Updates from the start of the school year

Well, another school year has started and this means, a couple hundred new students who are completely enthralled with a) my blonde hair, b) my eyes which are green/gray/brown with gold flecks, c) my long eyelashes, d) my height or e) my extremely good grasp of English and ability to type English quickly on a keyboard.

This also means that I get a round of introduction lessons and a pretty painless first two weeks of school. My grade threes are creating facebook accounts and joining class groups so I can send out class information and extra credit opportunities to the students to use English in fun ways outside of the classroom. Hopefully there will be enough participation to do scavenger hunts, crosswords, video game quizzes, etc.

My grade one and twos will be making name cards this week. This of course means we get to do a whole bunch  introductions and I get to learn lots of ridiculous things about my students. For example, a grade two student (this is a girl who is 14 years old mind you), wrote, "My dream is to be a femme fatale." Legitimately, that's what she wrote. As her future job goal. Ridiculous.

My grade ones are adorable and love me and today I got some gifts from my students: a Hello Kitty pen and some really really really sexy Taeyang stickers. SCORE.

Frisbee practice has started up and it looks like we're going pretty hard this year with practicing and stuff. It's gonna be intense me thinks... Track workouts, strategy meetings, all sorts of fun stuff to keep me super busy.

And my babies survived their first few weeks at home TOGETHER without mommy. Nova barely escaped death once when Baram decided to push a bath gift set box (containing a full bottle of body wash and a full bottle of body lotion) off a table and onto Nova's leg. Luckily I was home to hear Nova's howl of pain and I cared for him while scolding Baram who thought that immediately after doing this, with Nova walking around on just three legs, it was the perfect time to play fight with Nova. I had to keep them separate as little Nova kept crying and I was so worried. But the next morning (it was about 11pm when it happened, and no emergency clinics to be found) he was hopping all around everywhere and attacking Baram with as much playful energy as he had been before the injury. So everything seems to be all fine now. But, he's got a vet appointment to get his shots next week and I'll be double checking with the doc to verify everything is all clear.

That's it for now.

xoxo
A

Blah.

My fall league is on this annoying losing streak. Also, I'm kind of sucking.

I have to go to the gym tomorrow. And I want to buy this Em Polham sweater, and a coach bag, and some other things. And I have to wire transfer some money back home.

Most important is wire transfer. Then gym. Then shopping.

I have have have have have to lose 6-7 kilos (for my non-metric friends and readers, that 13.2-15.4 lbs). I'm not setting a time goal because usually that just serves to either discourage or make for an unhealthy goal. I need encouragement on this goal. I don't just want to lose weight, I want get back in shape. I remember junior, senior years of high school and freshman, sophomore years of university and I LONG for that. I felt so healthy.

Shanghai China Day 2

Well, I figured it's time for me to actually talk about ultimate now.

The tournament seemed to be relatively well run and organized. One note I'd like to make about my experiences with Asian Ultimate Frisbee tournaments: they are significantly more expensive than American tournaments. You may wonder, "why are they so much more expensive in Asia if Asia is SO much cheaper than the States?" Well the answer, my friend, is double-sided.

1. Cost of field space. In the U.S. generally speaking, it is not terribly difficult to find space for 5, 10, 15, or ever 20 teams to play. There are, of course exceptions to this rule: NYC, LA, etc. But most average college campuses have enough field space to host at least 8 teams, often many more (see: College Southerns, UF's Florida Winter Classic, and NCState's wolfpack, all usually held on campus and hosting between 10 and 36 teams). In Asia, any city that is easily accesible by air (a necessity as ultimate in asia is still relatively small and hasn't penetrated beyond the largest, ex-pat laden cities throughout most of Asia) has almost now green space whatsoever. Look at Seoul for example: our team can barely find a space big enough for a single field twice per week for our practices and our small 4-team league.

2. Amenities. At a standard U.S. tournament, you will receive maybe 6-8 games, depending on performance, bagels in the morning with peanut butter, water at the fields, and one party Saturday night which consists of x number of kegs. At a standard Asian tournament you will receive a disc (and often a swag bag like I did at Bangkok hatter and Jeju-- t-shirts, water bottle, stickers, lotion, sunscreen, power powders, etc), bagels/peanut butter in the morning, a lunch on Saturday and Sunday (always quite tasty and plenty filling), Dinner on Saturday, a registration party Friday night, water during play, 6-8 games, a tournament party Saturday night (typically with all you can drink beer... sometimes more, see later Shanghai), and beer up the ass during the day at the fields. All in all, the extra 20-40 dollars I pay for the tournament fee covers every last penny I might spend at the tournament and thereby helps me to actually save money instead of spend it.

bekah and I sure are glad we didn't have to worry about food

Anyways, Shanghai was well run. The fields were nice, albeit cut a bit short and therefore a bit dead-ish and scratchy. We had 4 games on Saturday. We played Singapore Disc Knights first. We won 11-7 or so. Then we played Shanghai-B, which we won 11-1. Then we played Hong Kong, our first true test, where we won in a hard fought game 11-8 or 9. Then we played the Philippines, Sunken Pleasure.

A note about ultimate in the Philippines: Manila has probably the single best ultimate scene in Asia. The sport is exploding in popularity due to various celebrities (news anchors, models, actors) playing the sport competitively. One girl who plays for the Team Philippines is sponsored by Nike, which is possibly the tightest thing ever. Another guy is an actor and lives in a mansion on the side of an inactive volcano. Additionally, almost all the people who play in Manila are Filipinos, which is impressive as the majority of the Asian ultimate community is ex-pat.

The Philippines team was good. They were REALLY REALLY fast. We played this team in Manila in November and got wrecked because they were so much faster. However, this year our team was greatly improved, with all of our best players present, and we won the game 11-7 or so.

Because we won our pool, we got a first-round bye the next morning, which was awesome.

Saturday night we went to the party extremely briefly because it kind of sucked. However, it should be noted that each team received two bottles of liquor (vodka and whiskey). Plus unlimited beer. Our team didn't really use hardly any of our supply. Instead, we went out and walked around a bit through the fancy shopping district near the party. Chanel, Coach, Ferragamo, Fendi. I was in 7th heaven. I just wanted to buy everything.

HELLLLL YES!

SHANGHAI TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!

대한민국!!

Holy crap, it's so exciting.

Details to come tomorrow. Maybe pictures (not from the tournament).