Tennis anyone?!

Some more news that will no doubt cause eruptions of happiness from my wonderful grandmother...guess who is not only the captain of the Lincoln Football team, but also the Lincoln Tennis women's team? That's rights, it would be the very nice, Christina (who has the football in the picture in the last post). It came up in conversation today, that I had grown up playing tennis and she had asked me if I wanted to join the team. I told her I didn't have a racquet or any skirts/etc., so I thought I was going to just stick with footy for now. However, she just sent me an email wondering if she could find me a racquet would I be willing to play in the match against St. Hugh's this Saturday at 4:00 pm. Ok, I totally caved. It's been ages since I've played tennis, but in many ways I've really missed it. Plus, the girls I've met so far who play on the tennis team seem really nice, so that's a big plus. So yeah, I'm in for two sports now. Hopefully my body won't keel over due to the spontaneous turnaround from library potato to super-sport-chick. At least one sport works primarily the legs, while the other works the upper body...I guess it's a good mix in that respect.

Yay, activity is good. :-)

We won!!!

Today marked my entrance into the competitive world of the female footballer. Even though the official season is over, we still have a few friendlies against other colleges this term. LCWFC usually plays outdoors, but today's matches were scheduled as 2 five-a-side indoor games, the first against St. Anne's College (who didn't show so we won by forfiet), and then the second against Sommerville (who we crushed 2-nil!).

Since some of my footy friends know I have a fondness for strong defense/defenders, I was hoping to play defense (which the captain agreed would be a good place for me). She even asked me on the walk over to the complex if I would consider playing goalkeeper, since they don't have an "official" keeper for the team right now (I guess their normal keeper left this year). I said "sure, I could try that" so maybe at some point I'll be the crazy one throwing my body in front of blindingly fast balls. That didn't happen today though. Strangely enough, today I wound up playing Forward mainly because after we arrived at the match some people hadn't been able to come and left us with only one Forward. I was up for playing any position since at this point I'd really like to just get more of a hands-on (or hands-off, really ;) ) feel of the game. Playing Forward was cool and the other Forward, Solange - who seems to be the best player Lincoln has, and I worked really well together. I can proudly say that I set her up with a solid pass for one of the goals she scored against Sommerville. So I assisted!! I feel really good about how I played, and how everyone on the team played, today. The girls are all really nice and while winning is something we strive for, it's the fun that's mandatory. I can tell it's going to be a great situation to help me grow in my understanding of the "beautiful game."

Speaking of beauty and the game, here's a shot of some of the Lincoln players (we're the ones in the light blue jerseys/shirts) in the second half against Sommerville. Since we had 1 extra new player, I subbed out after the first half so she could play in the second half (that's when I was able to snag this shot). Hope you like it!

The football-crazed social butterfly

Well, this week has been a resounding success both educationally and socially. All in all a great start to the Spring. I didn't spend as much time on my research this week because I was busy trying to get some of the more practical (read: financial) aspects of my education sorted out, and everything seems to be going smoothly there for now. So that's good. The "Great Boo's Up" on Friday night was a lot of fun, about 8 people congreagted at the Jericho Tavern, one of which was Stuart, the Lincoln MCR president. Strangely enough, he asked me if I wanted to be Social Secretary for the MCR next year...I said I would "think about it," as I have a feeling it would be a ton of work to organize all of the big graduate social events for the college, but I was flattered that he asked. I guess I'm not as anti-social as I thought, or at least Stuart seems to think I've got social potential.

Also during the Boo's up, I was reintroduced to Stella Shandys by Sophie, Jon's girlfriend. Stella Shandys are so refreshing in the warmer seasons, and I admit they are a close second to my normal drink of crisp cold British cider. Still, I didn't have too many drinks Friday because I had plans to come back to my room by midnight in order to follow the Timbers away match in Miami at 12:30 am. That was a very exciting match and it looked like we would either win or draw, but sadly wound up losing 3-2. The Timbers play Puerto Rico tonight so hopefully we'll get ourselves together and walk away with some points this weekend.

Speaking of football, today was my first time out playing footy with Joanna. We had a blast just doing some fun kickaround drills, shooting at a mock goal, and playing 1-1 "steal the ball." Jo's a lot of fun to play with and by the end we were laughing as much as we were running and I felt much more secure that I won't look totally clueless when I play on Tuesday with LCWFC. Here's a picture of me looking exhausted but happy after kicking the ball around with Jo today:



Alright, all of this excercise has me ravenous, so I'm going to go make some grub. Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there in the US (Hi Mom!!)! (The UK mother's day is in March, so all the mom's here have already gottten lots of love this year. ;))

Bullets from a busy girl

I have once again found my go go go stride, so what follows is a concise schedule and my feelings regarding cool things that I've done and stuff coming up in the near future:

* Last night: Had an awesome chat with my friend Jo, who just accepted an internship with the Russian branch of the European Commissions Delegation. I am SO excited for her. Then she and I went to a swing dancing class - swing dancing rocks!

* Tonight: Finishing and submitting my FAFSA loan application - one cannot live on books alone.

* Tomorrow: Work and Research.

* Friday: Jon has organized a group of us to go out for what he calls a "Great Boo's Up" at the Jerhico Tavern - I have no idea what this may entail, but have decided I must go as it is imperative for me to get acclimated to my new culture. ;)

* Saturday: Jo and I scheduled to kick the football around for awhile at the University Parks - I am SO excited about this! I need to get more comfortable with just manipulating and having posession of the football.

* Tuesday, May 16th: 5-a-side footy friendlies between LCWFC and two other colleges. One at 1:30 and the other at 2:00. I have been asked to be present so I can start playing and getting up to speed - I am totally excited about this, but also really nervous.

Also, Tuesday night Jo and I will be going to another swing dancing lesson - by the end of Tuesday my muscles should definitely be feeling a workout!

Ok, so those are some of the highlights of what has been happening over here in my world. I'll keep you posted!

Drafted and Rewarded!

The last 48 hours have been some of the most exhaustingly intense research/writing/revising days of my time here, so far. Deadlines were looming (everythings HAD to be done by 7 AM this morning) and going into the weekend I knew parts of my argument still needed some reworking, plus my supervisor asked me to do some last-minute analysis of parish records to flesh out some of my demographic analysis concerning trends in the Ipswich poulation. To make things even more impossible, my college was COMPLETELY CLOSED on Saturday due to this insane bi-annual "College Ball" thing (basically the equivalent to a senior prom). Normally I wouldn't care if Balls were happening that I couldn't attend, but the shut down the whole freaking place INCLUDING THE LIBRARY for an ENTIRE 24-hour period without e-mailing college students to let them know. I heard even people who LIVED inside the college had to find somewhere else to sleep that evening. I'm sorry to be crass...but seriously, WTF is that about? I know how annoyed I was when I found out I couldn't use the Library at all, and basically LOST one of my last two days to do research, but if I was also living in the college and had to go crash on a friends floor on top of all this stress I probably would have lost it - seriously lost it - like in the "No walking on the grass, hmm - wait til you see what I can do with a rake!" kinda lost it. Ugh. But anyway, I wasn't in that position, and was able to come home, curl up in a ball of worry, and wonder how I was going to get all of the remaining reading/rewriting done in one day. Worrying was really unecessary since the answer to these situations is always the same one - stay up for 36 hours and do nothing but work, eat, smoke cigarettes, drink strong tea, and allow my life to become completely driven by the fear of failure. Not at all a healthy thing to do, BUT it does get the job done, and done well, I might add.

So, after a long day of getting final signatures on forms and quadrupley-checking that everything was perfect, my overwhelming stress ended at 3 PM when the Graduate Office receptionist absentmindedly reached out her hand and took my packet. I asked her a few questions to make sure that I had done everything correctly, and she just kept nodding in that "yes, you're fine, go away now, please" way, and I realized how drastically different our experiences of this EXTREMELY important moment were. It was weird enough that I could have philosophised on that for awhile, but I was tired and philosophizing just wasn't in the cards at that point.

This leads me to what I had decided WAS in the cards for me after everything was done with the transfer. As a reward for kicking so much a$$ this weekend, I shopped around at a few shops and bought new football boots and a football. I LOVE them both. I took a picture of them so you can bask in the awesomeness, too.

Home Opening Weekend

Today is the home opener for the 2006 Portland Timbers season. Where am I? Here. Where do I want to be? Here. (Where I used to be...front row all the way on the left, that's me.) SIGH. Green grass is hard to come by.

The pressure of having to finalize my transfer of status essays and forms, preparing for my formal viva examanation (short formal verbal defense of my research proposal), on top of dealing with all the various mundane bits and bobs of life hit me hard today. Knowing I will be missing not one, but two, brilliant games and the accompanying revelry makes going into this weekend quite sad. It's strange to occasionally live such a split life - where you know you are exactly where you should be, but a part of you really wants to be somewhere else. I know it's hard for some of my friends and family to understand my love of Portland, and especially my love of the Timbers. Honestly, it's just not something I can explain. One day when I take you to a game, you'll understand.

Spring Cleaning

This week I've been consumed by many and varied tasks and thoughts - all of which seem to revolve around revision. My work, my plans, my schedule, my life - nothing has escaped critical analysis. While some people find revision easier than creation, I am not one of those people and often my ambitious attempts can lead to massive frustration. Snap judgements are formed, thoughts, words (sometimes even people) get deleted, and local dumps fill up with not only crying babies and bathwater, but also perfectly functional bathtubs.

Do you know how much bathtubs cost!?

SAVE THE BATHTUB.

What's worse than the written driving test?

I know I passed, but I still feel like I failed:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 8 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

With these kind of shoddy marks, it'll be a miracle if they let me repatriate in 2 years.