En garde!

So, here at college/university, I am a member of the club fencing team.

No, I didn't fence before coming here.

Yes, I do love it.

No, I'm not that good.

No, that doesn't matter; it's still fun.

We practice every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday night in one of the athletic buildings here on campus called the White Building. I don't know it's called the White Building. Some rich guy probably paid for it and his last name was White. The building itself is red, so it doesn't really make as much sense as you think. But I digress.

Here at college, (at least, here at Penn State,) club sports practice later in the day than any extracurricular activities did at my high school. At my high school, the latest I ever had a practice was 10 pm and that was for musical leading up to opening night. Normal fencing practice (Tuesdays and Thursdays) is from 8:15 pm to 10:30 pm. On Sundays, which is extra practice (which I'll explain later) is technically from around 7 pm to around 10 pm. I think. I'm not sure. Oh well.

So, the difference between Tuesday/Thursday practice and Sunday practice:
Tuesday/Thursday practice:
8:15 pm - Arrive and chat with the cool kids in fencing. (Here, I use the word "cool" as an ironic adjective. We're probably some of the nerdy-ist kids campus. Just behind the Harry Potter club and Pokemon club. Of which some of our members are members.)
8:20 pm - "Story Time" (This is when our officers Evan, Tom, Kenny, and Elise bring us up-to-date on all things club fencing.)
8:30 pm - Warm-ups (aka DEATH. We run around the fencing room, stretch, six-inches, wall sits, etc. This is my least favorite part of any practice. But also a necessary part, I suppose.)
9:15 pm - Evening Prayers (A deceptive name, to say the least. This is when we break up into groups of weapons and do various drills that are specific to each weapon. If you don't know, there are three weapons in fencing: foil, epee, and sabre. I fence foil.)
9:30 pm - Group Drills/Open Fencing (What we do at this time depends on our coaches. Some nights we do whole team drills for footwork or blade work. Most nights though, we just fence.)
10:30 pm - Weapons Down (This is when the officers and coaches make everyone stop fencing and put their gear away and go home.)

That's what Tuesday/Thursday practices are normally like. Sunday practices are a bit different.
Since I take fencing lessons from one of the coaches, I arrive about a half hour before my allotted lesson time to warm up and get my gear from the closet. Yes, even though this is my second year fencing, I still own almost no equipment. I own a body cord. That's it.
Sunday practice (for me, at least):
6/6:30 pm - Lesson (My lesson time varies by week. It's just whenever there was an open spot on the lesson sign up sheet.)
7 pm - Open Electric Fencing (This is what Sunday practice is.)
10 pm - Go home

"Fencing electric? What does that mean?" you ask.
Well, reader of my blog (also, thanks for actually reading this!), the type of fencing we do here at Penn State and around the world uses electricity to score points. I'll describe fencing foil electrically, because that's really all I know for sure. I will be using the passive "you" to describe this.

For foil, you have a body cord, an electric foil, and a lame (pronounced luh-may). The body cord runs through your sleeve and connects with your foil. The other end of the body cord has two separate pieces, one of which gets clipped onto the bottom of your lame and the other is connected with the electric scoring system. Thus, when you score a touch on your opponent, the circuit is completed and the light and buzzer go off. There is also such a thing as dry fencing, which just mean that you don't have a body cord or lame and your foil doesn't have to be electric. That takes a good director, though.

Another fun fact about fencing: we call referees "directors." I think they're trying to change this so that we're more like other sports, but I like the word director better: it sets us apart from other sports and makes us sound fancier.

The point of all of this introduction was so that I could tell you, reader, that we had a tournament tonight instead of practice. I was on a team with Elise (the secretary of the club) and another girl named Danielle whom I actually just met tonight. We were the Tres Amigas because they made me pick our team name and I had been doing Spanish work all day. We didn't win, but I won one bout and got touches on two other people. That's a good night for me. I actually got one touch on Evan, the club president, which was very exciting.

We also had cake tonight because it was Jeff's last night with us. Sad, but the cake was really good.