Corona Craziness

Remember.
The world we live in
Is supposed to be beautiful.

Right now, it is clouded with a virus named after a beer.

Why don’t you go outside and go for a walk?
The world is too clouded with fear from the media and is going to stay inside and freak out.
Missing out on that opportunity to shine and see the sun.
All that’s being shown is the news;
Outside still exists!

We are one nation, quarantined in solitude, with an oompa loompa in charge of the rulebook.

How will we overcome this madness?

Go for a walk anyway?

When home is like a cage for stressed animals, all you want to do is break free!
With nowhere to go, the streets are a desolate desert town with everyone looking out their window and only going to the store to buy out bread, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer, because now we need to be extra clean, as if we weren’t already?

Pandemonium is real!
When humans are thrown off course, they panic.
I see it from my daily prison cell, which is supposed to be a place of safety, only to be riddled with illness and a rollercoaster-like negative energy.
I have my own shit to do and have nowhere to go to escape the fire…

The only solace is going outside for a walk.
The sun is your friend.
Take a deep breath.
If we can survive the plague and 9-11, we can survive some crazy virus.

Remember,
The world we live in
Is supposed to be beautiful.
And now it is empty…

Time for everyone to come together and start over!

Top 3 Most Interesting Gigs I've Had Through 8-24-17

Since Joni Mitchell was a lady of many gigs, as am I, here are the top 3 most interesting gigs I’ve had over the course of this last year and a half:


1. I have been in between jobs for the better part of time since February 2016 and have been living the gig life. This first brief gig entailed me selling Hello Fresh products aka meal kit delivery services similar to Blue Apron. How would you feel if you were randomly out on the street in the city and asked if you liked to cook by some stranger in an apron... when there was bad weather outside? Imagine being the stranger in the apron standing outside in the cold trying to play the hustle game? That's what I did for just under 3 weeks. When I walked in the door for this “job of a lifetime”, it felt like I was told, “welcome to your commission-only job, where the name of the game was, "have fun and make money". After arriving at 17 N. State Street in the morning, I walked into this standing-only room into a meeting called "atmosphere", where we would go over the pitch and do some training in the morning before going out into the field. I had a mentor who would work in atmosphere meetings with me to teach me the pitch. It took me awhile to learn the pitch, but after several days, I eventually got it down. Everyone was super helpful and kind to me the entire time, which was nice. After atmosphere meetings, someone would come to the front of the room for an "impact" meeting, which was a lesson on how to sell shit. Sometimes, there would also be conference calls with the top representatives in the US, which also explained to us how to sell shit. The field was a very rough and cutthroat place. It looked all smiley and dancey and like you have pep in your step, but it was getting cold since it was around November and the field was outside on the street you and your group were assigned to. Each day in the field on average I managed to make 1 sale a day. Some days I made 0 and one day I made 3, which is called “ringing the bell”; the next day at work, you’d get announced before going out to the field in “noise”, which is honoring the people who made 3 or more sales in a day. My dear roommate friends noticed how unhappy I was when I would walk in the door and would often pass out on the couch; I had also been eating out a lot and unable to work out as much as necessary. When it was time for my appointment with my therapist, he told me to get the hell out of there; that was a sign. After spending two and a half weeks at this place, I told the commission-only job I was done. I needed to make more than $150 dollars in a week period. No, this "experience" is not going on my resume. While I am now looking for a new full-time job that won't mysteriously end 2 weeks after my start date and driving for Uber/Lyft in the meantime, this gig of mine has told me I am a lot more worthy than asking random strangers on the street if they like to cook!

2. One of the places I’ve had some decent luck finding gigs is on Craigslist. I randomly found an ad saying they needed people to wear costumes by Wiener’s Circle in less than 24 hours for decent pay. I decided to contact the poster, not expecting a reply, and received a reply to my surprise. The person told me they wanted to call me via Skype at 5:30pm that day. I also had a performance at 6pm that night I had to get to and it was a 15 minute drive. I jump on the Skype call, find out I got the gig, and rushed over to my performance. I found out the gig was to wear a hot dog costume in front of Wiener’s Circle to advertise for a minor league baseball team… from 6:30am to 10:30am in the morning. RIP! I’m not used to being up that early in the morning, but decided to do it anyways for the money’s sake. When I arrive at the Wiener’s Circle at super early in the morning, I was given my hot dog costume and left to stand around for a little bit. Since it’s super early and there was a DJ at this event, he decided to play the Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide. So here I was, dancing around in a hot dog suit at early o’clock in the morning with a bunch of other people in hot dog costumes. As the morning progressed, a bunch of news stations came to record us holding signs for the Chicago Dogs minor league baseball team and waving. They also recorded us playing wiffle ball in these costumes. A bunch of standing around happened in between all of the madness. When I eventually checked my phone, a bunch of people, including my roommate friends, said they saw me on TV. I had always wanted to be on TV and finally got the opportunity to!

3. I also got to be on TV a second time in the same week! This time, it was a bit more of a surprise! I had applied to another freelance gig on Craigslist and ended up getting a call back. I trek to Michigan Avenue for an interview and get a call a few days later saying I got a gig. The gig was at 1:45am to do what I thought was to “help set up for an event” at the Garfield Park Conservatory. When I arrive at the conservatory, I get there and see some snacks and coffee, balloons, and plastic silverware. After having some coffee and noms, I was instructed to help roll up silverware. After rolling up silverware for awhile and talking to the other people in the room because we were all artists, the man in charge of the gig told me to come outside into the hallway and put a vest on in order for the security guards to know I was allowed into the conservatory. I’m then greeted by a man named Mike who claims he’s worked with plants for a long time. He tells me to water these pods for awhile while we’re having a general conversation. While I’m watering the pods, Mike pulls out a “forbidden plant” from his bag that was one of his coworker’s babies, but he got fired for it because he wasn’t allowed to have this Cuban accelerator plant at the conservatory. Mike then touched his orange to the plant and the plant began multiplying in size and sprouting a fruit the size of an orange in it. He throws the plant back in his bag and steps outside to call his manager. His manager doesn’t answer because there’s no signal. Meanwhile I’m still remaining super chill and not having much of a reaction to anything because I don’t get scared easily. He then takes the plant back out of his bag to notice it’s multiplied even more in size and began taking human form. It was sprouting a face, eyes, nose, and even looking and blinking at me. I thought it was some kind of magic trick or illusion. He proceeded to tell me the plant was morphing due to the “Carbonaro Effect” and I’m like “whaaaaaa???” And then he tells me the Carbonaro Effect is a TV show and I’ve been pranked. I was like, “cool, I’ve always wanted to be on TV”. We both start laughing, he walked me out of the room into another room where I signed some waivers and showed my ID, was given $100 bucks for an hour and 45 minutes of my time, told I'd air in September or fall time, and escorted to my car. Someday I will be famous and now is my time to shine!

What is Belegarth?

Yeah, I've been thinking about it all day, so why not write about it? Today's rantriffic mood will tell all! And yes, this is kind of long, but I'm a writer what can I say?

That moment when the word "belegarth" crosses your vocabulary in a sentence among a bunch of "normal" people… such as your 40+ year old coworkers in your oh so lovely corporate office job. Obviously at first, they're going to be like a deer in headlights, but that's the reaction that most people have when they see what we do.

So what the heck is this "belegarth" thing anyways?

Pronounced just like bel-garth, it's basically a medieval foam sword fighting buffer combat sport. Long story short, you're playing some crazy awesome game, trying to kill people (in the game of course), whacking each other with these foam weapons while dressed in medieval garb and possibly some armor… yes, it is legit armor. The people MAKE THESE THINGS THEMSELVES for crying out loud. The craftsmanship that goes behind things such as leather tooling is absolutely insane! I wish I could do that, but you can of course buy your gear too! The most intricate thing about this game is completely based on the honor system (there is a referee though).

When someone asks "is this LARPing"? Technically, the answer is no (belegarth doesn't specifically LARP, but you can do it on your own or there are closely related games, such as amtgard and nero, which are more along the lines of LARPing). To make it easier on people who probably don't want to listen to a rant, I just answer "yes", and they pretty much get it to an extent after that.

Inn case you're wondering why belegarth isn't necessarily LARPing, LARPing has a story to it while you're playing the game and belegarth you can do it on your own, but the only object of the game is to hit people! And it's a ton of fun!

When someone asks "do you just beat the crap out of each other", same as above, I just answer yes while of course giggling after I say it. But this so called "sport" represents a lot more than beating each other with foam weapons and wearing garb.

I've only been in it for a little over a year now, I've been to several mini events and 3 camping events, going on 4 (Ocfest yaaaayyyy!!! :D) and I can honestly say it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's also pretty gnarly that martial arts translates very well (thanks Shotokan Karate), and I've been doing that for about 7.5 years total now… with that plus my contact sports background, it at least gives me a little bit of a heads up. Martial arts experience or not, stepping on the field for the first time was scary and stepping on the national event field for the first time was so scary that I basically almost cried, but was happy that I managed to kill someone!

When I mention the honor system, you "admit" when you get hit. Your reputation carries throughout the game, which teaches you about life. Yes, you learn all of these super handy life skills that you could never imagine, such as vanilla extract and water to ward gnats off. I wouldn't have even thought of that. Not only that, but I've been able to very well utilize my fruitful amount of leadership experience to a great degree. There's even a "guild" that promotes leadership and service (which I of course joined). There's so many ways to get involved! In my opinion, it's better than any college party I've ever been to because people know how to handle themselves and aren't total dumb idiots. People watch each other's backs to ensure all safety. People also craft their own Meade, beer, apple pie drank, and other tasty concoctions (food and drink) and it's soooooo good unlike anywhere else. If you don't choose to partake in "those types of activities", no one will ever force anything upon you and is very respectful of your decisions. The camaraderie is amazing as well! Oh, and you're camping for days! ;)

But life skills is the least of it… it's the PEOPLE that makes this such a special place for me and probably thousands of other people all over the world. And in case you're wondering if there's a party and nightlife, absolutely yes there is!

What types of people even do belegarth? The honest answer is that nerds do it because the game is a fair neighbor to Dungeons and Dragons, and I would even degree that it has a close relationship to chess. Am I a nerd? Yeah, of course I am. I'm a freeking web developer, was in band from 5th grade throughout all of college, and the list goes on for a pretty long while. But I'm also a sorority girl… and not your typical young lady either. People from all walks of life join in this awesomeness and everyone is welcomed with open arms. That alone blows me away because I've never walked into a place on day 1 and been treated so well. These people are seriously the most genuine people I've ever met. When you live in a world of people who try to fit a certain mold, it's nice to have people who are actually comfortable being themselves… as am I. I've always been a nerd… I've always been different… but it takes a fair amount of confidence to enter this newfound world because it's nothing like you've ever seen before… but as I've been told, everything happens for a reason, just like joining belegarth.

They had a local realm (place to practice) where I went to college, but to me, and for most of society, they'd take a gander… just long enough for a short glance, and just continue walking. And that is exactly what I did for all 4 years of college. Most people see this as "weird" and would never even dare go in there. I was also pretty busy trying to graduate and get a job, but that's besides the point. My friend at school invited me to come practice a few times, but I was too busy with the over-involvement cycle I was already in, which meant that the timing wasn't right. With the strong desire for a new beginning and to get out of my post-graduation slump, another invite from the same friend was suddenly brought to my attention… my response this time? Sure, I'll give it a fair chance. I had never done it before and deemed that I had no right to prejudge this before actually trying it… and I have never looked back since.

I feel like most people find out about this sport through either word of mouth or being a passerby in the park where people are practicing, but someday I want this to be more widespread than that :)

Belegarth is the most family oriented group I've ever seen in my entire life (and I've been involved in plenty of groups and organizations). People view their unit-mates as their LEGITIMATE family. I am dead serious. It is that real. I was told in my sorority that "in order to receive much, you must give much" while all having a central focus on love being the highest pillar in life. All of that heavily translates to this sport, which is why people have been fighting for most of their lives and even bring their kids into fighting. I am literally happy EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to a practice, even when I'm in the worst possible mood. Everyone helps the new people get adjusted, tell them the rules, and make sure they're comfortable, while everyone immerses in a cycle of paying it forward.

Not only is this community more welcoming than anything I've ever seen, have the most genuine people I've ever met, and have a very heavy focus on family, honor, and moral values, everyone is always willing to help everyone. There's always a bad seed somewhere, so don't feel alarmed when you see some, but don't let those people turn you away. But for about 99.5% of the time, people have your back and will want to be there for you if you "seriously needed something" (the .5% accounts for people being people, but I'm of course being generous about it). After first joining, being overweight and such too from college, I was still in a pretty big slump and felt as horrible as can be… going to work was even difficult at that point (but I still managed to pull through regardless). At my first camping event, during line battles on that Saturday, I totally got full on nailed by a spear in the face. I didn't cry, but it felt bad enough to make me need to walk it off bracing pain while he felt pretty bad and took an "honor death" because face shots aren't legal shots. A series of events from the past coming back together means that belegarth is definitely a very small world (I had known him from high school fencing and ran into an unexpected person totally out of nowhere).

He introduces me to one of his realm leaders, who I encounter at one of my practices, ask him for advice totally out of the blue, and he tells me to come talk to him. Me being like, "um I did NOT expect this reaction", pauses for a second and nods. By "come talk to him", meaning that he's a holistic doctor and owns his own business. You definitely meet people from all different walks of life, but this oh so wonderful person helped me kick my poor mental health to the curb, lose over 35 pounds, and become far more motivated in general than ever. I have never been this happy, and it is in a large portion thanks to joining belegarth.

Now do you know what belegarth is? It's family, friendship, fun, and honor all wrapped up into some crazy fun nerd game. Yay for nerd bring the new cool!

I never introduced myself, but if you got this far, my name's Maron McNight (my fighting name of course), and you can find me up in the windy city (Chicago) and practice most commonly at the lovely realm of Nightfort, located in the northwest burbs.

Here's some Facebook groups of the surrounding area realms in case you're interested in joining this awesomeness :D

https://www.facebook.com/groups/nightfortbelegarth/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Dunharrow/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/261680253897125/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/morvachicago/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/belegarthbriarwood/

Here's the wiki page for the sport in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belegarth_Medieval_Combat_Society

Here's the most up to date map of active realms in the US (or close): https://maps.google.com/maps/u/0/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107125570793823288790.000452cfe9579612b42af&z=4&dg=feature

And here's the most up to date list of realms (on the main website, which is geddon.org): http://geddon.org/Category:Realms

If you're not from Chicago, have no fear, see above and you can find somewhere to go play. Now do you know what belegarth is? I hope to all who join find amazing pleasure and fun in this lovely land of play sword fighting for adults!

Seven Magical Ways to Create Better Opportunities for Yourself

These all may sound cliché, but if you’re tired of feeling stagnant and crave progression in life, here are 7 magical and simple ways to create better opportunities for yourself:

1.       Be proactive. Opportunity doesn’t usually just come knocking on your door when you’re sitting on your butt doing nothing. The more you actively pursue opportunities to better yourself, such as attending training courses at work, attending networking events, and pursuing leadership positions, you need to drive the bus! You're in charge of your career and don't take no for an answer... meaning if someone says no to what you want, find another way to grab it if you have the drive and perseverance to do so!

2.       Be willing to step out of your comfort zone and seek endeavors that are beyond what you think you are capable of, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Try something new and take risks... even though everyone else and their entire friend circle of successful people would say. If you think you want to be the president of a club at school or the CEO of your own company, don't sell yourself short with self-doubt or think you'll suck because you've never done it before. Of course you're not going to be perfect the first or second or even third try, but trying just means you're growing and learning from mistakes!

3.       Feel comfortable asking “how can I help” to show initiative and interest. Similar to being proactive, this moreso involves finding a task, objective, or role that you have a strong desire to fulfill that someone else is doing and ask how you can help. This is especially beneficial if you're in search for further experience in an area that you want to learn about and don't know as much as you'd like to yet, as well as at a job. Who knows, maybe you can fall in love with something you never could imagine all because you offered to help someone! Also, asking to help someone is always a benefit to you (if they say yes) because it's always a learning opportunity, meaning more invaluable knowledge for you to pocket away and another category of experience for you to add to your arsenal of awesomeness!

4.       Be excited to learn from challenges that you accept… with or without reluctance. Yay learning and yay challenges! Challenges foster learning and learning fosters bettering yourself, so why not, right? So what if you fall or even fail. Get back up! You can do it!

5.       Embrace and be empowered by change. Change may be scary at first, but change also means new experiences, overcoming obstacles, and self growth and awareness. For example, magically turning from college student to adult was one of the most daunting life changes I've ever made and is probably #1 on my list, but changes like these are 500% inevitable. If you resist change, you will make yourself miserable. It's not easy and will never be easy, but if you want to better yourself, taking a risk or leap of faith in life means you're going to just have to accept change!

6.       NETWORK!!!! I can thank the Association of Information Technology Professionals for advocating this handy tip. Networking doesn't just mean dressing up in a suit to hand resumes out to potential employers, but it means trying to get your name and your word out to as many people as you can. Networking also doesn't have to be just for "professional endeavors", but can also take place when immersed in a large group while trying to meet people in a more social/laid back setting. Just think of it this way, the more people who know you and the more people you've handed your business cards to (vistaprint sells nice ones), as well as any cards you receive (or contact info that you exchange), the more people that can possibly meet to help you find where you belong or even give you a recommendation to help you land your next big gig or job!

7.       Stay positive and never give up when the going gets tough... If the timing isn’t right for something, don't worry about it too much. If you're young like me, realize that even though life is short, you have plenty of time to make awesomeness happen. When people tell you that everything happens for a reason, it's absolutely true! Rejection also happens... a lot more than you think. The chances of you getting accepted to everything you apply for are slim to none (unless you're super duper lucky). Don't let rejection bring you down or make you quit. The stories you hear of people triumphing after being homeless, getting tons of sorry letters, getting cut from the team several times, etc. are absolutely true! Rejection means to either keep working towards what you want or that there's a better opportunity that's waiting for you and you'll find it in due time! Giving up just means you're never going to see accomplishment... and trust me, the gratification from the "yes" answer you've been craving is worth the wait!

6 Misconceptions People Have Towards LARPing

Before I say anything, first off, LARP means live action role play, and if you're wondering if I take part of any of this, yes, I absolutely do. I am a part of a group called "Belegarth Medieval Combat Society", which is actually more of a boffer combat sport with some optional LARPing aspects involved. Similar games to this include Dagorhir and Amtgard, but there are plenty of groups like this all over the world!

To those of you who are going to pre judge any sort of LARPing game or boffer combat sport before actually trying it, these are some comments I've heard from people when I'd go to tell them about these activities, as well as what I've heard from the grapevine in general:

1. "This is really stupid..."

If you haven't done any of this before and think you can sit there calling it stupid and go judging away, you have no right. If you genuinely dislike these types of things, so be it, but you have no right to judge anyone just for wanting to have fun in an extremely nerdy fashion. You also can't just assume something sucks based on rumors. To be honest, when I saw the club practicing at my college, I basically just glanced and walked away because I cared what other people would think about me because I'd be doing something as "different" as this. It looked kind of silly, and I thought all of the people were a bunch of weirdos, despite not knowing a single one of them. One day last summer, a dear friend of mine who was in the club at school invited me to a practice around where I live at home because he was in town for the summer and it decided to give it a fair chance. Little did I know that deciding to give this a fair chance would be one of the best decisions I've made to this day. Being a part of this sport, let alone massive community of awesomeness and nerds, has made an immensely positive impact  on me... in just a year! I have been meeting the most genuine people I've ever seen in my entire life and I am eternally thankful I was introduced to this. The moral of the story is that you never know until you try and you can't judge a book by its cover to assume that something is going to be totally weird (in a bad way) until you've picked up a sword or at least talked to someone who's in it to determine whether or not you're interested!

2. "Everyone who participates uses this as some kind of escape and does drugs"

This was mostly brought up by family members who are clearly unsupportive of me, but this is definitely false, especially the part about drugs. The sport I do is actually more of a boffer combat sport and not "LARPing" unless you do roleplaying on your own. I can see why people would think this is some kind of an escape because you dress up in medieval garb in the middle of the park and hit people with foam sticks. For me, going to practices and events are just "a trip to happy land" for me because I'm consistently surrounded by good people and am always happy every time I attend any kind of function for it. Also, with being in an organization that's on many college campuses, drinking and drugs do happen in college. Not only that, but hanging out with these people is much safer than going to fraternity parties because people legitimately care about your safety and everybody watches out for everybody. If you're new to the game as well, people keep an extra special eye on you (during the night life part of the game) to make sure that you're happy and want to continue coming back. Plus, good luck doing drugs and going on the fighting field... you'd be a useless blob!

3. "These people are all losers... go meet more 'professional people'"

As much as this awesomeness is not resume worthy (in most cases), I have learned more life skills by being in this sport than any of the other activities I did in college... yes, this includes being the president of the club for IT majors during my senior year of college. Luckily, any leadership experience you gain in school seems to translate very well for this. Being a part of a group like this has exposed me to people who come from all walks of life, ranging from male nurses to college students to web developers to teachers to iron workers to holistic doctors and everything in between. I'm sorry if you think that the only way to be successful is sitting in an office at your lovely 9-5 job doing whatever and climbing up the corporate ladder or working some white collar job in your field of study from school... because it's not. I'm also sorry if you think that people need to always be "normal" all the time and do "normal" activities, like volunteering, joining a group to meet new people and discuss the world, and being involved in professional organizations in your field, which I do anyways. Not only that, but just because I make one bad group of friends, realize it pretty quickly, and get rid of them doesn't mean I'm going to be foolish enough to make the same mistake again. These people who you may consider "losers" have real jobs, can support themselves, and some even are married and have families. Of course, you may find a couple worms in your giant basket of apples, but we are all the same people as everyone else with as much or more life ambition than you have. We just have different tastes in our hobbies than you do!

4. "Everyone is really, really weird"

Weird... what even is weird? I feel like weird is the new cool and creepy is the new weird. And who cares if we're all weird anyways? We're having fun, and that's all that should matter! If you get to know these people on the inside instead of staring at the medieval garb they're wearing, you'll realize that you're meeting some pretty interesting people with nice stories to tell who are very far from fake! I'd also be kind of bored if all of my friends had "typical jobs" and did "typical, non-weird activities" because being different is fun and not being typical is and should be the new norm! This is a type of community you won't be able to find anywhere else and I am thankful to now be a part of something as wonderful as this! So think twice if you think these people are all "weird", because that's just a false generalization!

5. "Go do something better with your time"

...says the person who sits on the couch every waking moment watching TV. Hey, at least I'm doing something fun, spending time with some of the most wonderful people I've ever met, and in my case, am getting tons of exercise. Thanks to this awesomeness (and of course eating right, further exercise, etc.), I've been able to lose over 30 pounds so far. You're probably just jealous that I'm having so much fun all the time and found something I'm truly passionate about besides for my career, music, writing, and karate! Yeah, it's not an activity you'll hear your typical person say they do, but I work in an office and everyone I've told who I work with is super interested and fascinated by what I do. They always ask about it, especially when I return from a camping event (which I use vacation time to go). As long as you still manage to go to work every day, are doing something you love, and still have your eyes on the prize of success you're craving oh so much, just live your life and screw what other people think about how you spend your time!

Also, if you see some of the craftsmanship that's involved with making leather armor, making weapons, making garb, making chainmail, etc., all I have to say is HOLY CRAP! These people make beautiful works of art while putting hours and hours into what they do and I wish I can do that! Yes, people make their own stuff for this (and you can of course buy it too)!

6. "Go get real exercise because no one cares about being healthy"

With what I do (belegarth), running around and hitting people is actually a lot more difficult than it looks. In fact, you need a ton of coordination and endurance to stay fighting for a long time. Imagine being in the hot sun and running around hitting people for hours... if you don' t think "that" is exercise, then you go try! I've even hit a point where I'm trying to figure out how my karate skills can be used for this and vice versa! Water is always heavily promoted and people will always bring some (or sometimes bring giant coolers) to make sure you drink water! Worst case scenario, there will be a fountain or someone to share with you if you forget water because if you fight long enough, your body will tell you to drink water! Because of the possibility to obtain sports injuries, people will be on your butt if you complain about feeling injured, go fight full blast, and come off the field feeling worse... We want people to keep fighting, not be hurt!

Unfortunately, in terms of health consciousness, I have found that the population of people who want to be/eat healthy all the time seems to be a minority. I could be wrong, but that's what I've noticed... not just with this, but in general. Thankfully, everyone is extremely respectful of how you choose to eat. More importantly, if you have food allergies, especially at events, everyone is extremely wary and will not knowingly give you food that you're allergic to (but you need to tell them you're allergic of course). After practices, people like to go to McDonald's, a buffet, a burrito place, or anywhere that is seemingly unhealthy. If you don't choose to partake, your decision will not be made fun of at all. When I do go, it's a nice bonding experience and health conscious me over here just gets the least unhealthy thing on the menu that I can find so I can enjoy the company and not feel horrible about what I ate. Everyone is just very supportive in general. However, when you're at an event camping overnight for a few days and alcohol is involved, don't expect to have the best diet that weekend (and don't eat or drink too much either). I CAN say that because of doing this, I met the person who ended up inspiring me to reach my optimal health potential, so thank you belegarth for just helping me to become a better person in general (and healthier too of course)!

If your friends or even your family doesn't support you doing something like this, SO WHAT! It's their opinion, you're doing something that is SAFE, FUN, and MAKES YOU HAPPY. It may not be resume-worthy in most cases, but as long as you're HAPPY, that's all that should matter :)

For more information about what I do, be sure to check out http://www.geddon.org/Main_Page and like "Belegarth Medieval Combat Society" on Facebook :)