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Picture – Janice getting ready to shoot. Look at the dragonfly on the bill of her cap. |
Saturday, October 6 |
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It was great to once again talk to the Delta College SP86 class at 6:00 this morning. Everyone in the class is so supportive and it’s nice to touch base with the real world while I’m here in my Korean archery world.
The weather was perfect here once again. After breakfast, Courtney and I caught the first bus to the archery field along with Paul, the equipment coach. We were in charge of reserving the equipment tent and shade canopy on the field for the team. Courtney and Paul really work great together. Once we found the areas we wanted to reserve, they got busy bringing out all the bow cases from the storage area. They put the equipment for the team shooting in the afternoon in the back of the tent and lay out the stuff for the archers shooting in the morning in front. By the time the team arrived, everything was positioned so they can easily get their stuff together. Then Courtney went to work setting up my equipment. He put my bow together while I took out my arrows and put on my shirt guard, arm guard, wrist sling and finger tab in preparation for shooting. Then we headed over to the shooting line in front of target 57 where I would be shooting. Courtney staked down my foot marker and the tripod that holds my sight. Then I stood in position and raised the bow so we could make sure the sight was the correct distance from me. It needs to be at arm’s length. Then I warmed up by pulling back a stretchy elastic band as if I am pulling back the bow and release it to simulate the shot. I do this to warm up my muscles and practice my shot before official practice.
One of the judges, Frankie, who is from Singapore, was very interested in the setup for the VI archers and asked Courtney lots of questions. There is also a lot of interest in the tactile target I use for checking to see how my arrows are grouping. Basically, we cut out a circle out of cardboard and glued rings of felt to it to simulate the rings on the target face. Courtney takes small Velcro dots and plots out each arrow that I shoot on the felt target face. This enables me to form a mental picture of where my arrows are landing so I can better decide how to adjust my sight.
Competition went really well today. I shot my average and was very happy. I felt more relaxed today and had very few misses. After the competition was over, Randi, the head coach, bought us all hamburgers and fries. We were all very happy about that; I wasn’t really looking forward to another lunch in the “mess hall.”
After lunch we went to look at the standings. At the end of the qualifying, I have kept my third place status overall which I am very happy about. Tomorrow begins the quarter and semi final rounds. This will be a brand new experience for me. I will try not to be too nervous. Basically, we are paired up and shoot a total of 12 arrows. Whoever has the highest score goes on to the next round. The loser is immediately out of the competition. We’ll see what happens.
After lunch, we hung around to watch our teammates who were shooting in the afternoon for a while and then came back to the hotel to rest. I washed out some shirts and sat down to download pictures and write in my journal. Courtney went to take a swim in the indoor swimming pool. They made him wear a swim cap, if you can picture that. Then, when he had worn himself out with about 10 laps, he dried off with a towel the size of a hand towel. When he returned his locker key, they charged him $11.00. He was shocked. We assumed the use of the facilities was free for hotel guests. Once again, we are a little unsure of ourselves sometimes. When we told Kevin about it, he said the same thing happened to him and some of the team. He said the gym is free, but the pool and spaw are 11,000 Won.
We decided to have pizza for dinner instead of the usual Korean cafeteria menu. We found T.J. and Russell when we got to the pizza place. Courtney really liked the looks of what they ordered, so he went and ordered the same thing for us. They don’t speak English, so Courtney has to point at the menu. When they brought us the pizza, it wasn’t at all what T.J. and Russell had. It had multiple toppings including onions, bell pepper, corn (maybe) and pineapple and had sauce that tasted like BBQ sauce. Around the edge of the crust was a strange green something that tasted like brown sugar paste. Not good. Lindsey came down and sat with us and wanted to try the pizza. When she got to the green stuff, she was just shocked and didn’t really want to swallow it. It was really pretty funny. Luckily, Kevin had joined us at our table with his stuffed crust pizza, which was what we had really ordered, and shared with us.
At the team meeting tonight we learned that Jeff and I won gold for this round of competition! I was very surprised because I didn’t know there were awards for each part of the competition. Apparently I am the gold medal winner for women’s VI archery.
Tomorrow the uniform is khaki pants and navy blue shirts. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I shoot in the quarter final round at 3:30 tomorrow afternoon.
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