I had this idea virtually out of nowhere - sitting at work and being all gloomy because of lack of inspiration. I took a pencil in my hand and said to myself "now you draw an e3a strip" and there it was - at first I only had three "things that make me nervous while playing", but while I was drawing nr. 2, other ideas kept popping out, so I decided to make a top ten out of it. here are the nr 10 to 6:

10.) "playing at tournaments"
Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I still get a bit jiggly and palm-sweaty when pushing the clock and putting down the first move ^^"

9.) "playing at tournaments in byoyomi"
...Now this is a huge step from nr. 10. Time pressure in go is a terrible thing, I avoid byoyomi where I can, and when I can't, I panic. I even had to quit a tournament because I got so nervous in byoyomi that I felt ill and could not continue.

8.) "playing online"
Don't ask me why, most of the people I know would give playing online a 20 on the 10-1 nervousness scale, but I am different here. I am still working on finding out why a on-screen board on an internet playing server has this effect on me.

7.) "playing rengo"
The tournament I mentioned under nr 9, the one I quit -- it was a rengo tournament. Rengo is nerve-wrecking for the weaker player, no matter how nice and not armed with any sharp objects the stronger partner is.

6.) "playing against a very strong player"
Now is there anybody who is *not* nervous in this case? I bet for a lot of people this is the candidate for nr. 1... but on my scale, bigger things will come, wait and see :D

as to the drawing itself, I am totally dissatisfied (maybe apart from the shaking chidori in the last one, that's pretty neat). I hope the next part turns out better :)