I'm hilarious, yes, but I kid, really my apologies for taking so long and instead of blabbering on and on I'm going to split it up a bit.
So. My 5th week in Salukiville Part 1.
5 weeks?!?!??
I've been here for 41 days.
That's longer than Noah and his little animal friends all 2 by 2 lasted out on that Ark of his.
Feeling accomplished for making it this long? You betchya!
Ok so let's start with Monday.
The night before we had the first night of flag football. It went swimmingly. No matter how much I stressed, nothing really went wrong. Surprise! I stressed over nothing.
Monday was another night of IM's, but I've kind of been playing with this notion that I should join a club team. Yeah, that's technically my job, but what better way to meet other students and get some exercise? One of the girls in the office is the President of the club soccer team. She's really desperate for girls to play as the team lost a lot of seniors, people who dropped out of college to go to the community college and just really really REALLY low interest in soccer in this area.
Quick background*
Davis is like Soccer central. Soccer is a big deal to say the least. It's the only sport we offer at the IM department year round. The community has a huge soccer league for adults and children alike, and it's almost odd to hear people say that they didn't have some sort of experience playing soccer. Not to mention my best friends were either on the club or UCD soccer team. My roommate freshman year played soccer and the rest was history when it came to that sport. I was always around it, playing it, watching it, watching my friends play FIFA, playing FIFA and talking about it. I don't think there was a day I did not see a soccer ball.
And I never even played in high school. I almost did but because it was the same season as basketball, my coach for basketball was like, none of that, you're playing bball. Okie dokie, then, that's settled.
Back to Salukiville-
So she's down players and having to forfeit games due to numbers and not being able to field a team. So Monday night I go out to just check out their practice. Only 5 girls were out there. Yikes. So they didn't end up practicing at all and invited me out the next day. Ok.
(Also side note, I DID NOT have to present on Monday, therefore no Shark Feeding Frenzy for me!)
It's now Tuesday and I don't have school, just work. But I'm slightly stressing myself out again about soccer practice. No real experience, my IM team did win the championship at Davis my senior year but that's not REAL soccer. I don't even like to run that much, in fact I abhor it. But I do like soccer. A lot. It's grown on me throughout college and maybe because it was forced upon me but I wouldn't just play a sport I didn't enjoy.
But I am in grad school. I don't have a whole lot of skills. And girls can get nasty.
Case in point.
So ya. I'm nervous.
Tuesday night comes. I'm the first on the pitch, cleats on, ball and I'm ready but obviously not knowing what to do, or how to act. I'm that new girl all over again. The other girls show up and we have 10 total. They all start chatting and I'm obviously not going to be able to hide as there aren't that many people out there. They say hi, exchange names, etc. and then we start warming up.
We run and stretch and then do some drills.
And I can kinda hold my own.
After watching a few times of the drills being ran through I'm able to jump in and not totally screw it all up. It's pretty clear I'm nervous but it doesn't look like I've got the skills of a 5 yr. old. I can hang.
My touches aren't super stellar but by the end of the night when we started playing 4v4 it's starting to click. I even get confident enough to shoot. I take a pass off my thigh, one bounce and shot on goal. Lefty. And I scored.
I'm basically feeling like this on the inside
But on the outside, I'm like...
NBD, I do this all day, erryday.
At the end of the night, we were all super sweaty, and super tired but laughing and having a good time.
Gosh, did I miss that feeling so much! I haven't been on a team that practices and has the camaraderie like that since high school.
I can't make all of their practices because of night class (boooo) but I really am looking forward to just practicing with them when I can and maybe getting a few games in if I can manage. Since they aren't really a team since they don't have enough (tragic that soccer isn't a bigger deal) there aren't a whole lot of games, a few friendlies here and there but otherwise not too intense.
And that's how I ended up playing club soccer. I'm a Saluki soccer player. (To my friends and family who are probably like what the hell? Marissa doesn't play soccer?!? Is this a joke?? Ya well…SUCK IT)
BOOM BABY, that just happened.
After practice I went to the flag football field since it was close to where soccer was held just to check it out. I didn't plan on staying long but then I ended up talking to one of the Sups about my GA story. Y'all already got that spiel, but he was curious and wants to become a GA next year.
You know you're in a good field of work when you can talk through 3 flag football games about how much you like what you do. It was really nice to let him know about how I got where I am and where I want to go and he got the chance to explain more of the goings and doings at SIU.
After last week, when I was home sick and not really feeling like I needed to be here at SIU, it felt really good to talk about my goals, and what I want to do with the program. I want to make it better, I thought that's why I got hired. I'm not looking to changing it completely, no.. but I do think that I have good ideas to make it more efficient and just gradually more with the times. And not because my experience with Davis made me better than SIU, or that Davis is super duper in IM's, they have a good program but far from perfect. no, ask my mom, I vented to her ALL THE TIME about the things I didn't like or thought were way inefficient at Davis too. These are my own ideas, and I want to work with people and the staff here and figure out what they think too. I want to learn how to manage people better, and eventually get this thing to run itself. A good manager shouldn't have to be present to ensure everything runs smoothly, instead they shouldn't be there at all and KNOW that everything will work just fine without them.
That's my perspective at least.
So it's a work in progress and it's only been 41 days. I have like 689 more days left. But really.
Oh and a BIG thank you all for reading my blog! I just reached over 1200 page views! I FEEL SO LOVED! xoxox
To be continued!
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