ORANGE

...for Halloween, one of my favourite holidays, which I celebrated last night at the village parade. My coworkers and I went as the Spice Girls--yes, I was voted Sporty Spice. I'll never know if it was rugby, my 100% jeans & t-shirt work wardrobe, or the fact that the last time my hair was down was approximately a month ago...but I got to wear running shoes and track pants, so 10 points for comfort! We couldn't see the parade, so we started our own little concert and began singing and dancing in the street with randos...I love it!

...AND BLUE for beating the pants off Emerald City and Keystone to advance to the Final Four in Florida and defend the national title! 7 days till we go!

The weekend was so much fun, with two really great games by our badass senior side who played their hearts out, and a mixed NRU vs. Texas A&M Developmental game. NYRC only got to play the second half of the developmental game, but our goal was to make a positive impact and we did. Slitty organized a penalty play that led to our only try, Molly led the pack from the front row, R2 and JD switched back and forth between flanking and outside centre-ing (have you ever seen a 6'1" number 13??), and I had a blast playing fullback for the first time in ages--after all, kick & catch is my favourite game :)

Our Secret Agent-themed dinner Saturday night was hilarious, with everyone wearing all-black and wigs. It was my first NYRC team dinner, complete with everything I've been hearing about: Mira's Total Eclipse of the Heart performance, Hedwig's Walking in Memphis, a kangaroo court and rookie entertainment. I was charged for forgetting the jerseys at the field and had to perform a song about it (I'm dreaming of the white jerseys, to the tune of white christmas), and Twiggs did an interpretive dance of the struggle for ball control ("Give it to the backs! Keep it in the pack..."). Our skit was great, if I may say so--we had to keep to the Secret Agent theme, so we had JD being a spy from Beantown telling them secrets about various players as we acted them out. All in all, a great night.

But to completely break chronological order, I have to document the ridiculous beginning where Fontaine, R2 and I got stuck in Newark and then stranded overnight in Dallas (where I forgot my camera, sad!) before finally arriving in Austin. In numbers:

3 number of planes we had to switch between when they were delayed/broken
2 number of times R2 gazed mournfully out a plane window and intoned "man was not meant to fly"
2389793457 number of text messages exchanged between Fontaine, Frank, & Slitty about our travel issues
1 number of crazy drunk men we met


So we're sitting at our gate, having made it through security (where a woman saw the ball in R2's hands and exclaimed, "Hit a home run for me!") to find that our flight to Dallas is delayed. A man walks by, sees R2 holding the ball (she attracts a lot of attention, that one), and asks if she plays rugby. When she replies, he whips out his cell phone and calls his wife. The following is what I managed to scribble down during the call and the ensuing 90 minute conversation...

Man (on phone to wife): Dude, there's this girl in the airport, she plays rugby! She's gonna kick my ass! I'm gonna lose my teeth!...$%*&, and I stripped for security and they didn't even give me a dollar! They wouldn't even put it in my wallet, pants, pocket, nothin...bye I love you.
Man (to R2): You're tall. I can deal with tall people, cause I can still reach their necks. You reach the neck, you can kill em. It would be so frustrating to be dead like that, you know?

Man (to me): I can't talk to you yet, I'm saving you for last, you're too intimidating.
Fontaine: She's foreign.
Man: I love foreigners!!

Man (to Fontaine): You don't take no shots to the head, do ya? Yeah that's right, you're a thinker!
Man (pointing to rando young guy who clearly thought we were all nuts; in a Scottish Accent): YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE SCRUM! (rando young guy moves to a new seat)

(TV shows Chelsea Clinton, wearing this ugly black & white gingham dress)
Man: She looks like a picnic table! I wanna lay her horizontal and eat an egg salad sandwich off her waist! We could put a keg on her and a glass in her mouth like a cupholder!

It was the most entertaining flight delay I have ever experienced :)

Anyways, amazing weekend. I'll have pictures sometime soon...and I can't wait for Florida!

!!!!!!

Yesterday was busy so I didn't get a chance to post about this, but...On Tuesday night at practice, they announced the Senior Squad for the Sweet 16 in Austin this weekend, and I made the list!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I'm getting a little over-excited, since I most likely won't play (although they've arranged a Developmental game against Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon, which is awesome), but I can't help it and I'm psyched just to be there. I just never thought I'd play rugby after college, especially not with the legendary NYRC, so to be on the list for the Sweet 16 game is pretty much a dream. Thank goodness Jenni convinced me that the best thing I could do with that particular weekend was to go to Saranac!

I'm trying to listen to calming music--thanks to Jules for letting me steal it all!--in order to not be bouncing all over my cubicle, but it's not as effective as I thought it might be. Apparently Mat Kearney and Joshua Radin and Ben Harper are not enough to dampen my thoughts of sunny 78-degree Austin :)

Sooo the 3 hour meeting I'm about to have will probably be pretty interesting, seeing as I am still pretty wired and now also have Blake Shelton's song "Austin" stuck in my head...

Rocky Mountain High...

Found this test online and it seemed like fun for a Tuesday morning...very interesting results :)

Your Score: DENVER!

You scored 25% Style, 30% Climate, and 48% Culture!

You are Denver, Colorado. Denver is the largest city in Colorado, the state capital, and the seat of Denver County. It lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains at the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. Today, Denver is an important communications, transportation, manufacturing, and agribusiness hub. Telecommunications and biomedical technology are two of the largest industries; construction, real estate, and retail trade are among the fastest-growing industries. The city is also home to many environmental organizations, including federal government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hm, probably not very interesting to you since you're a little low on the 'culture' scale. You don't like heat much, and prefer cool weather and a landscape filled with majestic mountains. You may not be one for city life, and prefer a slower pace. You are sporty and adventurous, but not one to partake in typical 'higher class' activities, like the opera, and that's just fine. Not all culture is bad though, and you might even find that you enjoy a good play now and then if you give it a chance :)

Link: The Which Major U.S. City Are You? Test written by weeredII on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Getting psyched!

I've always loved the week leading up to a big game...it's the time when the excitement is building but hasn't yet become the pregame jitters of the night before, when I like to look back at the season and at past seasons for inspiration. So I've been re-reading some of the old emails from the PUWRFC listserv and found the link to this video, which was sent out right before the EPRU championships my freshman year (the year that West Chester did the haka before kickoff...so funny, especially when we dominated them). So I thought I'd post it, because:

a) I love to watch it

b) a blog page looks a little more like it could be work than youtube does, for anyone walking by my cubicle

c) I just figured out how to post videos :)

The only problem is that now I want to go run around, and I have to sit here for another 2 hours...

I Lived The Dream

It's so perfect that this weekend happened right as I was beginning this blog, because I want to commemorate it somehow.

I signed up to go to Vermont with the NYRC U19s as a coach/driver, which I was really excited about. A bunch of us met to pick up the 15 passenger vans early on Saturday morning before our Developmental game. However, because of paperwork issues etc, it took longer than we thought it would and a few of us had to rush down to Coney Island to make it to the game. I guess the combination of being late, warming up without my own gear, and not having breakfast doesn't work for me, because I'm pretty sure I played some of my worst rugby ever and I couldn't stop shaking. There were good moments (and we won 41-5), but I was holding onto the ball too long, kicking straight to opposing players, and missing conversions from dead centre. Ugh, bad news. I do really want to thank whoever (Maura?) made me the sweet kicking tee from the Dunkin Donuts cup though :)

Anyways, after the game we got the kids and headed upstate. The drive was gorgeous and so much fun--Mira and I had 12 high school boys and they were hilarious, singing along to random songs on the few radio stations in range in rural VT ("Quit Playing Games With my Heart" was particularly good) and starting a capella versions when all we could find was static (those boys did a great version of "Hit Me Baby One More time"!). There was also a great full-van dance party to Soulja Boy's "Crank That". The drive itself was good because it allowed me to clear my head of the game and focus on the road and on the beautiful foliage--now I understand why people do fall foliage tours! I thought the Princeton towpath was beautiful, but upstate NY and VT are another thing entirely...

On Sunday we ran a clinic for our U19s, a U19 boys team from Saranac, and the Southern Vermont College girls. AJ and I ran the kicking station, doing grubbers and up & unders, and then we had split backs/forwards to work on different skills. I think the clinic was great for the kids' development, and also for all of us coaches--I've never been able to grubber and after practicing it with the kids, it looks much better (though still not too pretty). It also led to one of my favourite quotes of the weekend--as Twiggs was explaining that for the backs drills, the boys & girls teams would work together, she very seriously stressed that the boys shouldn't feel superior: "Just because men are faster, that doesn't mean you are any better than women. Besides, I could school all of you!" She did add a "just kidding", but I think Mira, Rosie and I were laughing so hard no one else could hear it!

But the best part was during the lunch break, when Molly asked Rosie, Mira and I to play for the SVC girls. And not just any positions--they needed forwards. After giving us the once over, she assigned Mira and Rosie to PROP and ME to LOCK!!! Direct quote from Molly: "Hoop, you're too big to prop." I told her I wanted that in writing and signed so I could have it forever--I've taken crap about my size from teammates for years!

Of course we all jumped at the chance to play our fantasy rugby positions! (Literally--we were bouncing all over the field and it took a few minutes to calm down enough to actually learn what to do!) With about 10 minutes of scrumming and lineout practice under our belts and an expert prewrap/tape headband provided by Annie to keep my ears on, we were ready to go.

We played with only 1 pod in the lineouts, so Mira and Rosie and I (the Mod Pod) were it, with the two of them lifting me and getting full extension nearly every time. And scrumming was actually pretty fun when it went well--it was kind of cozy in there! However, after we had about 3459897 scrums, it wasn't so fun anymore... It was interesting to compare the forward & back perspectives. For a back, the reaction is usually something like, "oh man, I feel stupid for dropping that ball. Oh well, better catch my breath and set up on defense" :) As a forward...well, it was a little bit different. Every back should get the chance to really experience the consequences of a forward pass or knock on!

It was definitely one of the most fun games I've ever played, and I'm so happy to have gotten the chance. The whole weekend was a great time and I loved working with the kids, and getting to live out a rugby dream was the icing on the cake. So now I can check that off the life list, and look forward to demo-ing the Mod Pod lineout tonight at practice!

Welcome to the Jungle

So, after weeks of entertaining myself by reading other people's blogs, I've decided to start my own. Thanks for the inspiration, Lee, Fatty, Katie Mac, & Blondie! (Ooh links! Those are my webmaster skillz coming back into play :) )

It's going to be a random, random, experiment, but hey, so is my life right now. Hence the title--everything is in flux. But life wouldn't be fun without it, so I'm enjoying the ride! Hopefully articulating things onto this blog will help me be less indecisive and less prone to overanalysis...or not, we'll see. At least it will help me keep in touch with people I don't talk to enough for various reasons, and keep me entertained on slow days at work ;)

Readygo!