Next-day-publish. Hilariously, I fell asleep before I got to ‘z’.
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In case you all were wondering/care, I moved to Madison recently. This has involved a great deal of cleaning, moving, Caucasians, and sweating (I have taken a minimum of three showers a day).
I’m on a new medication that makes sleeping wild difficult, so I’m up right now cleaning and tying up some loose ends around my apartment before school starts. Anyway, I find this red, 80-page notebook that I’ve had since high school. It started out as my journal for Creative Writing senior year (Of course I would take Creative Writing. Of course I would skip like 60% of the classes. Of course I stopped skipping when we got a hot student teacher. *foghorn*), and then it turned into my notes on Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” for the same class, and then it turned into my Philosophy notebook during my freshman year in college, and finally, it became my Econ notebook for spring semester of freshman year. Somehow, I’d say that a third of it is still empty. Clearly, I took little to no notes ever. (I was asleep for 83% of all my classes in college. Weightlifting, my senior thesis seminar, and bowling class probably account for that conscious 17%.)
Anyway, there are some real gems in there that I’ll probably share, just because. But the real thing I wanted to point out is that I can’t believe I forgot about my alphabets! Back in the day, whenever I hit a wall while I was writing, I would just start writing an alphabet of random things. Sometimes I did “‘a’ is for…” type things, most times I just used the letters as a bullet point and wrote whatever came to mind. A lot of times it brought up a lot of stuff I wanted to think or write more about. So since I’ve hit a public writing wall, here goes:
a. I’ve had this stuffed bear since I was a kid — his name is Bear (obviously) — and he rode up to Madison with me. In the front seat. With a seatbelt on. *foghorn*
b. Sometimes, even when I don’t think I’ve committed a foul, I don’t contest foul calls because I don’t want the other team to think that I’m a bitch. I know that’s wild self-conscious. :/
c. So I’ve been feeling sick since about Cooler — a lot of congestion, difficulty breathing. Earlier this week, I started getting this riotous cough and a disgusting runny nose. It finally got to the point where I couldn’t even sleep without taking a few emergency puffs from my inhaler, so I gave in and went to the doctor two days ago. Apparently I have had pneumonia for the past two weeks. Doc said that my right lung is filled with all this shit, but my left lung is SO HEALTHY that I’ve been slogging through okay. You hear that, asthma? LEFT LUNG IS WILD HEALTHY. Also, Wisconsin’s UHS is way, waaaaay preferable to Illinois’ McKillMe.
d. I think that an accurate catchphrase for my entire summer leading up to right now is probably: “This is happening”. Also: *foghorn*. But that’s also accurate of my entire life.
e. I might be the only person I know who doesn’t hate going to the dentist (anymore). (Thirstball.)
f. Probably one of the biggest things I will always miss about being on a college ultimate team is literally ALWAYS having someone to work out or just toss with. *forever alone*
g. If I had to rank university gyms I’ve used, I think it would have to be:
- Illinois’ ARC *hearts in eyes* (REMEMBERWHENITOOKGRADUATIONPICTURESINMYCAPANDGOWNINTHEWEIGHTROOM? I’LLPROBABLYMISSYOUFOREVER ;____;)
- Stanford’s Arrillaga
- Illinois’ CRCE
- Wisconsin’s SERF
To be fair, I haven’t been to any of Wisconsin’s other facilities yet, so maybe they are secretly awesome and I just don’t know.
h. When I started grad school, I told myself that now was the time to figure out the person that I am outside of all the things that used to define me — sports, basketball, ultimate especially.
Fail.
I think I have brought those things up in almost every conversation I’ve had.
i. I have gotten approximately 18 asthma attacks a day from just walking or biking around Madison. OD hills, you guyz.
j. Remember when I was totally losing it about a certain Illinois soccer freshman about two years ago? Don’t worry, there’s still room on the bandwagon (~1 minute mark). #VDBFCP
k. I have been using my World’s totebag a lot recently, and then it hit me — I was in Japan. Shit. I haven’t even wrapped my head around the entire experience yet. Random memories and laughs and people will pop up in my head and it’ll make me smile and feel just some type of way, you know? I’m a really lucky kid.
l. Speaking of which, I miss Asia and all my friends who are living there. 🙁
m. A lot of the ones sent in are hit or miss, but when they hit they are hilarious.
n. I don’t miss dining hall food, but I miss eating in the dining halls.
o. Wearing my cleats feels real natural. Don’t get me wrong, I love taking them off after a tough game or a long day, but there’s something about the way I feel when I put them on. It’s like putting on a superhero cape. I feel faster *foghorn* and taller, even. (“I’m 6’4 in cleats.”)
p. Re: cleats, do people typically keep their cleats? I have a really tough time throwing away shoes — something about the places I’ve traveled to or been to in them, you know? It’s symbolic more than anything. I kept the shoes I ran my first marathon in, but I have actually thrown away every pair of old cleats I’ve ever owned, even the ones I played in at Nationals, in Hong Kong/China, etc. A lot of them were just really busted up and dirty beyond saving. I’m actually feeling really sad about that, after the fact. I’m either a major corny corn, or a secret hoarder.
q. Even though I’m not a coach anymore, I would love to continue coaching high school teams at some point. When I figure out what kind of workload I have for school and work, hopefully I can find a team that’ll have me and a way to fit it in my schedule. Anyway, the big news in U.S. soccer of late has been that Pia Sundhage will be stepping down. I’ve followed the team sporadically through major tournaments before, but I didn’t follow the team super closely until 2010 (when my family got a fancy TV and a fancy cable sports package). So I guess that means I don’t have a whole lot of knowledge about it, but everything I’ve read and heard about Sundhage has been really inspirational. She’s a little different from some of the other coaches that I admire and read about, but she’s someone I’d like to emulate. She talks a lot about appreciating the journey, and I dig that. That’s definitely something I’ve learned through the years of competing in various sports.
r. I always think/talk about how great it would be if I could get an Illinois reunion team together for a tournament, or even just some kind of alumni weekend where we could get together in Champaign and vomit at Staysh. Obviously, I’d love to hang out with all my friends, but I’m also really intrigued by the idea of getting together players that came before me and meeting them and hearing their stories. But babyamy brought up a great point: Would we all just get so wrapped up in hanging out with our friends, or would there be actual mixing and mingling across the years?
s. Will I ever stop missing Stanford? I mean, I’ll never not miss the people; that’s a given. But the place? How can I miss a place that I hardly even knew? How can I miss a place that I’ve lived in for maybe three and a half months total? And yet, I miss it all the time.
t. Do you know what makes me physically uncomfortable? When people out-and-out brag. Like, not even humblebrag, which is funny, but just straight up boast. It’s one thing to be proud of something or to even be confident, it’s a whole different thing to be cocky and boastful. Just, where do they do that at?
u. In case you all are wondering, that clinical strength Secret antiperspirant is working out decently well for me (other than the fact that it costs $10). I used to use Degree for Dudes, which stopped approx. 10% of my sweating, but it made me smell like a dude. This new Secret joint stops like 25% of my sweating and smells about 40% less dude! Sooooo did y’all need a spokesperson or…?
v. trollololol at this in my mailbox:
w. I’m really glad that Sarah Rosenwinkel, my best friend who was not killed on any of her most recent Craigslist trips across the country, who also has gone months without returning texts/e-mails/calls/etc., remembers that at some point in time in the last year, I was wild thirsty for someone who looks like a version of a pissed off ginger Santa Claus. *foghorn*
x. I was just thinking about how often I shower and wash my hands in real life, but when it comes to ultimate, I give not one unit of fuck about cleanliness. I am all caution to the wind about it, you know? Like, I’ll walk out of the port-a-potty, use a lil’ hand sanitizer, but then rub my hands on the ground and then put them in my pants (under or outside the compression shorts depends on the temperature) and then eat a handful of Cheez-its, you know? And then I snot rocket and rub my eyes and touch discs that at a minimum like 20 other people have touched and then I put on sunscreen and then I peel an orange and eat it. Then I’m like, oh, is it okay if I wear all these clothes again tomorrow without washing them? And can I just put off showering until after I eat, and also possibly after the entire weekend of playing? That would be most perf.
y. LISTEN, IS IT POSSIBLE TO SHARE HBO GO? BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE WHO PREFERABLY ALREADY HAS IT AND JUST WANTS TO LET ME USE IT BECAUSE THEY ARE A GOOD FRIEND. GAME OF THRONES MARATHON ON LABOR DAY. READINGS BE DAMNED!
z. This makes me feel warm inside. Excuse me while I use this photo to describe all my feelings of joy and contentment and warmth and wild corniness for the next eight months.
