Yes, we have Rain!

It rained very lightly last night, and then, early this morning, it poured. Oh ye skies, unleash thine fury of tears, and quench the thirst that is our land.

Unfortunately, the rains are coming very late, and just simply not enough. We would have to have rain every day, for 14 days (kinda like Moses style) in order for our dam levels to regenerate back to healthy levels.... but perhaps we might be lucky....

However, it's spring and summer is just around the corner....

Onto other things.

Work - Frustrating results. My DSC run with the fibre only has proved some difficult inconsistant results. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, because it could be one of two things. The variation of detection limit for the machine, or the variation of hetrogeneity of the samples I put in..... If it makes absolutely no sense to you what I'm talking about, don't stress too much about it, and just let me stress about it instead.

After the really cool confocal work, we're still looking at seperation of the powders for more characterisation, and we may have to use a cyclone seperator...

Archery - Wooot. First time to shoot in ages. It was a pretty good session also.
I purchased this new string material (I may have mentioned before, I can't remember) by Angel. It's called Angel ABS Majesty, and it has been heralded by them as their most slick string material ever, and it's lightness is insane. Standard strings are usually 14-16 strands for small, and 18-20 strands for large nocks, but the Majesty stuff is recommended 18 strands for small nocks....

Rob made a string for me, and it's very nice. Slick, no real noticed speed increase yet because I was only shooting at 30m, but the way it left the fingertab felt really good. The string wasn't too whippy, and I was able to get some really good groupings from it.

I've been going to the gym lately, started on Monday this week just finished, and already I can feel the strength difference when I shoot.

I've been doing basic cardio work with exercise bikes and ergo rowing machines, and then every morning light weights for conditioning and toning. It's quite tiring, and I have yet to gain that "energising" that people often talk about when they finish a gym session... but I do feel that my general strength and stamina is improving in small small increments.

Kendo - It was a good week for Kendo for me.
On thursday, I learnt the most. Besides teaching the beginners as I have been lately, Izumi, Tohnga, Micheal, Dale, Jimmy, I also had jigeiko with Ted, Chai and Joel. Chai taught me to be more careful with my shinai angle in close up space, Joel taught me the value of a good wrist protector, and Ted taught me several things relating to how I shouldn't block, how I should attack, and how I shouldn't blink when I'm getting hit.

It's really hard to control reflexes of blinking when a fast object moves towards you. I used to have that fine with fencing, but half the time in kendo, I blink when I get hit in the head... and it's really hard to not do it.....

I should play Takeshi, and see if he teaches me anything...

I feel that I am progressing, but just at a slower progressin compared to some of the others. Micheal told me that Mark teaches after the session, usually when they go out for drinks and food, but I feel that is a little unfair for those who can't join in, or can't speak Korean for that fact either..... bah.

And finally, Poker. It's the first time ever so far that I have actually managed to win a round. I came out of the final round last night with 175 chips, which brought my evening total to a +75 total, and my overall total to -205 chips.... wooot. No longer wooden spooner!