Shiver, stop shivering

It’s turned awfully cold over the past couple of days, which is unfortunately a great reflection of the current mood of my life.

School is getting more demanding, as is music; the hockey season starts this week and our first game is tomorrow – and it’s not going to be easy. I don’t remember how I managed to wake up at 6am all season last year for training, and then for music practise, but it’s only the second week of term and it’s already difficult. On top of that, I’m currently dealing with a breakup, and it’s not been easy… at a mental war with myself over whether or not to go back and try it again; but as is obvious, I have little time, and everything is taking its toll on me.

In other matters, every year, I am reminded of what an issue having numerous, eclectic friends that have nothing to do with each other is. This is an especially prominent feature in the planning of my annual birthday parties – who to invite, and who to perhaps invite as a buddy so they don’t get bored. I’m friends with people from so many social groups – the bogans, the indie kids, school band geeks, the normal “mainstream” people, etc etc. What also doesn’t help is that I have a relatively small, cosy house, and being in New Zealand, the month of May is at the start of winter, which means it gets dark and cold at around 5 instead of 9-10pm. What a hassle. But it’s one that I will have to go through again this year, especially since it’s my 18th and all… it should be good.

The Kills

It’s actually 3rd period at the moment, but I just got home from school; the entire 1st and 2nd XI girls hockey teams have been excused for the rest of the day to play against St. Mary’s, a South African school’s touring teams. To be honest I’m actually nervous right now, upon hearing that they’ve played/are playing against schools like Kamo or Dio around Auckland, all of which are in the Auckland Secondary Schools A side that we play in, which means they’ll give us a pretty hard run.

I knocked someone out cold on tournament last Friday. Our team ended up coming 1st-equal after 3 round-robin games on Friday and Saturday, finishing nil-all in the finals against Baradene; I’m actually thoroughly diappointed and frustrated that we didn’t win outright. If they had done a countback we would’ve been declared the winning team – we had far more PC’s, and were completely undeafeated in the tournament, having already beaten them in our first game on Friday; not to mention we hadn’t conceded any goals all weekend.

I’ve always been on the receiving end of injuries – having my nose fractured by a hockey ball on my 15th birthday, having my face hit with a hockey ball on several occasions, being bashed elsewhere with hockey sticks and balls (I have a fresh bruise by my knee off a hit from our captain), etc etc – but I hadn’t been on the giving end of anything major, until now. To be fair, it wasn’t fully my fault, but it could’ve been avoided if either of us had done things differently. Basically, the girl had attempted to tackle me at about the 25, but missed, so I ran on with the ball to the 16/approaching top of the circle, saw a wide gap at the goal, went to take a hit and on the upswing – BAM! – I stopped cold. And froze. And she blacked out with blood oozing out of her head. You’re not supposed to stay running in someone’s blindspot after a failed tackle… you’re meant to go around and in front. I don’t know what she was thinking (obviously she wasn’t thinking), but as bad as I feel for having done that, I can’t possibly have known she was there; we’re taught – and it’s instinctive – to start swinging your stick for a shot at goal the minute you hit the 16 line on the run to the circle… I can’t imagine me checking my blindspot at the same time as I would if it were in my car.

Turns out she’s fine and was laughing but the end of the match, but I was completely stone cold for a good few hours.

The night before that was the best night I’ve had in a while – I’ve been bogged down by doing so much music practise and trying to keep up with my A Levels that I’m going insane – because THE KILLS were in town! We saw them live at the Transmission Room, which is a pretty cosy little venue, so it was completely sold out, and they were amazing.

Alison was so freaking sexy! I’d wondered how they’d pull off drums, and turns out they played to a pre-recorded track – but even then they were soo tight. Ahhhh I can’t get over how good it was. She reminds me of a wilder version of the character Alison off the movie Yes Man. Same hair, same music, same scene. Me in a few years’ time? Maybe. Hopefully.

I kind of believe in this “jinxing” business

Do you ever say “touch wood!” or “knock on wood” and touch something wooden when you tempt fate with statements such as “I’ve never been mugged” or “it looks like the rain’s holding off”? To me it also kind of relates to Murphys Law – ie: the one time that I didn’t check whether my house keys were in my bag, I ended up being locked out for two hours whilst sick, trying to not throw up on the back deck.

Anyway, during hockey* tournament on the weekend, we were all in the changing rooms putting our gear on ready for a team talk and our game. A few of my team mates were putting on their inner socks – they’re like tube socks with stirrups that go underneath shinguards – when I turned around to Hannah and said:
“Ooh, I’ve been meaning to get some, my shinguards get so grossly sweaty”
Hannah: “Yeah they’re great, and they stop shinguard rash too”
“What on earth is shinguard rash? I’ve never gotten it”

…whilst I usually say “touch wood” and the matter is laid to rest, it’s not to hard to guess that yes, indeed, I forgot to this time; six hours later after a nice long shower, I was curled up on the couch watching tv when I suddenly thought “what the heck is that nasty, stinging sensation on my leg?!”, only to look down and discover a huge patch of sore pink and red on my left leg, right where my shinguard was. I coated it with aloe vera and it improved somewhat. But the next time the same patch had returned… oozing blood this time :(.

*field hockey

2nd place looks like a tradition

I’ve been piled under stacks of music, paper, and for the past two days, lots of sweat and muscle pain. This weekend our school’s boys and girls 1st XI hockey teams played in the annual Massey Tournament held at Crown North Harbour Stadium. It was only a round robin competition, the boys winning the cup yesterday due to a lack of teams, and only having to beat 2 teams in the process, whilst we played three matches into this afternoon undefeated. Until our last match against Kristin College, we had only conceded one goal, and as we were the last game of the tournament, and the only two undefeated teams, it ended up being like a pseudo-final. The disappointing result was that we lost 2-0. The upside was that they didn’t score any field goals – it was an awfully tight game, and anyone merely watching, ignorant of the score would’ve had no idea who was winning. The fact that they only managed to score off penalty corners meant that we covered the field well, but our defensive PC was just a bit weak, especially with a young, inexperienced goalie, but that’s all room for improvement.

I don’t deal well with coming second. I think it’s so much harder than coming third – in a non-round-robin tournament with actual semis and finals, at least if you come third it means you won your last game? I guess there’s always the novelty of being in the finals… but still. This just feels like deja vu from Southern Skies in Australia last year – losing a long-fought, undefeated battle, settling for second… Someone said after our game today that “well 2nd place looks like a tradition for us” – but I’m unwilling to agree. I don’t want to play with that mindset hanging over me.

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