3rd Place

I took third place in my division at the karate tournament. I was only a tenth of a point away from second place... oh, well, maybe next time. Karate tournaments have got to be the most poorly organized sporting events of all time. I arrived at the gym where the tournament was held at 8:30 in the morning. Opening ceremonies were a half hour late, and of course there was an "unprecedented number of participants" this year, so the kids ended up going way over time. To make a long story short, I didn't end up performing my kata until well after 5pm. I was at the tournament TEN HOURS!?! Anyone who's ever competed in anything knows how adrenalin works, so you can imagine what an adrenalin roller-coaster I was on the whole day by having to wait for nearly nine hours to perform! But I won't complain too much, because I'm pretty darn proud of my trophy.