never underestimate the whitey white girl
a pale girl in the tanned world of hawaii, foreign territory indeed. and surprisingly hostile when it came to this tournament. pack a ton of people into a gym from 8 in the morning till 6:30 at night, and, oh yeah, throw in some 90% humidity while you're at it, and you're bound to get a few grumps out of the bunch. my entertainment for the afternoon came from listening to 2 women talking some MAJOR trash about me right in front of my face... except they were speaking in japanese with absolutely NO clue that i understood every word that they said. when we were all standing around waiting for our ring, i started chatting to a teammate of theirs, an exchange student from japan. turns out her family is from toyama, near my 'hometown' of niigata... i saw the realization creep onto the face of the catty women as one of them grabbed my arm and asked (in english), "wait, YOU lived in japan??" (hai, in niigata). "so you understand japanese?"
i nodded my head and smiled as their look turned to uber-mortified at being caught red-handed in their trash-talking. All of a sudden, you never had met 2 sweeter women in the world.

fast forward to the competition itself, they were running kata by flags. what that means is that competitors go up 2 at a time, "red" on the left and "blue" on the right. the 3 judges hold up the flag color for who they think should win, and the head judge indicates the final winner by holding up the winner's flag/side. simple enough... unless your incompetent head judge has his flags backwards. first round in, i thought i had lost since the guy held up the other girl's color, but on my side. i bowed out of the ring and was immediately ushered over to the red side to go again, indicating i had actually won that round. thoroughly confused, i walked back into the ring, heaving from the first round, and began another kata. at the end, the judge held up my side again, again not my color. except for this time, he meant the other girl won.

i bowed out again, shooting puzzled looks to everyone. i saw the other judges approach the head judge and could see them explaining the proper way to do things. i also saw him shrug. oh well. the girl who "won" pretty much knew she technically had lost, but was hoping to cash in, so she also went to the head judge and asked "i won, right?" i heard him ask if she was on the left (no, i was), and then ask what color she was. "i was blue, and you held up blue" "oh, well, then i guess you won." right, sure you did chicky. whatever helps you sleep at night.

and that, my friend, is how i got a silver medal for winning kata, or as i like to call it, 1 1/2th place.