Baby it's Cold Outside

Hey hey all you beautiful people.

It's November. The month that's still considered fall. It's full of colored leaves, scarves, longer beards and turkeys.
When you think of 'November' do you think of 20 degrees and sleet (that's when it's raining ice)?
Well if you do, you're obviously a mid-westerner. Because I sure as hell DON'T.

It is so cold. So cold. We had an IM soccer game last night outside and it was 30 out. And people were like oh it's cold but it's not that bad. It gets worse. 30?!? Oh man heat wave! Careful you may start to sweat a bit and it'll freeze on ya but it's not that bad...Try taking a soccer ball to the thigh in the cold. I dare ya. It hurts and stings but then you realize you're basically numb from the cold so you know you should be hurting more but you're not and then you look down and you have an oddly octagonal shaped stamp on your thigh that's bright red. Fun stuff.

y'all are nuts. straight nuts out here. It is cold and this Cali girl can not hang.

I don't mind the cold normally. I ski and I like to layer my cute wintery clothes and wear my boots with my scarf and I'd normally take the cold over drastic heat any day. But not this type of cold. It's dry and the sun is out and there isn't any snow on the ground. Like come on at least be cold for a reason! If it's that cold at least give me something to play in and don't tease me with sunshine! I checked the temp this am on my phone in bed and it said 17.

When did I move to the NORTH FUQING POLE?

I was pretty much like…

Yeah…no I'm not getting out of bed unless you're the flipping Queen of England asking for my presence at Afternoon Tea. No. Just no.

And I should have just stayed in bed because today was a doozy. 

This whole week I should have stayed in bed, it's been a long week and we only had 4 real days.

Lemme start with Tuesday-I don't have class but I do work and after moving I had to get my water/electricity, etc. all set up. Oh boy. I feel like people who deal in customer service do have the worst jobs imaginable, dealing with irate customers all day would be less than stellar. But other times I'm like 'You asked for it.' 

I fully intended on being agreeable and just making a quick 'hey I moved please help me.' click click, sign, pay and on my way.

Oh ho ho no no no not so fast!

I walk in to the City of Carbondale and got this ray of sunshine. She basically looked like Roz from Monster's Inc.

Yikes. After about 45min of trying to explain that I can't possibly be the first person to move ever in the history of all people who live in C-dale, and signing my life away (seriously? it's water n electric. relax.) I get my apartment set up with water and electric. But here's the kicker. Roz put the order in to have someone manually come out and turn it all on for the next day. What? It's 9am, you can't just get me on the list for later today?
Nope. That's not protocol.
So I can't shower, can't see and I froze literally froze in my bed with 5 layers on, using clothes as blankets and I could see my breath in the morning. I showered at a friends but i should have just stayed the night too. Thanks, Roz, you're the best.

Onto Wednesday.
Wednesday I had a test and was not at all looking forward to it. It's my shark-feeding frenzy class where the professor just calls on us at random and literally eats us alive if we aren't ready or prepared from the readings. And I had a hunch that I'd probably be called on that day too.
And I was.
And was I prepared? Sorta. I didn't completely read that article (I read the other 5 but did he ask about those nooooo) but I tried to sound smart but I'm pretty sure I just sounded like that dumb blonde from California. Welp…somebody's gotta play the part.

Yeah, yeah they do. 

And then at work I found that a ton of teams for IM's are forfeiting. Why? Because it's too cold and we don't really have a way to penalize teams. If they forfeit twice they can't go to playoffs but most teams don't really mind that either. So we're caught in this Catch 22. We want to stop forfeits but if we discipline them then teams just drop anyway. Well…now what? Our numbers are down from last year, and we haven't been able to run 1/2 of the tourneys and leagues that we normally do because of the low turn outs.

On top of all that, we've been dealing with a scheduling nightmare with our online system and I am pretty much to blame. I don't know the system that well and I did something, pushed a button, marked the wrong check box, something bad and made it so that some soccer leagues got real screwed up. And we didn't know of the problem until after play resumed. So now it's really hard to go back and try to fix everything since it's already started. I totally take the blame, and we sorta were able to find a good compromise. But it was a learning experience and I got a talking to. I didn't ask questions and I just took too much initiative. I do have a problem with knowing when to ask for help, because I don't want to come off like I can't handle it or am incompetent. But then I do something wrong without knowing it and well, Ta-Da, I manage to pull a 'Marissa' and spend way too much time and energy fixing it when I should of just asked in the first place.

What happened? Am I cursed? Why is it that when I show up that it seems like all goes to the crapper? Ok the 2nd one, ya all me. I'll take the blame, I messed up, my b, sorry, won't happen again. 

But the rest? I'm new, and just learning and maybe word got out that this dumb blonde was coming to town and they were like 'We're out'. Some of our leagues have just failed miserably. Tennis for example…the champion won via forfeit. Forfeit really? They didn't even want to play the championship game?? And how do I even START trying to fix that?!?!?!

So I'm not really sure how or what to do so that we can get back on track. Because no one knows how we got off track. Should be a fun project…fudge-sticles.

The one up point of yesterday was that I registered to be a basketball official in the community. I'll mostly get middle school and lower level high school but I am so excited to get back into officiating. That's what started my passion for this field and I have missed it. A lot. Going over videos and case plays, I'm getting super excited but super nervous since I haven't officiated in so long. And I'm a head case, I get so nervous before games it's stupid. Really though, ask my dad, he absolutely HATES how I get because my confidence is pretty low when it comes down to it. I second guess everything and in officiating if you blow the whistle you better have a good reason cuz everyone is looking at YOU. and people don't like it when you go "Um…actually, I don't know, maybe uh…JUST KIDDING!" 

Ya that don't fly.

I've always been that way from every competitive game from middle school to high school to college IM games to coaching to reffing to class, group projects, tests, you name it. I'm weird. I'm way too competitive and I'm a thinker and I over think absolutely everything.

But what got me about officiating is that I get to watch my favorite sport from the best seat in the house. The floor. And I'm not just spectating (I'm sure all the officials out there just groaned a little) or really at all, I'm apart of the game, I'm there at every play, shot, pass, dribble. And if I'm good, I'm invisible. Every good game you've seen you don't even remember the ref, right? But every bad game it's always their fault, from a bad call, to a no call, to whatever it's a loveless deal.
But I love it.
And yes, I am nervous but also excited to get back into it. And I'll be making some money so that's always a plus too.

Tomorrow I leave for Louisville, KY to see my mom and my sister! Can't wait to visit them :)

To be continued!