Vignettes

So this post is to show off some of the smaller interesting things that have happened (and that I also had my camera available for).

Last week, my floor had a cupcake decorating party as a get together. We try to do something every Sunday. We have floor dinner every Sunday night, and most Sundays we have some sort of event planned.

The water pipe that leads to the fountain in Red Square broke, making a hole and dumping 40,000 gallons of water onto Red Square. I sadly forgot to get a picture of the hole once they got the water stopped, ah well. The pipe and brick is now all fixed but there is still sand in pockets over Red Square.

Western's first volleyball game. WWU v. CWU. Western won!
(same time as the broken water pipe)

On the way back from Fred Meyer Tanya and I spied a huge spider with a web full of bees. About half of the bees were still alive, trying to get out of the cocoon.

There are a lot of deer. I followed these two around for a while early one Saturday morning.

Mathes has a great view of the sun setting over Bellingham Bay. Sadly, my room faces campus but there are windows with great views in the hallways.

Since you probably can't tell, those black dots are ladybugs. This morning our room was really stuffy and didn't smell the best so I opened of of our small side windows. When I opened the curtains after finishing classes today there were ladybugs all over the window. Through several counts I guess there were about 15 inside, I have thus far trapped eight and gotten them outside and for now I can't find anymore. The rest are either in hiding or found their own way out.

Rugby and Judo

After much deliberation, I'm sticking with two sports for now: Rugby and Judo. This, as it happens, works out incredibly well with Judo on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Rugby on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (with the occasional Saturday thrown in there).

Rugby:
As you start to get the hang of one thing, you get thrown into the next. The past two practices we have split up into forwards and backs (I think that's what they're called). I'm a forward meaning that I go into the scrum - a big mob thing to get the ball when there is a turnover. There are eight people in each team's scrum I'm what is called a lock. My body size: tall and fairly skinny is well suited for this position. I would try to explain how a scrum is set up and what it does but I feel I would botch it and make everyone confused....so that's just going to have to wait for when next we meet.

Part of being a lock is that locks are generally also jumpers. Jumpers and lifters come into play when the ball goes out of bounds. the other team throws it back in and like in soccer or basketball both teams are working on claiming the bal once it's thrown. The jumpers are lifted into the air to try and get the ball. Today was the first time we practiced this aspect of the game. One thing I have been meaning to get for a while was some spandex shorts: they're just really good to have. And now that we are doing this I basicallt have to get some tomorrow. One of the ways to lift a person is by they're shorts so when they lift me they have to put their hands up my shorts around my waist band so there is a lot of thigh showing. Spandex makes it so I don't get as much of a wedgie and so my lifters don't have to put they're hands in my pants. More comfortablt for both sides.

a general rugby note: I'm exctied! On Saturday, most of the rugby team is driving down to Seattle (Magnuson Park) to participate in a clinic and meet the other college rugby teams from around the state. This is a really great opportunity because not only do we get to practice with other people with different styles, but the coaches are some fo the best in the country. One has coaches college rugby all over the country, and one used to be the coach for the US National Rugby team.

Judo:
Judo is way fun. I'm still only just beginning so essentially all that I do during most practices is fall. You have to fall before you can learn to do anything else. Part of falling is to slap your hand into the mat so that as much of the force of the fall is tken by your arms rather than your head or core (potentially damaging). In order to teach you this and to build up our arms the Sensei has all of us beginners just lay down and slap the mats as hard as we can. Eventually we work up to just running at our Sensei and being thrown: this is when you really learn if you're doing it right.

Knowing how to fall, while painful, is a necessary first step to learn any martial art. Also, many of the Senseis and older students have stories of when knowing how to fall saved them from serious injury, or in the case of one Sensei: death.

I apologize for not having much more interesting things to write about, most of what I have going on right now is school and sports. However, I would like to thank my Grandma, and Aunt Judy and Uncle Ken for their amazing care packages that I got today. THANK YOU!!

Rugby: It's even better than Ultimate Frisbee

So at the info-fair, a big event where clubs have tables to get people to sign up, I signed up to learn more about Flames WWU's rugby team. I have since gone to several practices and loved it! I'm still learning the rules (there are a lot of them and some are rather strange) but I am having so much fun! The girls on the team are friendly and even though we all don't know each other very well yet and are still learning names we all say "Hi!" to each other around campus. It didn't take very long at all to learn that while yes, rugby is a tough sport it's not crazy body slamming everywhere. Even though no pads are worn (excepting a mouth guard) I believe it to be considerably safer than football. We take much better care of ourselves and how we tackle than in football due to the fact we aren't so protected. In football people throw themselves every which way because they have a false sense of protection. In rugby there is a very specific way to tackle as well as fall, and it is practiced a lot to make sure it is done right.

Today there were several rugby games going on in Seattle and a few of us decided to go down and see one of the earlier ones. Four of us rookies went as well as 6 veterans. This was quite the learning experience for us rookies; none of us had seen a game before. As the game went on we were getting a play by play from the Vet's: rules that we hadn't learned yet, testing us on the positions names. A new thing that I learned was that at specific plays in the game when you need the throw a ball back in bounds you can lift a person up to try and grab the ball. I was told that I would be good at this position due to the fact I'm tall and skinny. I'm also apparently suited for a few other positions during other parts of the game due to the fact I'm tall.

I'll update more on the rules and the actual names of the positions and such once I begin to get a handle on them myself.

In other news... I went to the WWU volleyball game against Central today. WWU won!!! though I have to say I was a little ashamed at times to be from WWU the way some of the other participants were acting. Very unsportsman like...but we won!!