Tournament and being fed up.

Well I can not deny this year has been interesting. Unfortunately a lot of it has been the ancient Chinese curse kind of interesting. Some days I have a hard hard time staying focused and being positive.

It seems as soon as something good occurs something bad occurs to nullify it. The last good thing was the job, I am still looking forward to it. I am happy that this is the last day I will most likely be sitting here doing this job. For a couple of months anyhow. To counteract the new job I get word that my rent is going up $100 a month. Well now I can't say that it is now a lot, but it is more. The new amount is pretty on par with single room rents I guess. However I no longer feel it is necessarily mutually beneficial for me to live there. At the new rental price I can find a place much closer to school. In the end I would rather it stay where it is, but if it has to go up it will and I will live somewhere else.

Over the horizon looms a potential place, only a few blocks from SAIT for essentially the same money with someone I know. Perfect. I will take a look next week. Another good thing. Now though it must be time to duck.

Reading the SAIT notices for employees I come across an interesting tidbit. They have moved tuition deadline from the start of classes at the end of August to the end of July. They will notify new students in an orientation package that is going out in mid-July and they will post a general announcement on the Student homepage on July 9. Wow. Not only are they moving the date a full 30 days closer, they are dragging their feet in telling us Students. In the end instead of having this pay cheque and two additional pay cheques to save for tuition. Now I have THIS cheque.

Will I come up with the money? I guess I will have to, but all it will do is introduce stress into my life that I really don't need.

And on to Tournament.

I went to practice on Thursday it was the monthly Tavern, sort of like a mini-event. We held a small triple elimination tournament.

When I arrived on scene there was absolutely nobody I knew. We have a lot of new fighters that have started in the year or so since I practiced. That's great I think to myself. A bunch of unknowns. Not in the sense that they are nobodies, but in the sense that they are Xs in the fighting equation. I have no idea how much skill they posses, or how long they have been fighting for.

I start messing around with my stuff and Varrus shows up. Yay, someone I know. Now Varrus is also going to school and hasn't been to practice in about as long as me. Good to see a familiar face. I think when it was all said and done the lists had maybe 18 or so people, 4 or so I knew fairly well.

I fight a few warm-up fights and it's a good thing I work out and in somewhat decent shape, because once you put that helmet on and start moving and swinging your stick around you overheat almost instantly. Still despite how fast I got tired, the guys I was fighting got tired before me. Or at least quit before me :D

Eventually they call us in and we do a Grand Melee. In this warm-up we all start in a circle and when it starts we engage each other in single combat until someone is victorious over the field. I win my first fight of the Grand Melee, but I lose my legs and have to go to my knees. My hamstrings cramp up almost instantly. I apparently am unable to effectively fight from my knees and die in the next combat. I spend the next few minutes trying to work the cramp out and get on with things.

The first few rounds are challenge rounds, I am victorious a couple of times. I fight a guy I know, and am victorious again. Well at least I didn't get knocked out in three. I fight Varrus. He wins, but the fight was fun. The tourney progresses. I have to fight one of my early victories again. This time I lose.

In the middle of the tournament the sky clouded and the rain and thunder came. I looked up at the sky, and wondered if this was a bad sign for me? I play a Mongol persona and once of their chief deities is the everlasting sky, Mongke Tengri.

Then there are three of us left. Me, Varrus and Robert. I had just fought Robert so I am picked to fight Varrus again. Not an impossible fight my any means, but not an easy one either. We square off and Varrus comes at my like a Roman devil. Damn I was SO not expecting it. Either way I managed to fend off his mad demon rush and hold him off long enough to get my composure back. The sun begins to emerge from the clouds and it is obvious, to me at least, that Tengri, the eternal sky is smiling upon me as Varrus falls to my blade. We stand up as we had both lost our legs. Both of us non-practiced guys are experiencing leg cramps, so despite us having issues it put neither of us at a disadvantage.

Now in their infinite wisdom they have decided "by" fights are destructive. Robert has the by this round and loses. It was his third loss, so he is out. Final two. Me and Varrus. We are both dead tired and sore at this point, we are both even with two losses. Typically in tournament they fight something like that best two out of three. We are old and tired, we opt for sudden death, next one to die loses.

Now it is important to note here, because I find this little factoid far more entertaining than who won in the end. A field of 15-18 guys, most of which probably practice fairly regularly and those who do not, do not because they are lazy, not because school or work interfere. Of this field the two guys left? Varrus and myself. Two guys who haven't fought in ages.

In the last fight I couldn't tell you exactly how it went down, only that again as the thunder shower passed and the sky and sun opened to smile upon the field, it was a good day to be a Mongol.