Celtic, Football, and school work - The end is near

After a week of struggling to finish one of my two final papers I took the majority of the weekend off. Friday was uneventful as I tried to get a start on my second paper and instead ended up finding 501 ways to procrastinate. (onemorelevel.com for those of you looking for something to do for the next umpteen hours)

Saturday was slightly more eventful as John and I took in our first 'football' experience. Now I am talking about European football known to those of North Americans as Soccer. John and I decided to go to a Celtic home game and watch them take on Inverness. We bought a couple Celtic scarfs and made our way out to Celtic Park in the East end of town. No joke, we must have been warned about the fans and about getting jumped after the game about 20 times before we ever actually made it there. A nice gentleman on the bus explained that we should go home the long way and walk around the area we came in through because if we were to walk back that way after the game there is a strong likely hood of not making it. We took note of that one and decided to find an alternate route home. The game itself was pretty good, not being an overly large soccer fan I don't think I got as into it as some of the people there. There were a lot of chants that I did not understand but I did manage to make out the few expletives that were thrown into everyone. I think the group of 4 twelve year olds sitting in front of us summed it up best when they began their "F*$% the rangers F*$% 'em all" chant at the end of the first half. Best part is the opposing team was not the rangers at all, but that doesn't change the crowds opinion of them. I worried mostly for the ref, or umpire, because after a few dodgy calls the crowd was not so kind to him. A Few death threats and the odd thrown object were all in good fun I am sure! All in all it was a great experience, one that nobody under the age of 18 should attend but great none the less. Celtic pulled off a 1-0 win so the crowd was in good spirits on the way home (Thankfully).
After the game John and I thought after making the trek back from the east end that we would get a bite to eat at one of the pubs in town. I might add that we had a few people yelling from cars but no confrontations on the way home, none until we got to the bar that it is. John and I were refused service and asked to leave because of the scarves we were wearing. My guess is she did not want a fight breaking out in her place between some North Americans who didn't know better and a couple die hard ranger fans, but either way we were tossed. So we stuffed the scarves into the sleeves of our coats and went to the next bar.

Sunday was football day, proper American football that is. We traveled back out to Paisley to play Caledonia University which is actually another school here in Glasgow. Not really sure why both teams had to travel to a pitch neither team call home, but either way we had a game to play. It was the second coldest day yet but mostly due to the moisture in the air and not the actual temperature. The moisture also helped make the pitch into a lovely mud swamp during pregame warm ups. I won't discuss the game much as I am not overly happy about the whole ordeal. The long and the short of it is that we lost 12-8, I had a few catches for a first down and some positive yardage, but I had a few more penalties and 2 missed tackles that pretty much cost us the game. The guys are more inclined to blame our running backs who dropped the ball 11 times and recovered it once, but either way the game was an utter disaster. We play our last game before Christmas break this Sunday and it is at home against Edinburgh. Not going to be an easy game but win or lose I hope we play better then we have been.

Both Hockey on Monday and Football practise today have been cancelled because the pitch is frozen and signs of winter are finally starting to show themselves here in Glasgow. I wrapped up my last essay of the year yesterday and now only have exam studying and essay revision before the end of another term. I have finally finished booking all the flights, buses, trains and hotels for Lisa's and my trip and am pumped and ready to get my wandering shoes back on. Until then I have to get back to studying and try to make it through these last finals.

I want to make note that the advent presents have begun and the first two both fall into the dorm room decorations category! The Christmas spirit is building!!

I will end on a quote I heard the other day that pertains to us flat broke students and it gave me something to think about and I hope it does the same for you.
"It doesn't cost anything to smile and you don't have to pay to laugh" - Author Unknown