in LA who I really really miss, I think, has got to be Kevin Saxton. I guess… for those of you who don’t know him… he’s a lot like Mr. Ward. Haha. And I do miss Mr. Ward a lot, too, but near the end of senior year I kind of came to realize that — at least when it comes to chemistry — there’s an ever decreasing volume that I can learn from my high school chemistry teacher. But I feel like I haven’t even broken the surface of what I have to learn from Kevin, and there really isn’t ANYONE like him here at Princeton.

Josh, of course, is totally right (not that I ever doubted him) when he said that SCKF completely dominates every other regional kendo federation. I can’t wait to visit the Torrance dojo when I get back. But anyway… I keep getting this disconcerting feeling here that when someone corrects me, it’s because it’s their job. With Kevin, I think he corrected his students when he really liked them. In fact, the tougher he was on you, the more he cared that you learned the concepts well. I’m sure I’m not the only person who thinks this was the case. I did see a lot of people get frustrated — at one point, I was one of those people, before I understood that a criticism is really a compliment, and that it is encouraging rather than discouraging.

Kevin’s also one of the humblest people I know — he’s not self-deprecating, but he has this enormous amount of patience and dedication and willingness to learn as a student despite his having been a world champion, etc. etc. And this is totally unrelated, but he’s got the absolute cutest little boy who likes to toddle about the dojo with a mini naginata and his mother’s men on his head.

The problem with having not posted anything in so long is that, when I finally do want to write something, I feel as if I should be saying something more meaningful than what I actually do want to say, which is namely, “I am really enjoying the absence of seagulls.”