I have begun to wrap up my second-to-last winter break. Strange to think of it that way. I always know that it's really time to go back after I have my last Tae Kwon Do class, and that was tonight. It was particularly awesome: a great pre-class training, a fourth round of chair drills (for winter break, I have finished first every time we did chair drills, a personal accomplishment of speed and stamina), cool combinations for kicking things, and a really awesome balance/targeting drill. The final drill made me so happy. It began with a quadruple roundhouse kick, as in four kicks without putting the leg down. I do this as part of my warm-up pretty much every class. After accomplishing two, three, and four consecutive kicks, we then numbered the target pads 1-4 and had a member of the team call out numbers to practice balance, recoil, and targeting. When my group got to that point, our instructor changed the combination to rear-leg roundhouse kicks on the bottom two pads, then turning roundhouse kicks on the top two. Finally, after the turning roundhouses, we did a 1-3-2-4 combination of roundhouse-wheel kick, roundhouse-wheel kick. It was so much fun, really creative, and pushed me to think about my footwork and distancing. This instructor always ends class with a few words to everyone, and tonight she talked about the energy I bring to class and the way I train myself while I'm at school. I couldn't even respond because it meant so much to me, and I always hate saying good-bye to that crowd. They let me grow and change in a way that pretty much everyone else in my life doesn't, and I appreciate their friendship so much.
Before TKD, I had a really great lunch with my longtime best friend. I don't have any friendship quite like the one I have with her because despite all of our growing up and apart, we still have similar priorities and value what the other does. For instance, during freshman year, I sent her a video of all the silly birthday songs I would sing at her while we were in middle school and high school together, and this year when I reminded her to watch it, and she already had. There is very little awkwardness between us when we reunite after a long time apart, and the fact that I know she's there for me the way I'm there for her makes this friendship very special. We even understand each other's families, and that is always a difficult dynamic to figure out. I am really happy we got to spend a little more time together today.
Well, other than that, tomorrow is a family day, Saturday I'll be judging a speech tournament, and I travel on Sunday. I'm looking forward to starting my internship and working on My Fair Lady. I hope we have time in the theater on Sunday because that'll be an awesome thing to come back to. Next Monday is pretty crazy: I have hospital orientation for my internship, then an hour to get back to campus for the school's orientation to the internship program, I have my class in the evening, and theater time when I'm not doing that stuff. Then I begin my Tuesday-Friday internship work with theater time upon my return to campus. It's going to be really different not to be taking classes, but I'm excited for the change and really looking forward to the work I'll be doing.
All in all, I wish that I had more non-holiday impeded time to be able to do more stuff this break, but considering the way the holidays fell, I think things went really well. I got to see the people and do the things that were important to me, and I have a lot to look forward to back at school.
Today is awesome because of the people I was with.
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