Happy Halloween!!!

Weigh in...

This whole past week was crazy. It started out with me having Jury Duty on Monday. To make matters (better?) worse, we had two people call in sick PLUS someone was on vacation at work, so I went in after the judge released us. I got there at 2:00 and took calls for 2 1/2 hours. My boss gave me comp time for it, so I'm happy. For the rest of the week, we were swamped with calls and a phone system that was acting up. Not good for us. It was crazy.

Weigh in was yesterday. I was back to 199.5. I had been down the week before to 198. I think it has to do with water. I drank 48 ounces of water on Friday. Friday morning I had been 202, so definitely it was water. Possibly eating too. I think I'm going to look at eating more often--maybe write the times I'm eating down too. That may help. I'm still looking at the guy at work who's lost so much--he says he eats multiple small meals a day. I am considering it. I'm going to think about it long and hard and make a decision today.

Abba, I wanted to thank you for the comments and the encouragement you've given me. I really appreciate it immensely!! I am so glad that you're there and you read my blog!!! :) Thank you!!

Another Sunday

I am having an absolutely wonderful day! I've had a good conversation with my daughter about school. Usually it's like pulling teeth to get her to talk to me about school! We're doing laundry together and I'm going to let her help me make dinner later. Maybe. She may not be interested in that. We shall see.

We went to a birthday party yesterday for my friend Jason's son. I was there to take pictures. Unfortunately, my stupid camera DIED as I was taking pictures. I think I've already grumbled about it so I won't rehash it now. I don't know if it's the SD card or what. I've been on Dell's website, drooling over the cameras. I may have to break down and get myself a new digital to ride with my old film camera. "Old". HA! It's only about 10 or so years old. It's been in the closet for a while. I'm going over to Wolf Camera to get a battery and some film. I feel the urge to take pictures again. I've got two short subjects who will be great fodder for the camera.

Not a lot is on our agenda for today. I'm doing the never-ending laundry pile and then cleaning the kitchen some. Tony cleaned a bit on Thursday and Friday, but there's more to do. For a small kitchen, it sure does get dirty/messy fast. My next step will be to HOPEFULLY de-clutter the bookshelves in the living room. If I find the books I need to clear out, I can get them to the used book store and get rid of some. I know Tony will be thrilled if I do. For that matter, I probably will be thrilled too. I love books and love the opportunity to read, but honestly, I have a LOT of books that I haven't touched in YEARS! If I haven't touched the books in that long, I'm not likely to pick them up and read them now, you know?

Tony took the kids out to get Halloween costumes last night. Aidan wanted to be a "devil" but there wasn't anything out there for him. Everything out there was Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, Power Rangers (ew!) or similar. Tony finally talked him into Darth Vader.
They stopped by Target and got him a light saber that (oh joy!) makes the swooshing noises like the movie. It barely lights up. I had to take it away from him last night because all I heard was the swooshing. He wasn't doing his evening chores, so he wound up losing it. This morning, he did some chores and is back to playing with the mask. LOL!

Amanda was supposed to be a cat but...her dad took her someplace where they can't return the costume and they got her an outfit that is TOO SMALL! (This is my fault for not going with them!) Sooo, she has the cat ears, a tail and nothing else. I am going to look for a pair of black leggings for her and a black sweater. She can wear that and I'll paint her nose and face with "whiskers". I hope that'll work.
I'm not feeling the creativity right now. Suggestions are welcome...

I need to get around to visiting people. I haven't been online for a week and I've got to say HI! I didn't have time at work because we were just buried under a lot of things. I had projects to do and didn't find the extra time to surf the Internet at work. I've got to make up for it today!!

This and that....

It's another Saturday. I weighed myself this morning and was down to 198, so for this week, I actually LOST 4.2 pounds. I'll take it and won't fuss at all!
It's been a pretty rough couple of weeks. I have been getting email after email about my son at school and finally capitulated. I called our family doctor and talked to him about the munchkin. He has been diagnosed as having ADHD and we're trying him on Adderall. It's a rough blow because I didn't want to have to medicate my child. I was adamantly against medication. Hubby is still highly unhappy about it and hasn't forgiven me, the teacher and the school for it. It's hard to see your child medicated. I want to give this a try and see how long it takes to get him to settle down. What really tipped it was when the teacher emailed me and pretty much laid out that she was having difficulty teaching him and the rest of his class because he was so disruptive.
He started taking his medication on Thursday. There was no significant change, but we did notice that he now doesn't sleep as easily as he used to. For example, right now it's 9:30 and he's flipping and flopping and trying to get comfortable. Last night, it was after 11:00 before he went to sleep. His Martial Arts instructor told me today that he did see a change today. That's good. Once we get this built up in his system, we should see a positive outcome.
The one thing that made me less angry was that his teacher has repeatedly told me that she loves him and wants him to succeed. She reminded me that we don't know what a "normal" child is because every child is their own version of "normal". We shall see what the Adderall does for him.

Then we have my daughter, who tested for, and earned, first chair in band. She plays the flute and is doing pretty well. I need to nag at her tomorrow because she didn't play at all today. No computer for her until she practices!!

And to add insult to injury, today my stupid dishwasher bit the dust. It had been on its last legs and finally chose today of all days to croak. I'd turned it on before leaving for martial arts at 9:50. We were out until 11:30 and when we walked in, the apartment stank to high heaven of burning rubber. I think the motor finally gave up and died. We'll see what they're going to do. I reported it to day. Whether or not it is resolved remains to be seen, but...time will tell. In the meantime, I'm stuck washing dishes by hand. YUCK!!

Some days it doesn't pay to gnaw through the leather straps...

Well, I can't report myself as having a loss this week. I don't know what my problem is, but I've seen my ugly scales going up all week. In the past two weeks, I've gained back 4 pounds. That pisses me off. Plain and simple, there it is. My husband said that it's a trend with me...whenever I lose, I inevitably gain it back, then lose it again. I don't like that trend. I don't want it to be true. I've not been journaling (starting again tomorrow!), I'm not exercising to my fullest potential and I'm really getting irritated. I don't sit around the house and eat all day long on the weekends. I know this. I also know that I'm not out exercising for an hour and a half to two hours on Saturdays anymore. I was during the black belt testing period. I am sure that's part of it. Maybe I need to hit up the Saturday classes with my kids. We'll see.

There's a guy at work who is looking really good. He's eating five times a day and has lost a lot of weight. I guess maybe I need to look into that, but with low points foods. I know I need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Having an enchilada lunch is not the best way to lose. Yesterday, for example, I had a packet of 'lower sugar maple/brown sugar oatmeal' for breakfast, two cups of coffee, a sugar free jello pudding cup, enchiladas, another sf jello pudding cup. At home, I snagged a piece of turkey sausage (literally a small piece, not a serving) and about a 1/4 cup of macaroni. Nothing on the macaroni. No butter. No cheese. Just plain macaroni. I drank 32 ounces of water when I got home from martial arts (I assisted with a class) and I had 24 ounces at work. Not the best day for water. Please remind me that water is essential!! I know I'm not drinking enough, but that's not what caused the four pound gain in two weeks.
I just need to wrap my head around losing weight and get back on track. If I don't, my new slacks won't keep fitting!!

Bad news/Good news

Well, this hasn't been the best of weeks. I gained 2 pounds. In some ways, I wonder if it was just because I saw that loss and mentally said "I lost, therefore I can do whatever and not gain." Guess what? I saw a gain! My hubby also pointed out that whenever I have a loss, I'll have a gain the next week. I want to break that cycle. It's not a healthy cycle and I know it!! I WILL overcome it!!

I do have a piece of good news though! I went to Kohl's under the auspices of paying the bill last night and wandered through the women's department. I found a pair of size 16 dress slacks and tried them on. Guess what? They fit!!! I AM thrilled about that! I feel like something good is happening and that's what I need to see and use as motivation to keep working hard at this weight loss. I know that I didn't put the weight on overnight, I won't lose it overnight and it is a commitment. I'm re-committing myself to losing it. I will do it!

Seriously HAPPY Saturday

I am just overjoyed to announce that I went back to WW this morning after taking off the past month to focus on my belt test preparation. My last registered weight with them was 204, I think. Today, my weight was 199. Yes, JUST 199!! I broke the 200 lb barrier!!! I was so hyped up, I ran out of the bathroom this morning, jumped on the bed and woke Tony up. My home scales matched the WW scales, so I'm just glowing with pleasure!!

I spent today with my kids, except for when they went to karate. I stayed home so that I could have a little bit of quiet time. When they got home, they had lunch, then Amanda did her homework. I organized my files for my new job--I'm the secretary for our Cub Scout pack. I had to get a couple of file folders, so Aidan and I went to Staples and as long as we were there, we got his new kerchief, slide and hat for Cubs. He's a Wolf this year and do NOT mention Tiger to him or he'll tell you that "it's only for FIRST GRADERS! I am NOT a first grader!!!" LOL! I had taken him with me so that his sister could do her homework without him bugging her. He was great at helping me do my shopping. I rewarded him by taking him over to Petco to visit the critters. We had to see the iguanas, then the snakes (Hmmm. "Snakes. Why does it always have to be...snakes?!" Anyone remember that movie??) After the snakes, we visited the fish and turtles, then the birds, rodents and finally, the cats up for adoption. They were really neat. There was one really pretty white cat named "Puffy". He was determined to sleep instead of socializing but that's okay. it was a lot of fun. The little guy enjoyed it.
When we got home, it was his sister's turn. I took her out to get a hair cut and he took his dad out to go swimming. LOL!! They came in shortly after we got home. She's since gone over to a friend's house to sleep over, he's sitting on the couch and reading a magazine. Oh, and watching Tak and the Power of JuJu on Nickelodeon. The things they come up with for kids shows!!

ACK! Hubby's now turned on Sponge Bob Square Pants. Okay, just for that, I'm going to leave you with the corniest joke in creation...

Q: What happens when Sponge Bob sees a full moon?
A: He turns into a Squarewolf.

See ya!!

Black Belt Test recap

It's over! I am officially a black belt! I am very pleased with myself! The positive self talk worked!!! I told myself that I didn't want to mess up on forms, so the technique part was what I mangled, but it's all good!

The test was like this...Master St. James and Mr. McGee got to the dojang at 5:58. At 6:00 (ish!) they entered the training room. We were all in line, standing at ease, being very quiet. Mr. Berger told us to come to attention, then we bowed to Master St. James and thanked him. We bowed in, said our student creed and then took a moment of silence. Mr. M told us that this was OUR test and that we were going to get started. The black belts lined up in the front row first, so they went to the back of the class. After that, we got busy and started into our techniques. About an hour into it, we did 100 jumping jacks. I didn't stop once this time, which makes me super proud of myself.

We did a lot of technique and then we went right into forms. After the Cho Dan Bo's did their forms, we got to sit down while the black belts did their higher forms. After that, he sent us out to get our sparring gear. We had a few minutes to get it and then we had to race back in. It was a madhouse but we managed. We raced back in and sat down while the black belts did their form. Then we got up and got into sparring formation. We had to do our one steps. He had all of us do our one steps at the same time. That went pretty well. We also had to do our Ho Sin Sul (self defense) and that was a bit of a difficult thing. My partner was in pain. She had hurt her back a few days ago and it was still hurting her. I had to fall for her (should have jumped but didn't). I didn't mind. I did all the Ho Sin Sul falling while she did the technique. I don't mind because I could demonstrate my GREAT falling ability.
We did leg techniques, then we sparred. After the sparring, we got to break boards.
The board breaking is a really COOL thing. We had to write our breaks on an index card and give it to Mr. M when we pre-tested. I did a front snap kick, elbow break, side kick, ridge hand (from above the board, straight down, hitting with the outside of my hand) and an axe kick. I broke almost all of my boards on the first try. The side kick tried to kick me back--I nearly fell when I broke the board but I did it!! I remembered to keop loudly when I broke too. That helped. I felt really good doing it. :)

The last thing was for us to line up again. We listened to Master St. James tell us about spirit. He said that we showed incredible spirit. That was really cool!
After he said his piece, we had a moment of silence, then bowed out--first to Master St. James, then Mr. McGee and the other visiting black belt. Then we bowed to our third and second dans and our first dans. After that, we all turned and bowed to our parents and friends, then left.

I stayed around and got Mr. M to sign my board, then his son (gotta have them both!), and of course my friend Susan! I'm going to keep that board where I can look at it as an inspiration.

Today I have the kama seminar with Master St. James and then afterwards he's teaching the instructors a bong form or two.

Sunday is the banquet to celebrate our belting and get them. Then it's back to work and back to some semblance of normalcy.

Black Belt Test

Just to let you know, I passed my black belt test tonight! I do believe I'd already passed it when I pre-tested and that this was just a showing of our progress. I managed to break 5 boards and didn't have to get a smaller board! I had problems with my side kick but...I DID break the board! I am pretty pleased with myself right now!!!

I have a kama/bong seminar with Master St. James tomorrow but it'll be pretty cool! Sunday's the banquet where I'll get my official black belt. I'll post more tomorrow afternoon when I get home.

Thank you for believing in me and standing behind me, supporting me!!

(((HUGS)))

Meg

1 day!

There is only one day left before the day of the black belt test. I think I'm ready. I know I'll make mistakes but if I cover, maybe nobody will notice. LOL!!
I'm excited. It's been a long time in coming but I've been working hard and that is paying off. I was paid a compliment on Monday. I was told that my technique was good. I am happy to hear that. I need to make sure it stays good!!
We have a dress rehearsal tonight for the belt test. Once that's over, then it's home and time to relax. I've taken the day off tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to be mellow and not stress out. I'm going to make sure that I'm focused by not hyper focused on the test. It'll be a lot of fun.

We have a banquet on the 23rd to celebrate the belting. It'll be a lot of fun but I haven't got a CLUE how what to wear!! It's required for the women to wear dresses. Hmmm. Now I've got to decide what to wear in a hurry.

This is just peachy...

The Black Belt test is in ***4*** days and I'm now suffering from an obnoxiously massive sinus/allergy thing! I had a sore throat last week for a couple of days and by Friday night, it had hit me in the sinuses. My one friend in South Carolina says I sound like I have my head in a bucket. LOL! I kind of feel that way!

We had a pretty good turn out for the Back to School Bash. Mr. Brooks was the high point of the day--everyone wanted to see him jump his car. He did a GREAT job of it too. I think he's going to be testing on Friday night too. I'm not sure. I know Mr. Todd can't test because he broke his toe. OUCH!!!

My co-workers are trying to convince me to take off half a day on Thursday. I'm now thinking about it. It may do me some good to take off, if for no other reason than I'm wired already and the test isn't until FRIDAY. I may talk to Mr. M tonight and see what HE thinks. Tony too.

Oh blank! I just got "attacked" by a cricket--it jumped over the wall at me and hit my arm. Naturally, I screamed! I'm sorry if it disrupted the class, but bugs are NOT my strong suit!! BRRR!! I can't stand bugs!!

From the Back to School Bash

7 more days

Do you think I'm slightly obsessed by my upcoming belt test? I've run through a couple of forms today at work, that's how obsessed I am!! LOL! I'm ready for it, I tell you that! I'd like to get it done TODAY! I'm not ready for it but...that would be the thing for me.

I had to send an email to Miss A's PE teacher. I told her that I wasn't fighting her battles, but that she's been the brunt of some verbal abuse (and sock throwing) in the locker room. Junior High girls are MEAN! First they told her that she "dresses weird" because she doesn't wear high fashion clothes. I'm NOT dressing her up as a BS Wanna Be. I'm sorry, but that isn't gonna fly. I'd much rather see her wearing jeans and tee shirts. If the other girls don't like it, too flipping bad! They have no right to call her names...well, yeah, I guess they do, but...I don't want her to have that stigma. If the coach can't get the girls under control, Miss A is going to have to bite her tongue a lot. I just can't stand that they're treating her like they are. I wish I could do something but I had a few people at work jump up and tell me to let her fight her own battles.
I HOPE that I've done some good for her.

Lunch is over for me so I have to go answer the phones again. The fun never ends.

Pretest is over

I've finished my pretesting so I'm ready for next Friday. He looked at my list of breaks and said that he thought I may have an issue with the Axe kick. An Axe kick is where you raise your leg up over a board, then bring it down sharply and go through the board with your heel first. A knife hand break is where you break a board with the 'blade' of your hand (that's the outside part of your hand). I am perfectly capable of doing both of those breaks. I have all the confidence in the world that I WILL make my breaks.

Mr. M told me last night that I need to *believe* that I am capable of doing my forms. I have an assignment for the next several days--I'm supposed to look at myself in the mirror and tell myself, "I am a GREAT martial artist!" I started out by telling my cat this morning that I was a great martial artist. He was not impressed.

School picture

I am on a roll today with the posts! I have posted more today than I normally do. Must be just because I've been at lunch.
Anyway...here are some pictures because I don't share very often.

9 days

The test is only 9 days away. Today I have to decide what I'm going to break boards with and then write it on an index card. I have to give my instructor my index card tonight when I pre-test on my forms. I think I'm going to do a front snap kick, elbow break, an axe kick and a side kick. I'm THINKING about a ridge hand break as well. Either that or an inverted knife hand. I have to find out if it's allowed. I just used my boss as a guinea pig for an inverted knife chop. Hmmmm.
I think I'll just send a quick email to Mr. M and ask him if those are okay. I think I'll do the front snap kick last as it's most impressive after all the others. We shall see. I'm gonna be sooo tired...

Aidan is working my last nerve. I love him dearly, but...Yesterday I got called to pick him up from school early. He apparently provoked another kid into spitting on him by calling him names. The other child is in Ms. Beaver's class and from what Aidan told me, other kids were calling him "Beaver". Aidan jumped right in but carried it too far. He and the other child don't like each other anyway, so when he poked the guy in the chest, he retaliated by spitting at him.
Okay, so that earned him a "lonely lunch". THEN...I found out that he also spelled out a word that begins with sixth letter of the alphabet. WHERE he picked it up, *I* have no clue! He SAYS he saw it on the Internet, on a website that was "Sonic vs. Mario". My best friend hasn't heard of that and she asked her 17 year old son about it. I don't allow him to watch movies or television shows that are higher than TV-G. Sometimes PG (as in Harry Potter) but it's all dependent on what I think he can handle.
Anyway, the language was the last straw. The school called me and told me to pick him up yesterday, so I left work early and he left school early. I introduced him to a bar of Zest soap for the word. He calmly repeated the word to me and told me it was "bad word number eight." I was shocked. I try to keep my language under control at home. I know that children are great parrots and can repeat *anything* you don't want them to say.

And, poor Amanda is getting left behind in the shuffle because her brother's acting up. I now have to get with her and give her a lot more attention because I don't want her to suffer for his behavior. I found out today that she has 12 assignments due this week. She's already lost out on one of them. She took a 0 on it because it wasn't turned in. I don't know about the rest of her assignments. That's something we're going to work on today. I'll get her started on that when she gets home from school and again when she gets home from Martial Arts.

Right now I'm feeling like I'm failing at being a mom. I don't want either of my kids to fail and to that end, I have to work harder at being there for them. I just don't know how to get it into the little boy's head that school is not a big joke. His teachers all said that he's very smart but he's learning to manipulate the system. I hope that the mouthful of soap helped to enforce that I want him to THINK about his behavior.
With Amanda, I know that she's also very smart and that she can do the work, but she's got to have an example of organization laid out in front of her. I want her to be a very successful 7th grader.

12 days away

The Black Belt test is only 12 days away. Am I ready? That's debatable. I know my forms and as long as I do NOT look at the kids around me and just go with what I know (including getting lots of practice on Nahainchi Cho Dan this week so that my transitions are proper!!!), I should be okay. I've got to review my one steps, but that's not that much of a problem. I only need to know 1-12 on those. We have sparring AND we have the dreaded Ho Sin Sul (self defense!). I am NOT too comfortable with the Ho Sin Sul, but I'll deal with it. I've got this week and most of next week to practice. I really don't want to spar. I have this horrible habit of laughing and giggling like a fool whenever I start sparring with someone. That has GOT to stop! I'll feel like an idiot in my sparring gear (first time I've worn it!)
We haven't been practicing the bong forms, so I won't be doing that at the test. Mr. M is going to have us do technique (for an hour!!!), 100 jumping jacks (yuuuuuuck!!!) and a minute's worth of push ups. I can do one minute of pushups! I did 38 of them in a minute today. I know, it's a pitiful number but...Mr. M says that for my age, it's acceptable. If I push it, I can build up on that number before the test.
When we did the jumping jacks in class, we all counted up to 50, then he had us stop and start again. We counted 1-9 and everyone yelled 10, then up, with everyone joining in on the even numbers (10, 20, 30, 40, 50). It looks good, sounds good and it's going to be that way. He said that when the counting stops, you stop. Period. Don't keep jumping. Hey, I'm all for that!!

We went over some basic technique. I'm standing in between two kids and there will be another taller young man right behind me. I have to make absolutely sure I do NOT kick that kid in front of me in the back! It won't be a good thing to do. LOL!!

I pre-test on Wednesday. Have to know all of my forms, my one steps and my Ho Sin Sul. This is to make sure that I really WILL be ready. Mr. M tells me he's not worried about me, but *I* am worried about me! I shouldn't be, but I am. I've had dreams where Kwan Jang Nim St. James has been grading me, looking at my forms and technique and then stops the test to ask WHY I'm in the test! I realize that he won't do that, but it was a dream.

I'm pre-testing on Wednesday. My partner is a young lady named Holly. She'll come in and pre-test with me on my Ho Sin Sul and one steps. Once we've done those, he'll let us know if we're definitely testing on the 21st. If we can get past the pre-test, it'll be a downhill slide. I have to remember to take myself off to the black belt class on Thursday because it was a good thing to go to. I may start adding that into my regime. I have to be up at the school on Thursday for the Young Warriors class so I may as well just stay to work on the black belt class as well.

Thursday again

Well, it's Thursday! It's getting closer to the end of the week! I'm off work tomorrow and that should be interesting. I'm going to be meeting with my son's teacher and the SST/SSI team at school. When he was in Kindergarten, his teacher organized an "Student Success Initiative/Student Success Team" for him at the end of the year. His teacher (2nd grade now) is seeing that he needs something extra to help him succeed, so we're meeting with them to determine what we can do to help him. I hope it will make this year as good as last year. He had a pretty good year last year but I believe it was because the SST was organized at the end of the year and was put into place at the beginning of school for last year. I know they had him in Speech and other things. In fact, I found out about the speech classes quite by accident. It was a comment he made about it that made me realize they'd done it.

We will hopefully get him settled into school and working to be a happy second grader who will be able to progress to third without issue. I am not thrilled about the idea of medicating him. I promised my martial arts instructor that I'd keep that as a possibility in my mind. Tony's more anti-medication than I am. I'm just a bit less determined to say "he's just a boy". He may need the meds and IF he does, okay, fine. We'll get him evaluated first and see how it goes from there. I know that I'm responsible for a bit of his behavior--I have a tendency to spoil him. He's not been seriously punished for a lot of things. I have let him get away with a lot of things his sister hasn't gotten away with. Some of that could be because (and probably IS) because he's my youngest, he's the boy of the family and he's my last child. Need to change me so that he behaves better.

Tomorrow we meet at 9:00. I'm guessing the meeting will last about an hour. Hopefully we'll come up with a viable course of action. I like the teachers who are on his "team" so far--his own teacher, the fourth grade teacher my daughter had and the school counselor. I am ambivalent toward the principal but that's just ME. I had a few too many dealings with her because of his behavior in kindergarten. All the more reason to have this meeting. She may be a bit different this year. We shall see.

Three Wednesdays to go.

Three Wednesdays to go (if you include today!) until the black belt test. I'm starting to think it'll be an enjoyable experience. I'm pretty good with most of my forms. I need to practice at home and I still need to whip out ANOTHER class this week to make up for the holiday we just had. You're supposed to attend a minimum of two classes a week. CIT doesn't count toward the actual class, so IF I get finished with Miss A's orthodontist early enough today, we'll go to the 6:00 class. Jason's in that class too, so it'll be fun. I'm still on the fence about it.
I'm definitely going to the Black Belt class tomorrow night at 7:00. I can since I'm CIT.
I haven't been behaving with WW. I didn't go to the meeting on Saturday. Instead, I went and goofed off for a couple of hours with my friend DB. We practiced forms--ALL the forms! I think I'm really MUCH better on my stances now than I was leading up to Saturday. We shall see.

My weight was 202 at the lowest on Saturday. It went up to 203.5, then to 203 and has stayed pretty steadily during the week at 203. I'm not complaining. Yes, I know that weighing daily isn't a good thing but it helps me see where I need improvement. I don't think I'm going to worry about my weight unless it goes up more than this one pound gain. I have every confidence it'll keep going down. I have literally 3 weeks to go before I test and I'm sure that I will be able to get to 200 and keep it there leading up to the test.