It's been a while

Hey folks! A quick update. I am currently practicing in Penn State with Doris and others. The Penn State team left today so I'm going to try and convince some of the few still around to fence with me tomorrow.

Update about fundraising. The mailer my friend Chris and I are putting together is in it's final stages. I am still waiting to hear from Midtown Athletic Club about the date for the fundraiser. The woman I spoke to said that they might put the fundraiser in conjunction with another event, the Denim Carnival, in the middle of January. It should be cool, there is going to be a fashion show with denim and they will also feature "Iris the Olympic fencing wonder". Oh my. We will see. It's probably best if the fencing exhibition is at the same time as the denim carnival so that more people will be inclined to show up. Thus is fundraising for a little known sport.

Have a great weekend!

The bigger picture

My Mom asked me today how things were going with training. I told her that I am getting used to losing everyday because I am now losing by smaller margins these days. I also told her that it can sometimes get frustrating to lose to people that I know don't work as hard as I do or put in nearly as much time and effort into their training.

Her answer? "Iris, some people win the lottery and other people work their whole lives and only make ends meet." (Is the fact that my Mom is asian that she reminds me of Mr. Miagi from Karate Kid, or is it because she's just that wise that she reminds me of him?) You have to look at the bigger picture, she said, because it's not like you are going to work with no result in the end of two long years. You just have to keep focused on what your own goals are and not worry about what other people are doing. It may seem that you are getting the raw end of the deal but hard work does and will pay off especially in sports.

Should I tell her that it's not always easy to see that bigger picture when you are at the end of an opponents foil and they just keep hitting you in the chest repeatedly? Although I do have to say that people are doing that less and less now a days.

I know that in life sometimes hardwork doesn't pay off and she's right, sometimes people will work all their life and only make ends meet. The cold hard fact is that life is not always fair and evenly divided. The one thing that I think that may set me apart is that I have what Casey FitzRandolph calls "blind faith". He had blind faith that he would eventually reach his potential of being the best that Casey could be no matter what the circumstances were in that moment.





A couple weeks ago my sports psychologist told me to close my eyes and think of the medal stand. When I did, what popped into my head surprised me. Instead of standing on the podium I was far away from the it with a vast desert that separated me from the podium.



As I keep working I notice when I do the same mental exercise, the desert gets smaller but so does the medal stand-all I see is a vast space of clear sky.
Does that mean the sky's the limit? Or does it mean that the goal of reaching a medal is nice but isn't the ultimate? Am I finally starting to believe that there is a bigger picture? I would like to think so because the new and bigger picture seems so much more beautiful.