Uni, Kendo, More Kendo and Microscopes

I really should get back into the habit of writing daily instead of this backlog of entries. Anyway...

Friday
Had uni where I sat through another couple of presentations in class. I'll have to do mine this week/next week, so I hope that it is interesting and informative. Everyone else seems to know what they are doing so much more than I feel that I do. Also, I realised that I started zoning out after a while, which is a lack of concentration on my part. I feel bad about it too, cos what people have to say is really good.

Had lunch, where I ran into my sister, then headed off to do some work on the computer. At one point I started falling asleep sitting upright, which I find surprisingly easy sometimes, so I decided to head down towards Kendo training to have a lie down outside on the bench before the session. The sun was heading down so it was getting quite cool, so I basked a bit trying to get a bit of heat.

Training was like Monday's session: tenouchi mostly with some more basic stuff afterwards. The club's AGM was on afterwards, but I decided to head home as I had a pretty bad headache coming on. The last time I had a headache it lasted a week, so I really needed rest. Rest of the evening was uneventful, and I got a pretty good night's sleep.


Saturday
The luxury of a decent-sized breakfast before heading out to uni for Kendo training again. I finally got uniform (hakama and gi), so after I got some help with the correct way of tying it up properly, I had my first session in it.

Training was pretty good. After the warm-up session, we were working on basic footwork and then kirikaeshi for the rest of the session. We had uneven numbers today though and because we weren't rotating, I ended up training by myself for much of the session. When we did do rotation though, I found out how frustrating it is for me to try men cuts on someone about 30cm taller than I am. In short, best not attempted, but necessary in practice I suppose.

I finally discussed ordering bogu with our instructor afterwards and got measured. We all spent quite a bit of time outside chatting, then we headed up Broadway and had something to eat at Sunflower. I only got a drink as it was already about 3:30pm at that point and I'd had a sandwich after training.

It was just me and bunch of guys, so the conversation strangely turned to martial arts, firearms, helicopters, the military and lots of kendo. We had an interesting discussion about the mental aspect of kendo and martial arts philosophy, which I think is more important than the physical aspect in many ways.


Monday (Today)
After passing a forgettable Sunday, I went in to uni to attend a one-day light microscopy workshop run by the EMU. It was basically a lecture, then morning tea and a practical session before lunch. We then had another lecture and practical session.

Both lectures had components of the history of microscopy and a lot more physics than I've done in a good few years. The practical sessions covered a lot of what I'd already done when one of the staff members showed me what to do with the microscope I'm using a couple of weeks ago, but it was good to get some experience with other filters and better understand what it is I'm actually doing when I'm twiddling those knobs.

Overall, it was a good course and I feel more confident that I know what I'll be talking about when it comes to writing my methods section. It actually finished a bit early, so I went down to catch the very end of kendo training. Had a chat about equipment with one of the senior members before heading home.