First, I would like to apologize for the large gap between this post and my last update. November has been an unforgiving month and with plenty of challenges.
Not long after my thumb was removed from its cast (roughly 9 days) I re-injured my back fairly badly; to the point where I could not stand up straight for nearly two whole days in a three day period. The injury occurred on the Monday morning that started my academic hell week. I was in severe pain through Wednesday night. That week I had two mid-terms, a project and a ten page paper all due, as well as, another mid-term and paper due the following Monday. Quite a lot to be done in an eight day period. But of course it gets better. Not only did I take both exams in major pain (the doctor said, and I agree, that sitting for long periods of time would be the most painful task), but I also have supervisor training for work that Friday night from 5-9pm (in addition to my normal 15 hour work week). But that's not all! I also had one of the last tournament of the year that weekend to really put a bind on all hope of doing well on the following Monday's exam and hindering all hope of finishing the paper.
Well, as it turned out I did fairly well on just about all my academic obligations from that eight day hell period. I got an A on my Sociology exam, an 86% on my Comm exam, a 100% on my ten pager, a 95% on my Comm paper, and still not sure about the other exam. So, too much work nor pain seems to be an issue for my academic achievement. But what about work?
The training for work went well. I have already been shadowing other supervisors for roughly 5 weeks now and I've covered shifts on my own, so I knew a lot from hands-on experience at this point. The training was more of background info, internal policies/procedures, and finding my leadership style and how to utilize it in the call center (that's the room where we take calls, hence the name). Not too much to expand on that front. And to round out my life's trifecta, Ultimate...
This was probably the worst overall. The tournament that we attended (Nov 8-9th) was the Yale Coffee Cup up in New Haven. First off, the weather was low 50's and rainy with wind. That is awful Frisbee weather. Also, we only had 9 players at this tourney and it takes 7 to field a line per team (line as in like the kick-off line in football). But two players were hurt and could not play (one of which was myself due to my back and the pain I had all week and another kid was also hurt and unavailable ). So we really had 7 players and no subs for one of the most rigorous sports activities ever conceived. So, or course I played just about every point the entire day. The good news - my back turned out to be fine. The bad news - I took a shoulder to my jaw that left me feeling like I was hit in the head with a sledgehammer. Luckily, this happened on what turned out to be the second to last play of the entire tournament for my team. Next play, my co-captain Greg hucked the disc (Huck = throw really far) to a tall kid on our team for the win. Unfortunately, that was our only win. We lost our first two games before that one. We did technically win our 4th game of the game, but on a forfeit. So, overall not a great tournament. So we decided due to low numbers and injuries to bag early and not even show up for our games on Sunday. But what about this past weekend....
The Rutgers Men's Ultimate Frisbee team traveled to Poolesville, MD for one of the biggest tournaments on the East Coast this past weekend (Nov 15-16th). I went in to the tournaments with high hopes seeing as it would be the last tourney on the Fall for my team. Unlike the previous tourney, we had plenty of healthy and hungry bodies in attendance. Due to what could be called a flawed ranking system, my team was placed into the 2nd highest "tier" out of four. The teams were put into a tier based on their rank (given by the UPA by their win-loss record dating back for months). However, we were ranked 2nd highest team in our tier, so I was excited to destroy some teams in our tier that thought they had a chance. And... we did just that! We went 3-0 the first day beating Catholic University, Carnegie Mellon, and Messiah (sorry Beth, but they beat us last year. Very nice guys though!). The next day we entered the championship bracket with a head start. The team were were to beat (I mean, play) did not show up. They knew better (hehe). So, instead we beat Catholic again in the quarter-finals (again, bad system that we had to play them again) and preceded to eliminate Shippensburg in Semis. Up next, the championship game! We played Dickinson College for all the glory! We lost. Boo! Bummer! They are a great team and just had enough to take the win and the championship away from us. We lost 15-9. Not a terrible loss, but not close enough for me to be totally satisfied.
Overall, I am incredibly proud of my team and what we have accomplished this Fall season. I am already dieing to get crackin on the Spring season (Spring is the legit season where winning really does mean everything). I have high hopes for the team and I think we have potential to really go places in the future (hopefully the near future before I graduate!)
Not long after my thumb was removed from its cast (roughly 9 days) I re-injured my back fairly badly; to the point where I could not stand up straight for nearly two whole days in a three day period. The injury occurred on the Monday morning that started my academic hell week. I was in severe pain through Wednesday night. That week I had two mid-terms, a project and a ten page paper all due, as well as, another mid-term and paper due the following Monday. Quite a lot to be done in an eight day period. But of course it gets better. Not only did I take both exams in major pain (the doctor said, and I agree, that sitting for long periods of time would be the most painful task), but I also have supervisor training for work that Friday night from 5-9pm (in addition to my normal 15 hour work week). But that's not all! I also had one of the last tournament of the year that weekend to really put a bind on all hope of doing well on the following Monday's exam and hindering all hope of finishing the paper.
Well, as it turned out I did fairly well on just about all my academic obligations from that eight day hell period. I got an A on my Sociology exam, an 86% on my Comm exam, a 100% on my ten pager, a 95% on my Comm paper, and still not sure about the other exam. So, too much work nor pain seems to be an issue for my academic achievement. But what about work?
The training for work went well. I have already been shadowing other supervisors for roughly 5 weeks now and I've covered shifts on my own, so I knew a lot from hands-on experience at this point. The training was more of background info, internal policies/procedures, and finding my leadership style and how to utilize it in the call center (that's the room where we take calls, hence the name). Not too much to expand on that front. And to round out my life's trifecta, Ultimate...
This was probably the worst overall. The tournament that we attended (Nov 8-9th) was the Yale Coffee Cup up in New Haven. First off, the weather was low 50's and rainy with wind. That is awful Frisbee weather. Also, we only had 9 players at this tourney and it takes 7 to field a line per team (line as in like the kick-off line in football). But two players were hurt and could not play (one of which was myself due to my back and the pain I had all week and another kid was also hurt and unavailable ). So we really had 7 players and no subs for one of the most rigorous sports activities ever conceived. So, or course I played just about every point the entire day. The good news - my back turned out to be fine. The bad news - I took a shoulder to my jaw that left me feeling like I was hit in the head with a sledgehammer. Luckily, this happened on what turned out to be the second to last play of the entire tournament for my team. Next play, my co-captain Greg hucked the disc (Huck = throw really far) to a tall kid on our team for the win. Unfortunately, that was our only win. We lost our first two games before that one. We did technically win our 4th game of the game, but on a forfeit. So, overall not a great tournament. So we decided due to low numbers and injuries to bag early and not even show up for our games on Sunday. But what about this past weekend....
The Rutgers Men's Ultimate Frisbee team traveled to Poolesville, MD for one of the biggest tournaments on the East Coast this past weekend (Nov 15-16th). I went in to the tournaments with high hopes seeing as it would be the last tourney on the Fall for my team. Unlike the previous tourney, we had plenty of healthy and hungry bodies in attendance. Due to what could be called a flawed ranking system, my team was placed into the 2nd highest "tier" out of four. The teams were put into a tier based on their rank (given by the UPA by their win-loss record dating back for months). However, we were ranked 2nd highest team in our tier, so I was excited to destroy some teams in our tier that thought they had a chance. And... we did just that! We went 3-0 the first day beating Catholic University, Carnegie Mellon, and Messiah (sorry Beth, but they beat us last year. Very nice guys though!). The next day we entered the championship bracket with a head start. The team were were to beat (I mean, play) did not show up. They knew better (hehe). So, instead we beat Catholic again in the quarter-finals (again, bad system that we had to play them again) and preceded to eliminate Shippensburg in Semis. Up next, the championship game! We played Dickinson College for all the glory! We lost. Boo! Bummer! They are a great team and just had enough to take the win and the championship away from us. We lost 15-9. Not a terrible loss, but not close enough for me to be totally satisfied.
Overall, I am incredibly proud of my team and what we have accomplished this Fall season. I am already dieing to get crackin on the Spring season (Spring is the legit season where winning really does mean everything). I have high hopes for the team and I think we have potential to really go places in the future (hopefully the near future before I graduate!)
Comments