Well, the visitor in regards to the clay samples came today from Monash University. He is an American gentleman from Minnesota originally. We were trying to play around with the clay samples to produce something that was usable since after inspection of the resin infiltration attempts deemed them to be not usable to their specifications. I guess on the professional side, it would be a dig at my abilities, except I still got paid for it, and it wasn't my fault that the resins were so impermeable for the clay micro-pore structures. What we tried doing today involved a lot of liquid nitrogen (LN2). Basically the process involved freezing the clay slabs in LN2 until they were rock solid, and passing them through a diamond rotary saw. This enabled us to produce some very small and thin sections for the viewing areas that they desired. There was polishing/grinding that still had to be done, but it was done by hand on 1200 grit paper, 9um and 1um diamond papers. But the clay had to be kept frozen otherwise they would turn plastic and smush. Lets say we used a lot of LN2 LOL. They will also be stored at -80°C in the cell culture deep-freeze until they are ready for viewing in the SEM, where it will be set on a peltier cold-stage system to keep them as cold as possible while viewing to prevent water sorption and ice-crystal melting. All in all, it was quite interesting.
In the afternoon, I went to kendo training at Peter Forsyth, being the last week of exams. One of the club's founding fathers returned from Japan recently after working there for a period of time, and today was the first time I got to see him since he left. It was good to talk to him, and also see his kendo. He led training today after warmup and from today, it was easy to see the depth of knowledge and experience that he had absorbed and developed in his time in Japan. I am very jealous. We did kirikaeshi, then one step kihon men, kihon men, short men, short kote, doh cuts, debana kote and debana doh. He was very good at explaining the exercises and how they should be performed. I really liked his particular style of teaching. He also hits quite strongly, it doesn't hurt, but you can feel the force of the blow. Today I had a bit of a headache before training, so when I moved my head, it throbbed. I still stuck through the entire training though, and my advice for anyone who has a headache, don't train unless you want it to get worse very quickly..... every cut killed LOL... And moving my head hurt too. Plus, the cuts on my right hand from the plastic petrie dish incident were exposed (I didn't band-aid them today) and rubbed on the inside of my kote adding more discomfort .... ah, sucker for pain eh.
I played one person in jigeiko and then had a shiai practice with another, which I managed to score a hiki doh cut, it was actually probably the best one I have ever landed and I was surprised that it worked haha, but to give credit, my opponent was dead tired having already played a practice shiai and two jigeiko matches before playing me. He pulled off a yaku doh cut and then a men cut that got past my shinai block (the shimpan asked me if it landed and I honestly said yes, because he wasn't sure as it didn't sound like a proper contact cut)... I didn't mind, it was a very fast and good cut. I was really tired by the end but it was good training.
I used my home-made suburito but I had all of the tsubas stacked on it... oh boy, my grip strength was gone by the end of warmup with 100 hayasuburi, and then doing footwork practice afterwards with the headache and my arms killing from the extra weight... very painful struggle to get through, boy I was glad to switch over to the normal shinais haha.... I hope though if I continue to use the suburito some more eventually I will get stronger....
In the afternoon, I went to kendo training at Peter Forsyth, being the last week of exams. One of the club's founding fathers returned from Japan recently after working there for a period of time, and today was the first time I got to see him since he left. It was good to talk to him, and also see his kendo. He led training today after warmup and from today, it was easy to see the depth of knowledge and experience that he had absorbed and developed in his time in Japan. I am very jealous. We did kirikaeshi, then one step kihon men, kihon men, short men, short kote, doh cuts, debana kote and debana doh. He was very good at explaining the exercises and how they should be performed. I really liked his particular style of teaching. He also hits quite strongly, it doesn't hurt, but you can feel the force of the blow. Today I had a bit of a headache before training, so when I moved my head, it throbbed. I still stuck through the entire training though, and my advice for anyone who has a headache, don't train unless you want it to get worse very quickly..... every cut killed LOL... And moving my head hurt too. Plus, the cuts on my right hand from the plastic petrie dish incident were exposed (I didn't band-aid them today) and rubbed on the inside of my kote adding more discomfort .... ah, sucker for pain eh.
I played one person in jigeiko and then had a shiai practice with another, which I managed to score a hiki doh cut, it was actually probably the best one I have ever landed and I was surprised that it worked haha, but to give credit, my opponent was dead tired having already played a practice shiai and two jigeiko matches before playing me. He pulled off a yaku doh cut and then a men cut that got past my shinai block (the shimpan asked me if it landed and I honestly said yes, because he wasn't sure as it didn't sound like a proper contact cut)... I didn't mind, it was a very fast and good cut. I was really tired by the end but it was good training.
I used my home-made suburito but I had all of the tsubas stacked on it... oh boy, my grip strength was gone by the end of warmup with 100 hayasuburi, and then doing footwork practice afterwards with the headache and my arms killing from the extra weight... very painful struggle to get through, boy I was glad to switch over to the normal shinais haha.... I hope though if I continue to use the suburito some more eventually I will get stronger....
No comments:
Post a Comment