mostly volleyball

Yikes, it has been two workweeks and three weekends since my last post.

The day after my last post, I went to my old stomping grounds, the U of T athletic centre, to watch our senior boys play in a volleyball tournament. I even ate at BBQues for lunch. Watching them play was pretty fun. I don't think that they were happy with their results, but I know that they got a lot out of it. I ran into Jeff Chung, who is now the head coach of the U of T men's program, and Mark Dunn, who got roped into helping out. They both look great but it seemed to me that Jeff wasn't as fresh-faced as I remember him. Since we're pretty much the same age, I guess I'm not so fresh-faced anymore either.

Later in the week, Peter (head of Phys. Ed.) phoned up to the Physics office and got me to come down and scrimmage with him and the senior boys' team. Well, I haven't played for almost nine years. I was very nervous. Not so much about hurting myself as about embarrassing myself. and then I was embarrassed about feeling embarrassed. I didn't even want to warm up my hitting. The net is much higher than women's. I did manage to hit a ball or two, served in, and did some of great passing and digging - I was always a terrible passer, although I know that this is all in your head. The boys were very supportive, congratulating me on cracking a ball or two and on stuff-blocking Matthew Lezon. That was very rewarding. Terrific fun. Maybe I'll go back and find a way to play again. Or maybe just coaching is enough.

That night I went out for dinner with Rob, Rebecca, and Kevin before they went out for a movie. That's all I remember from that weekend. I don't remember anything from the next weekend either.

This past week, we had our first league games. Our record is 0-2 but I think that we've played well anyway. I'm quite pleased with how a couple of things are progressing. We miss VERY few serves. We probably served out five or six times in six close sets, that is, about 120 serves. And they usually play aggressively - almost always trying for three contacts but sometimes hoping that the serve goes to someone else.

I went with a friend from school, Beth, the other half of Phys. Ed., to her cottage this weekend. It was glorious weather and I enjoyed myself immensely. I even like her dogs, both beagles. I really do. Keleb is an older mellow guy and Sheba a younger hyper gal. We chatted and read and played some Scrabble. We played two games and Peter tells me I was rude for beating her twice at her own cottage. The first game was close till I got "zest" on the triple word score with a valuable cross-word, "sharks" also. Then, as luck would have it, I bingoed on my first turn of the second match. I suggest we start over because "thunders", across two double-words, gave me 98 points. Probably my highest score ever. Beth didn't want to start over though. Not surprisingly, I won but surprisingly, I have been invited back.

BOOKS. I have finished The Big Bang. I definitely recommend it to people interested in science in general or physics in particular. I signed out The Catcher in the Rye from the library and finished it on the weekend. I definitely enjoyed it although I wouldn't put it in my top 10. It's a good pick though because it's a well-known work (cultural currency) and it's a short, easy read. The edition I read had about 270 pages. I picked it because it was mentioned by my dentist on Thursday.

TV. I was irritated with CTV for moving So You Think You Can Dance to Saturday. So, of course I missed it. I'm going to go check the website right now to find out what happened. Whoa. Kamilah gone, sure, but Blake gone! Surprising. As I said on Becky's blog: Jamile's solos may be to-die-for, but even his hip-hop partner dancing isn't great and anything else is mediocre, at best. He should have gone home a long time ago. I guess Nick and Blake split the vote for the guy who can actually dance the best.