Last night we trained for two and a half hours on a dark tennis court, under a moonless black sky flecked with stars and passing planes. It was freezing cold and I dressed far too lightly, meaning that I spent almost the entirety of training shivering and uncomfortable.

Class was difficult and confusing, especially the last half. I understood the basic principles — evasion and drawing the opponent in and so forth — but I felt clumsy trying to execute them, out there in the darkness and coldness. It was fun to work with the wooden swords and other objects. Most of the time, however, I feel like I don’t know what I am doing, I keep getting stuck and tangled up, I can’t keep the basic principles (balance-taking) in mind. Argh.

I was kind of hard on myself, but I guess the good news is that I am still trying as hard as I can, and next time I will bundle up a lot more.

On the way back to my house after class, Brian noticed a creature moving across the sidewalk. He pointed it out to me, and at first it looked like an ant carrying a large peanut shell. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a giant insect of some kind. It was at least two inches long, wingless, crawling along on six huge legs. Its body had some stripes. It was the biggest insect I’ve ever seen, outside of maybe a junebug or a mantis.

We wanted to capture it, but had no suitable receptacle. So we just watched it for awhile and continued on, discussing what it could possibly have been. Back home I did some googling, and we settled upon this answer: a king or soldier termite. Although the sites we saw said that termites are only 3/4 inch in length — this one was easily double that, and resembled a termite more than it did an ant or a beetle. It was gross and fascinating.