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

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.

I was not a happy chappy when my manager rang and informed me that I was working 10am-6pm both Saturday and Sunday this weekend – especially since I had hardly been at school all week! Alas, I sucked it up and went to work yesterday, bracing myself for the inevitable headaches that were to strike – and strike they sure did! But surprisingly, at the end of the day I was feeling perfectly fine except for a case of exhaustion and exterme sore feet… where had the heavy-headedness gone?

Apparently, we’re all meant to wear badges with our names on them, but I never got issued one, so I ended up having to wear Sophie’s for the day yesterday. It felt bizarre, no one other than my co-workers had ever felt the need to address me with the use of my name, but once I was “Sophie”, it stuck. It got to the point where – and I kid you not – my classmate who’s been in my form class since year 9 (we’re year 13 now) came in for a coffee yesterday, to whom I was overtly friendly and said hi and all the standard things you say to someone who you’re supposed to know “pretty well”, and just ten minutes ago I logged into my gmail to discover andemail alerting me that she’s left me a message on facebook asking if it was indeed me that she saw at Columbus yesterday… merely because I was wearing someone else’s name tag. Surely, surely seeing me for a minimum of 30 minutes per day (for two years it was about 3-4hours), and actually being a semi-close acquaintaince of mine for the past 4 years and 3 weeks must mean something against the three-minute brief encounter at a cafe?

Another thing that I was pondering inbetween the countless cutlery sets I folded was – would it be better off doing a boring, quiet job sitting on your arse all day (because yes, sure you wouldn’t be exhausted, but my golly would the time pass slow), or would it be easier doing a fast-paced, hectic job like mine, except having to spend the whole day on your feet?