Miscellany

It's about time for an update:

A week ago last Tuesday I went to the company central and dragged along my "praktikant", even though he was no longer a praktikant and his contract was about to run out. He's now done and starting his studies at the University here. :-)

I am doing a lot less "Kurzarbeit", i.e. a good deal more work. In particular I am currently trying to get a set of cross-compile tools set up for both MIPS and ARM processors. Documentation in OSS really, really sucks. I think once I get my set to compile, I'll post my script to generate them somewhere.

My Sensei was out both Monday and Thursday this week. On Monday, his official assistant, B., managed to get some parents really angry with him and give Sensei an earful - he was too heavy-handed and caused a couple of kids to be really upset. On Thursday, another brown belt, T., led the group - this time, the kids were so happy with T., that several asked if he would be there on Monday, too. I think that evened things out a bit. :-)

We've also been very active in Baha'i activities. Last weekend, we were all underway in different cities for the Baha'i cause: I was at a practice session for guitarists and singers who wished to improve their skills for Musical Firesides, DW was at an institutional meeting, and K. was underway trying to get youth and children's classes started. Tomorrow we're having an Ayyam-i-ha celebration at our place - I've made some stollen for the party. :-)

Orange Belt!

This past week I was in the dojo "only" four times (see previous post). The training on Saturday, the last one before the test today, went really well: a lot of people showed up, and everyone was concentrated and helping each other and making real progress. It felt like we were coming together as a team. We all cleaned up the dojo together afterward as well. Then today, the test went really well for pretty much everyone in the adult group: everyone knew at least the moves they were supposed to, and many a good deal more, and everyone was quick and precise. Of the ca. dozen people being tested, about half (including myself) skipped a half belt. This is very unusual - previously, the most that had ever jumped a half-belt at one time was two. (half-belts are not used by all dojos, but ours uses them. the progression is white, white-yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, orange, orange-green, etc.)

On the other hand, the kids did not do terribly well. The highlights were some of the very young, white belt kids, who, despite being very lax in practice, were suddenly totally snappy and alert in the test. But a whole group of the higher level belts have been asked to work on it another month and retake the test then (rather unusual, too: we usually only have the tests twice a year). We're going to have to arrange some extra hours for the kids - the "free training" sessions are too late for most of the kids to participate in.