I have an injury from boxing. It really hurts. It�s not a cool injury, though, like a black eye�anything that I could tell people, �Ya, I box.� Last week I had a cool bruise on my knuckle from breaking my glove. This week, I get a huge bruise smack dab in the middle of my shin! First off, ouch! Shins are sensitive. And secondly, how cool is that? It's not, I tell ya. There can be no cool boxing tale to go along with it. There is no �you should see the other girl� either. There�s just pain and an imprint of someone�s shoe. You see, sometimes we play soccer to warm up � in a small-ish room with a low ceiling and heavy bags hanging all throughout�as the instructor said, �I can�t think of a more dangerous game to play in here�okay, who�s on goal?� And, in my position as defense, I took one for the team right in the shin.

Also, I finally feel as though I�ve advanced with my boxing skills. See, we sometimes get to do some mitt work with the instructor, and yesterday he called on me to work with him. I was already tired, I was already sweating, and I was already red in the face, but I punched with as much strength as I could muster. Afterwards, I got such praises from him I blushed�Good thing my face was already red! And, I know I received more kudos than normal, because my friends were teasing me after� They�re just jealous, and too afraid to tell me lest I beat them up!

Wow, I think I�ve had too much coffee, I am so hyper. Still not wanting to work, but hyper is good.

Speaking of coffee, I�ve switched from having cream in it to having just milk. It�s taken awhile, but I think I�m used to it now.

Okay, my almost getting attacked by a dog story I�m sure you�re all anxiously awaiting� I was walking down the street, listening to my tunes, groovin� like I always do, when I hear barking. This, as I�m sure most people will know, is not unusual. But, turned my music off so I can hear where this dog is coming from (I�ve had a poodle attach itself to my leg before � really funny, but it took my by surprise). It was really loud, so I look to my left and there is the big freakin� Rottweiler in a drive way near the house. His ears were back, and he was showing my his nasty teeth as he growled and barked. This bothered me, as I could see he was not looking for a good stomach rub. But, I thought, he�s tied to the house, so that�s fine. Just keep going. So I do, and I see him move closer to me, but he�s not really walking, more of a hop. I look again at this dog, and he�s about four feet from me, and most definitely not tied up. Right then I wanted to cry, pee my pants and run... I did neither of these. I knew that dog wanted me dead and he was coming right at me. I knew running would be bad, but I didn�t know what to do. The dog kept coming closer (at a faster pace then it�s taking me to type all this) and so I pulled my left hand up to my chest because I thought that was the first, and closest, thing for him to bite, and I pulled my right arm back a bit to throw a punch if I needed to. The doggie stopped moving and was actually about to jump at me, so I looked at him all mad like, and shouted �NO� in a very stern voice (I thought he might respond because he looked like he was well taken care of, and therefore used to human contact). Well, it worked, because he stopped and just looked at me. I kept going (this whole time I was still walking) and he followed me down the sidewalk a bit and then left. Needless to say, I called animal control and walked a different way home.

That�s my story. Long, eh?