair as well!

I must admit I usually failed in the "under four minutes" edict. Under ten minutes? Not a problem. I can probably be out in eight and feel like I've had a real wash. But under four? That's hard.

I wasn't the only person who thought it was daft. An article I read at the time told of a woman who thought she'd beat the system by taking a shower at a fitness club - only to find out the club limited it's showers to three minutes.

A few years ago I had watched Spirited Away (fantastic film), and this article prompted me to wonder if a Japanese bath-type establishment might work in Brisbane. So I did a bit of research (not because I was actually going to open my own baths, but just because I research things I find vaguely interesting - that's why I'm a librarian) and I was surprised to discover that you are expected to be completely clean before getting into the baths.

This makes perfect sense, when you think about it. Who wants to soak in the filth that has come off someone else in the bathwater? It would be nice if we all had a bit of a shower before getting the public pools, as I have seen foreign tourists do, but Australians just don't do that. We all jump in with whatever grime we happen to be carrying around with us at the time, and then shower after our swim to get rid of the high levels of chlorine we use to kill the germs we shouldn't be carrying in with us anyway...

So, back to Japanese bathing. There's a room that is used to clean off the dirt before you go into the baths themselves for a good mineral soak. The more modern joints have showers in these rooms, but traditionally one would take a basin of water and wash from that.

Now, having come from a family where one either takes a full bath or a shower, I found the concept of this basin thing new and surprising - but absolutely obvious in hindsight. You can take as much time as you like, using a cup and cloth to run the water over your skin, and never use more water than a couple of buckets worth at the most.

You can give yourself a much better wash using a basin than you can in a four minute shower. I'm actually at the stage where I'll occasionally have a basin bath instead of a shower just because I feel like it - even though I don't currently live in a town with ultra-strict water restrictions. I feel just as clean, but I also feel strangely empowered.

It's hard to explain, but I like knowing that I'm not a slave to my plumbing. If I did ever move to a remote cabin without running water or electricity, I'd still be able to wash myself quite happily in the amount of water I could carry into the house all by myself.

I'm sure my ancestors must have washed like this, but I'm a little unclear about it all, to be honest. I know more about Japanese bathing than European, it must be said. And I have a strange feeling the British side of my ancestry probably approached it differently to the Eastern/Northern European side.

One of the things I do know about it - there was less of it. Bathing, I mean. Here in Australia we have at least one wash a day; two is not ridiculously unheard of. And yet, I know that even with running water on tap, people from Europe and the UK are more likely to wash a few times a week, rather than daily. I can't see that they would have bathed more often back when it was more inconvenient.

The things we do as part of our normal lives are fascinating, aren't they?

Backgrounds

So far, in the history of this blog and the previous incarnations, I've had only one comment on it's appearance. That comment was "I liked the old picture better".

Sadly, I'm currently bored by the old picture, but I've taken the "I prefer more colour than those trees" comment on bored.

Thus: vegetables.

Fashion Blogging

After reading this post I have a strange desire to start my own fashion blog.

Apparently a "fashion blog" involves taking photos of what you're wearing everyday and posting it online for the world to appreciate.

I thought that this would be the perfect project for me.

The fact that I wear the same thing every day, and it's about as fashionable as halibut... that isn't a problem, is it?

Monday: Sharon is wearing blue jeans and a black polo shirt.
Tuesday: Sharon is wearing blue jeans and a navy blue polo shirt.
Wednesday: Sharon is wearing blue jeans and a white polo shirt.
Thursday: Sharon is wearing blue jeans and black polo shirt - with white piping! (how daring!)
Friday: Sharon is wearing blue jeans and a black polo shirt.
Saturday: Sharon is wearing blue denim shorts and a black t-shirt...

I will become a style icon, I can tell.