No, wait. That's not excitingly phrased enough. This calls for at least three font modifications:
I am a black belt!
Much better.
I earned my black belt (in Taekwondo) on Saturday. In the morning my sister and I, as well as five other (amazing) students, pushed through the four-hour-long physical test portion. We did techniques. We did push-ups. We did forms. We defended against a masked man with a training knife. We did more push-ups. We cried. Did I mention we did some push-ups?
Later in the afternoon we returned to our school (in Korean/Taekwondo terminology, our Dojang) for the graduation ceremony. In front of a crowd we performed forms and broke boards (and boards stacked on top of boards). Finally, after incredible speeches by our equally incredible instructors, we found out we'd all passed.
My Taekwondo family is extremely important to me, and very special. As I told them (and the crowd at the ceremony), I don't cry much. But on Saturday I caught up on my year's quota of tears, to the point where I was talking to the crowd and found I couldn't speak. (And if anyone's seen me speak at a school or author event, you probably know I can talk for quite a while. I can even talk about nothing!) I think there were so many words (not to mention that lump in my throat that accompanies crying) they caused a traffic jam in my throat. There was so much I wanted to say, but I had to stop--luckily, my sister was right beside me to give me a hug (which was convenient, because I was talking about her, and how AWESOME she is). Over three years of training, weeks of focusing every thought on our black belts, and going through the test itself, made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to have the kind of sister who'll not only watch my favorite kick-butt TV shows with me (cough*Buffy*cough), but can also actually kick butt with me.
I could go on (as I mentioned before) but I think I'll wrap up here. Congratulations to Mr. Pete, Mr. PJ, Mr. Alex, Miss Sarah, Mrs. Skinner, and Brynna on their new black belts! (And second degree black belts!) And thank you to Masters Cook, for getting all of us here.
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