In German class, a girl that I sometimes am partnered with came into class today with a nice cut on the bridge of her nose. While waiting for class to begin, I jokingly said "Nice cut! Looks like you got tired and let your guard slip."

She nodded. "Yeah, keeping up with conditioning is always tough during the school year."

I said "But seriously, how'd you get the cut?"

She looked at me like I was kind of slow. "Umm, boxing. You know, my hobby?"

"Wait," I said. "You box? For real?"

"Well, yeah. I thought I'd told everybody."

I looked around. The other people that sit in our corner were nodding their heads. I still don't remember being told that; maybe I was sitting somewhere else that day. What's funny to me is how surprised I was, even though I attended a kung fu academy with as many females as males. I think it's that serving with female Marines gave me a mental linkage between "Marine personal appearance standards" and "combat-trained females," such that when I see someone that is a bit less squared-off, I don't think of them as potentially dangerous. This is a bad habit. Perhaps if I got back into martial arts training, I'd recover my more open-eyed view of people.

Posted by: Boviate at 09:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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