What to Make of It

Yesterday we took on Christchurch High School Old Boys Rugby Football Club, or simply, Old Boys. They were the winners of the premier competition last year, and the club has produced several famous players like Andrew Mehrtens and Dan Carter. Our first side beat them handily to move to 2-0 on the season. MY team, however, had a more difficult day. Up 5-3 at the half, things went to the shitter as our lock Greg got his head stamped under a ruck by the biggest old boy of the lot. Our openside flanker "Scooby" took notice, and being Greg's brother, approached the lummox. The referee halted play with a sharp whistle, and the ensuing silence was punctuated by a loud clap. Standing overtop the now prone and quite unconscious beast was little Scooby with a face of fury. Standing with faces aghast ten meters away were Scooby's parents and fiance. Needless to say, my friend received a red card and we had 14 men in the second half. He'll be out for several weeks after judiciary.

Owing to the untimely departure, I had to come in to replace the flanker position rather than the wing, which I've been training at for the last two months. I haven't played flanker in over a year and proceeded to run about like a chicken with a whatever you know the analogy. Old Boys immediately exploited the extra space in the back line, and lit up several tries where they had no room before. We lost 30-5.

I was pretty unenthused with myself, and since everything went to shit after my substitution I got it in my head a bit that I had caused this massive route. I went to talk to my coach at the clubhouse later and asked what I should be studying, as it seemed I had as much chance of playing wing as anything else now. His response was "A spare part. Well, you can handle anything, your skills are good, and now that Scooby's on a little holiday we might be needing flankers and be full up on wings. I've got a couple DVDs you can study up on." I'm stuck seeing that the reality outside my skull is constantly different than what goes on inside it, and a crummy afternoon turned into a positive evening.

Later on I went out with my roommates to play some pool. A familiar face appeared before we got out the door, however. It was the kitten from the day before. So apparently this kitten thinks it lives in our house now. It's got a collar, so it's somebody's cat, but it's trying really hard to be adopted. As you could probably have guessed, the cat goes by several aliases, like Distant Planet Prisoner Kitten to, my personal favorite, Remedial Studies Kitten. In any case, the cat showed up just as were leaving and proceeded to follow us about a mile down the street toward the city center. We had to split up into two groups to take the cat back to our house so it wouldn't be run over by the street racers. And guess who just showed up again this morning? Yes, Remedial Studies Kitten did. Uh-huh. Yes he did. Awwwwww.

I saw Eric at the pool room, and he's doing much better. Several weeks ago Eric fell 20 meters into a glacier crevasse, landed on his head, and layed there for over an hour. After three or four days of in-and-out consciousness his parents flew from France to take him from the hospital. Apparently he still wakes up wondering where he is most mornings, but feels more like himself every day. That's like, you know, a mataphor for my whole existence, man. Dude rocks at pool.

I am excited about a lot of things. One of my coaches played Sevens rugby for New Zealand's national side, and said he would sit down with me and go over some strategy and drilling for our Guilford Alum squad's annual endeavor. The team already has more than the minimum number of players we need and we've started looking for and planning tournaments. I will also be seeing some old friends for almost three weeks in Washington state on my way home. A lot to think about.