My mom went to the dentist about an hour ago. Not long after she left I pressed the down arrow on her remote to which the whole input changed on the T.V. giving me a blue screen along with a floating grey box that reads "No Signal." Beautiful. First I went to the remote and suddenly buttons are reprogrammed and the ones I need to work, well.. aren't anymore. The cable box responds but the T.V. won't get off this frickin blue screen. Even after I reprogram the remote to the T.V., reboot the cable box, hard reset the T.V. and try to get the control buttons on the T.V. itself to help it reclaim its sanity. So far, no luck. Not only will my mom be stressed when she gets home as there's something new to deal with, I have lost the majority of my entertainment for the day-- unless I move to my sister's room where there is another cable box. Maybe you don't understand how much I am relying on these cable channels for my own sanity. The past few days my time has been spent purely indoors. The only time I left the house was to make a visit to the urgent care.

On Friday I thought it would be a great day to go to the beach given that the weather was really heating up and all of us training at Cobrinha's could use one mid-day retreat to relax in the sun. I wasn't sure of everyone else, but my hours of sun were quite limited due to training, work, driving and resting. I had planned the beach day a few days before and got a few heads to show interest. When I woke up, my left tonsil was sore but it wasn't really anything to worry about since I have problem tonsils that act up occasionally. I continued to drive to the academy to participate in conditioning, work on a friend's e-book after and then begin noon class. By the time we started drilling I had started feeling a bit icky but continued on. When it came time to roll I sat out for two rolls but not before I was called out by Cobrinha for resting. A week before the World Championships and I'm sitting out because I "don't feel well" wasn't really a great excuse. I felt the drive to get my ass in gear even though Cobrinha gave me the look of, "okay..sure...." but still let me sit. I wouldn't let myself sit. I ended up rolling the last couple rolls but after class I sat in the locker room dwindling down. While waiting endlessly for my turn to shower, I made was feeling more run down. It probably took nearly an hour just to get my turn to clean myself given that 5 women from Brazil are here for the Worlds. By the time Tove and I had gotten ready to set out for the beach, my number of volunteers diminished. I figured we'd set out on our own, determined to materialize our plans but as soon as I started driving I was increasingly more sick. By the time we made the decision to turn around, get some meds from CVS or Walgreens and rest at the place all the visitors were staying, three-day weekend traffic decided to make my life hell. It took about an hour and I was dying. I got to sleep when I got to the house but by 9pm I decided it was time to get my ass home. A 26 mile drive, I have nooooo idea how I made it home so sick.

So between Friday and now I've gained more swelling in my tonsils, more pus on my tonsils, more pain, more fever, more nausea then less fever, less nausea, less pain, less swelling and less pus. If you had asked me a couple days ago if I would be okay to compete Friday morning I would have told you that "I doubt it." I'm still weak and not pushing it but I will be there on the mat to push my best.

This story isn't so great and could have been cut down to a few sentences but it's important I map it out. I have spent almost three years preparing to compete in this tournament that could sum up my whole jiu jitsu experience. One weekend before and I'm feeling like death-- surely a way to derail my competition focus.

On another note, I fixed the T.V....