MIA

When I first started this blog I was determined to update it daily and as a absolute minimum I was thinking every three days would suffice. Well I have neglected it for over a week now and the worst part is that outside of this weekend, I don't have any real reason for it. I will do my best to remember the days and throw together a brief overview.

Monday the 13th:
The sweet serenity of sleep! I am in the habit of taking Mondays for all they are worth and resting off the weekends events. Monday night I had hockey practise and learned that as a kid in Canada small things that are second nature to me, are absolutely mind boggling to others. I will explain. As a defenseman, I take part in what is called a short-corner. If the ball if knocked out, behind the goal, by the defending team the opposing team gets a short corner. The defense (4 players and one Goalie) start in the net and the forwards have 3 men on the attack line (approx. 15 yards out) and one on the goal line half way between the net and the corner. The offender passes the ball out to one of his three men which then turns and wires the ball as hard as he can on net. Two of the defenders jobs is to either rush the line and try to force a shot wide, or get their stick in the way. The other two defenders, (myself included) take a step up and out to protect the sides of the net (acting as other goalies really) and also clearing out the rebounds. About a half second prior to starting all this one of the forwards casually asks, "everyone got their shinnies right?" All the guys respond with an astounding, "of course, yeah, yep yep carry on," I kind of shrug and throw out a "uhh, nope, don't even own a pair." The uproar that followed this was incredible. The guys couldn't figure out if I was crazy, stupid, brave or just foreign. I laughed, told them not to worry about me and to just hit the ball. After years of bruising and battering my shins with road hockey and shinny I have become accustomed to it. In fact, Troy's favorite move to get by was to chip the ball between your legs and run around you, anytime he missed you were ether taking the "oh so soft" frozen orange ball in the legs, or his stick. None the less, after that practise a few of the guys have started bringing spare shin pads for me. And for the record, I was a magnet to stray shots after that point and still managed to finish practise unscathed.

Tuesday the 14th:
Start the day with a nice Law lecture to wake me up in the morning... As it turns out we have switched prof's and now have what is possibly the most characterless, drudging, monotone man I have ever had the misfortune to meet. And to make matters just a little bit worse, he is a repeater. So not only does he make you want to clean your ears with flaming q-tips, but he does it twice for every sentence! So to keep myself my awake I started counting the number of ceiling tiles in the room in an attempt to calculate the square footage of the lecture theater. When my neck became too sore from looking up, I started doing the Sudoku from the morning paper, after I had finished reading the comics and "did you know" section. Speaking of which, did you know that it is against the law in Scotland to splash a pedestrian while driving through a puddle and is punishable with a fine and suspension of license. Interesting law seeing as how the majority of this country is full of puddles the majority of the time. In the afternoon I had a meeting with my Exchange advisor to finalize everything class related and I realized how useless the exchange office at Dalhousie really is. Long story I won't bother with, but it is being worked out. I had football Tuesday night were we have begun learning actual plays and the coach gave me a cell phone for free and two pairs of cleats. One for turf and one for grass.

Wednesday the 15th:
The men's Hockey 1st Elevens had a match against Edinburgh which was well fought but ended in a 3-2 loss for our boys. It is very impressive to watch the guys that are that talented. A few of the guys play for Scotland and/or the UK and their control is impeccable. Otherwise, I got a little work done, caught up with some Law readings and prepped myself for Thursday.

Thursday the 16th:
A full day of classes starting with the wonderful world of Law.. again. Also managed to take care of a lot of errands like adding money to my cell, registering for hockey, finished the work for the law tutorial and then continued to wrap up another week of class. Had my first Law Tutorial which is really a large discussion about cases and how we fell they could be argued for or against. I enjoyed the discussion and some of the points raised, but I am not sure if it will assist in the exam prep or not. We shall wait and see. I had football again which was great but involved a lot of fitness. Then the night started with Chelsea's B-day celebration which saw two bars, loud music (some good, some not so much) the flow of alcohol, and a very very long walk home. Turns out that after 3am the buses do not run as frequently. So we cabbed as far as we could afford and then walked the last 3.5 miles.

I will end this part of the week here and continue on with a full scale report of the weekend to follow. Gives those of you who are reading a bit of a break and it makes me feel better about having two blogs for the week instead of just one.