Bryan Adams and a Scottish Celebration!

Midweek update! I know it is rare but it has been an exciting couple of days so here we go. Monday I set up camp down at the SECC (Scotland Exhibition and Conference Center) to see Bryan Adams sing his heart out to a crowd for 50,000. I was originally a little worried about this event because I was going down with another Canadian who lives in this building who I am really not a big fan of, and I am not a die hard Bryan Adams fan. But none the less there we where, 4 hours ahead of time, sitting and waiting. We made the best of it and had a pizza delivered to us in line and made some friends with the family in line ahead of us. I was decked out in 100% Canadian garb, including a Team Canada jersey (courtesy of my big bro) and a Canadian bandanna.

Story of the night:
The band that opened for Bryan was called Black Daniels and they were a little rock, a little punk and something else I just can't put my finger on. Anyways, they were alright but really, 50 thousand people were waiting to see Mr. Adams, not these guys. Correction, 49,998 people were waiting for Adam. I made a decision to be the biggest Black Daniels fan that band had ever seen. So every time there was a split second where the crowd started to quite, I would start to yell "WE LOVE BLACK DANIEL!!!!!!!" or "CANADA LOVES YOU GUYS!!!" and the band responded very well. I managed to be so over the top excited I got the guy standing next to me in on it as well. So together we would learn the chorus of these songs and then belt it out at high volumes and/or respond to the lyrics any way we could. The band was happy and I had everyone around either crying from laughter, or jumping around with the band! It was great times, and if anyone has the opportunity to see Black Daniel live, I highly recommend it. As a side note, I also had two "friendly" women (one admitted she was 46 and the other claimed she was 34 - not bloody likely) ask me "How dedicated are you to your girlfriend?" Oh those Bryan Adam's fans, so crazy!

The show was amazing and Bryan put on one of the best live performances I have ever seen. I would throw it up there in my top three along with The Hip and The Stones. No particular order other than the Stones still hold number 1.

Tuesday morning I was awoken by my door getting kicked in and my entire corridor plus a few others from around the building parading into my room singing Happy Birthday and exploding confetti poppers everywhere. They then presented me with an arm load of gifts and showed me what they had done that morning. Which was decorate the hall from top to bottom, end to end with streamers, banners, balloons, confetti strings, and hand drawn pictures. It was incredible! I have no other word for it, absolutely incredible! The previously mentioned gifts included: a "Motor Mechanic Madness" game, "Fishing for Fun" game, "Table Top Air Hockey" game, a case of Glasgow brewed Tennents beer, and t-shirt which they had specially made for me that reads

TRY ME

LOVE ME

GUARANTEED

and on the back it has a peanut butter jar and the words ASDA PEANUT BUTTER. This spawned from a random comment I made about a month ago when I found a half decent jar of peanut butter and laughed at their guarantee. I noted that it would make a great line for a t-shirt. Fantastic neighbours I have!

To top off my b-day I received gifts from Lisa which arrived perfectly on time and have now supplied me with hours upon hours of procrastination material and gifts from family members across the globe. Thank you to all of you, it means a lot to be able to celebrate a birthday an oceans width away from home and still feel as though family and friends are here!

The celebrations continued into the night and although I didn't wind up in Mexico like Colin had hoped, there was talks of headed to Ireland. The booze ran fast and furiously and I even made it to work the next morning.

Which brings me to today and my first day of work. I got a job doing some marketing for a computer company downtown. It is not hard work and it mostly involves increasing foot traffic through the store, but I had a good time doing it and it pays pretty well, so no major complaints just yet. That took the majority of my day and I am going to spend the rest of tonight trying desperately to get some work done that I really want to have finished prior to the weekend.

I am heading to Lancaster England tomorrow and will be returning Sunday sometime. Looking forward to seeing another new part of the world and thinking I might try to make it out to the Isle of Mann on Sat. Always something new!

Another week down and a turkey in the bag!

It was a quite but productive week here in Glasgow! As the rain has kept up for the past 18 days it has caused me to crack down and actually do some work. Believe it or not, I managed to read a few articles and get my school life in order. I also managed to get a job doing some marketing for a computer store near the university. Helps to have friends in management positions! My new boss is also my current Football coach so the interview was rather informal. We spent the majority of the time talking about a one handed catch I had made at last practise. None the less I start Wednesday and it pays pretty well, which will be extremely helpful once I am done classes and get to travel some more.

This week in sports I continued my regular routine with both hockey and football. All practises went well this week with no major injuries to report. We had our first away hockey game on Sat. in which we travelled to Ayr to take on the number one team. Although it is early in the season they were undefeated with 3 straight wins and were a dominate team last year. In torrential downpours we managed a 4-1 upset and I didn't even take any penalties. Although when our team was warned of "our aggression" by the officials I took a few looks from the guys.

Friday night I went out with the Canadian coaching staff from football and we celebrated the all Canadian group with a large amount of Canadian Club. The night ended roughly and all I need to write is that I am happy it was raining so that most of the mess washed away.

Saturday night after hockey I caught a ride back from Ayr and after a minor near death experience I went for a fantastic Turkey Dinner with about 15 guys from the Football team. It was first decided by those of us from North America that we were going to have a thanksgiving somewhere between Canadian and American thanksgivings. Once word got out a lot of the other guys wanted to know what Thanksgiving was all about so we made it a team gathering. It was fantastic! One of the best feelings in the world is a home cooked meal when your a few thousand kilometers from home. Craziest thing I have seen in a while was on the way home from Thanksgiving last night. It has been raining here for a couple weeks now but mostly intermittent showers. Yesterday we had a full on downpour for the majority of the day on top of the accumulation of water over the past while. Well it proved to be too much as a good portion of the city flooded. The river has flooded as have many of the streets. Outside of our residence there is a 4 lane major road that runs direct into and out of the city center. It wasn't there last night. Instead it was one large lake, as deep as three feet or so in some parts, that covered all 4 lanes and the median between. Cars had to drive up on the curb in order to not submerge the exhaust or parts of the rad. I saw a guy on a motorcycle pull his feet up on top of his gas tank and roll through and the "puddle." The water was over his exhaust in the middle and the bike was smoking all over. Last night the city had to come and pump out as much of the puddle as possible. In a city where it rains as much as here, I would expect them to have a better drainage system.

Today was spent lounging. I watched a few episodes of 'Heroes', my new addiction of a TV show, and am trying to go over my playbook for football. I am going to get a little work done for this weeks classes and hope to get through some more of my readings tonight.

The week ahead promises to be busy with a Bryan Adams concert tomorrow, my b-day on Tuesday, work starting Wednesday and I am heading to England on Thursday night or Friday morning. The weeks are just flying by and I am looking forward to them all.

Weekend at Bernies. (Not really, but Mom Was here!)

Having a four day weekend every weekend is spectacular! The only thing to make it better is having visitors. My mom, who is over visiting my aunt, was able to drop in for a few days this weekend and take in the sights with me. To continue from the previous post, I will continue with my day to day activities.

Friday the 17th:
Mom's arrival at Glasgow was at 11:45 and rather than forcing my own mother to take the bus with all her luggage I had arranged for a friend of mine to drive me out to the airport to meet mom as she stepped off the plane. No problem, I was informed that it is about a 2o minute drive from here to the Airport. So I figured we could leave around 11:15 to give us plenty of time. Well it would have been plenty of time providing we had not driven the opposite direction for the first 15 minutes. With no decent map, a satellite navigation that didn't show the Glasgow airport, and a set of hand written directions copied from map quest, one might say we were floating down shit creek with the paddles still on the dock. So after asking for directions, finding the correct highway and some driving which I refer to as "401 style" (this form of driving doesn't) use the brake, so much as just weave through traffic) we did collect mom only a few minutes late. We also then got lost on the way home, but used it as an excuse to show mom the other side of the city. In the afternoon mom and I walked around campus, took in the Kelvingrove Museum, and had a great dinner at Curlers pub on Byers rd.

Saturday the 18th:
A very early start to the day had Mom and I out and about wandering the shopping district of Glasgow downtown. We had a "Scottish Breakfast" complete with, potato scones, sausage, blood pudding, eggs, toast, and something else but I can't remember. We were able to see George Square just prior to hopping the Clockwork Orange (subway) back to the west end. I had a hockey game in the afternoon which we demoralized the opposition with a score of 5-1. And I am proud to say that the one goal they scored was at the end once I had subbed off. After 18 years of watching countless ice hockey games and telling me to not fight and to be careful, mom has now witnessed a field hockey game. I was hoping that the game would be a little more gentle so mom would not have to worry, I was wrong. Within the first 10 minutes of being on the pitch I had a 45 year old man challenge me to a fight, and crosscheck me in the chest repeatedly. I also had the pleasure of him driving his stick into my gut shortly there after. Just so everyone is clean on this, I did not actually instigate this event. And both my team and the few spectators are witness to that. This guy just didn't like the fact that I was playing man to man defense on him the entire game. So he told me to stop or he would hurt me. I laughed at him and kindly asked if I was just threatened by a grandfather. Understandably, he got upset and started pushing and telling me he was going to hurt me. I responded by smiling, laughing and responding by asking him if men's hockey was his big money maker for the support payments I was sure he was paying. I was then crosschecked in the chest. I laughed again and calmly told him that it was not in his best interest to scrap. Few more crosschecks and some poor language. I told him not to get too worked up cause we didn't have any oxygen tanks on the bench and I didn't want to see him collapse. Stick to the gut. I told him how cute that was and if his daughter had taught him that little trick. He finally gave up and switched positions with some kid who looked about 16. The kid was great, no harmful play for the rest of the game and he was actually able to fill me in on a few more rules. As it turns out the old guy is one of the best strikers in the league and doesn't not take kindly to defense playing that close to him. None the less, I am sure we will meet up later this season.
Sat. night mom and I went out to celebrate my birthday (A little early but while she was here). After walking out on one restaurant, we found a great little place upstairs of one of the pubs on Byers. I have never sat inside a restaurant for so long in my life. I never noticed it at the time, the food was great and it was not as if the service was slow. It was actually better than most places. But just shy of 4 hours later, we left.

Sunday the 19th:
Another early morning to catch the bus south to Ayrshire so we could revisit Culzean Castle. Mom had never been and it is so big and so impressive that I thought it would be nice to return to. I slept for most of the bus ride down, though mom said it was very nice. The castle is great the grounds are amazing but the weather just does not want to co-operate when I am there. Two for two now, the downpour while we visited the castle was horrendous. You couldn't use the umbrella for the speed of the wind, and the raincoat only covers your upper body and where all the water runs off leaves nice sopping circles on your upper legs. So we didn't really wander the grounds much and instead had a Hot Chocolate before making a mad dash for the bus back.

After a night in with Pizza, mom gave me some gifts from the Family to further celebrate my B-day. I received some wonderful cards and gifts that will help me while I am over here and while I am traveling after school is over. I was given an amazing pair of Binoculars, Multi-tool, an Internet phone-kit and financial aid to help get me around.
And to top it all off, Mom gave me a package that holds "a few small items" that are meant for Christmas and that I can't open till then. So temptation now lives in my closet.

Monday the 20th - Today:
After getting mom sent off to the airport at about sunrise, I crashed, lay in bed all day. Worst part was I couldn't sleep for a while so I ended up watching TV on my Computer and then snoozing all afternoon. So I did not get as much work done as I would have liked, but there is always tomorrow. Tonight I had hockey practise and am enjoying them more and more as I pick up a few more of the skills involved. Looking forward to the match this weekend as the team Captain is going to give me a better stick to use which makes a massive difference from the piece of lumber I have now. The reason I need a new one is that I managed to break the handle of the one they gave me (these sticks are solid wood which is then lacquered and wrapped in fiberglass). It was a really old one anyway and was just a practise stick that was owned by the club.

Tomorrow I have a few classes and a lot of readings from Finance and Law to do. Football tomorrow night which should be interesting because I missed the three hour practise on Sunday. So I should also probably know all the plays for tomorrow, which is not going to happen.

As lengthy as that was I think I am all caught up now.

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.

Ancient Rocks and the Pub of my Dreams

I have come to the conclusion that Archeology is not a real subject. Instead, it is completely made up and speculated upon so that someone somewhere can write a book and feel important. Saturday was my archeology field trip in which I traveled to Kilmartin Glen on the west coast of Scotland, about 2 hours north of Glasgow. It was an absolutely gorgeous place filled with a thousand shades of green, 5000 year old cairns, standing stones and a village of around 60 people plunked down in the midst of it all. Although it was interesting listening to my prof and TA's talk about what they believe all this was used for in 3000BC, I can't help but continue to think that there is no way of knowing and it could have been just as much of a ancient burial sight as it was a bunch of kids messing about. Over the years I have built some random things and if someone is studying it 5000 years from now, I hope they are not thinking that I was living in that fort that Colin and I built at the cottage. None the less the trip was great, I was able to take some magnificent photos despite the periodic rain, and the women in the cafe made me a spectacular bagged lunch, complete with two roast beef sandwiches, crisps, fruit, yogurt, granola bars, and a couple bottled waters. Sat night I tried to do some reading which I am quickly falling behind in and am madly trying to catch up. I refuse to buy books this late in my educational career so instead I borrowed one from the campus library. Some people might not think this is a big deal but I assure you this is epic! In my 2.5 years of Confederation and the previous 3 years at Dal I have never once taken a book out of the library. I actually only set foot in Confed's library once and it was simply to retrieve a class mate so we could go play hockey. I have studied a few times at Dal's but still have never signed anything out. So for the first time since I was a child, I signed out a book. "Scots Law, A students guide, 2nd edition." I can't see myself reading the 741 pages within, but the chapter summaries have been a great aid! I should be caught up in no time.

Today I continued to read and actually feel like progress is being made! I know it sounds crazy, but this whole reading thing might actually pan out for the best. Otherwise I had football practise, which was the same old stuff, and went to a pub that shows North American sports on half the TV's and European sports on the other half. So I took in a period and a half of the LA vs San Jose hockey game as well as some much needed highlights, and I watched the Packers demoralize the Seahawks before leaving shortly into the 4th. This was the first NHL I have seen since last years Stanly Cup final and, for someone who has spent the last 5 years going to bed every night watching a game or highlights, it was very, very much needed! I am now trying to gather a crew who will go watch a double header with me on a Sat night when I know the Canadian Teams are playing.

The only negative part of the weekend is that a little piece of me died today. I listened to the new "Hockey Night in Canada" theme song, which was unveiled last night, and I almost cried. I am not happy about this and if given the opportunity I would like to crank whoever the SOB that decided 500 bucks a game was too much, right in face. I tried explaining it to a few English/Scots that I grew up listening to the true HNIC theme song and that it meant almost as much as my National Anthem but they just couldn't understand. So I have made a decision, I am going to mute the start of every CBC game I watch, and play the old version on my Ipod instead. They can play their new version, but I don't have to listen to it. The worst part is that it is not terrible, I mean I am glad they put some pipes in there, but that's not the point. The point is that it is not the true one, the real one. On more that one occasion I have started humming the real HNIC anthem and have been joined by countless other people. It unites our country and I am ashamed that one of our own would sell us out like that. Anyways, that's my rant, I wont have to deal with this new song for another few months anyways.

Start of another week, no major plans other than to try to get all caught up, the start of Law tutorials, and I might try to get in a game of golf before the weather drops to much more. Mom is here for next weekend so I hope the weather holds then and we can get in a few day trips. Looking forward to it all, everyday is a good day!

Bloodsports and Catching Zzz's

After so many weeks of keeping busy and seeing as much as possible, it has been a very quite week. Hockey on Monday night, football on Tuesday and Thursday, a few classes on Tuesday, a few more on Thursday and one tonight. Hockey party was Thursday night which did not disappoint. Everyone knows me and not a single person knows my name. I will forever be known as Mr. Moose, the Canadian that still plays like a Canadian! Overall the week was very relaxing. I was able to catch up on sleep on Wednesday which was a perfect revitalization and otherwise have start to get back into an educational routine. Although, my class choices are still giving me headaches. Currently I am taking 70 credits which is 10 more than the max of 60. So I have to either drop a class or receive a note from Dal allowing me to overload my semester. However, if I drop a class I will be at 55 credits which is below the full credit level of 60 and thus Dal will not give me full credits for the term. To make matters even more entertaining, Dalhousie's student exchange policy states that no student will "overload" a semester while abroad in an attempt to receive additional credits back at Dal. So we are working on it.

The humorous part of my week came at Thursday nights football practise. I understand that I am a little more used to the sight of blood compared to the average person. I also know that over the past years I have developed an immunity to the sight of my own blood until it reaches a point that I may or may not loose consciousness or I have rearranged my face. So when I slid across the turf during practise I did not think twice of the scrap on my elbow. A few of the guys made note of it and said I should go clean it up. Well when I walked into the sports complex the desk worker looked at me as if I had been shot. He went into full Code Blue! He pulled out a first aid kit fit for a Toronto EMS team! I would have taken a ninja turtle band-aid and been back on the field, but instead he decided to go with the triage bandage complete with gauze padding and that stretchy wrap material to hold it all together. If I had had a chainsaw accident I feel as though I would have received equal treatment. During all this the staff assured me "Don't worry, I am certified in emergency first aid!" This really boosted my confidence while he was dealing with my scraped elbow. To top it all off, the poor guy could not rip the tape in order to hold his contraption together. I am glad I could provide the most excitement that guy had seen all year.

Tomorrow I am off on an Archeology Field Trip to a neolithic site in the highlands. So I should have something to write about!

Man of the Match is Edward Norton

Thursday was a long day with plenty of classes and very little exciting. I had football Thursday after class and found out that I am playing both middle-right line backer while we are on defense and wide receiver while we are on offense. Don't know about special teams but at this rate I may be on there as well.

Friday I had my first Environment to International Business and let me tell you, it was definitely an international environment. Of the 70 plus students taking this course this is 1 English speaking Caucasian - Me! There are 4 Latin Americans a handful of non-English speaking Europeans and the rest are 100% Asian. What makes life even more enjoyable is that 40% of my grade in this class is based on a group paper. Which I just LOVE by the way. However, these are not your stereotypical brilliant Asians who are great at numbers and dominate the class. Example 1: Our professor (who is Indian by the way and has a Scottish/Indian accent which is fantastic to understand) has asked each group to pick a company and two FOREIGN markets, one developed and one developing, which it can enter. The paper will explore the possibilities in these markets and then make recommendations for the company. This group of my students which happens to be 6 Japanese students have picked Honda (shockingly a Japanese company) and the two Foreign markets to develop in - USA and JAPAN. These are two foreign countries in which the product does not exist. I feel that there was a small communication error here folks. Example 2: A student in our class asked if his group would be allowed to submit their paper in Japanese because that was the common language of their group. He wanted to submit his final term paper to an Scottish/Indian professor, at the University of Glasgow, in Japanese. I rest my case. But I can only imagine what the rest of the semester will bring. My group - 5 gentlemen from France 2 of which speak English at an understandable level, and 3 of which passed their English as a Second Language test but have difficulties understanding full sentences at a time and are unable to full translate their writing into written English. So my role in this group is editor.

Friday night I went out with the Football boys and after many, many straw-bombs I stumbled as far as an Indian take-out shop were after ordering a donner (Which is a donair but spelt differently) I ended up with Cajun chicken and some sweet sauce. Great night with the guys!

Today I awoke with a throbbing head, bloodshot eyes, my stomach eating its self and refusing the chicken all at once and my legs so sore I could barely stand. - Fine shape for a hockey Game! I dragged myself over to the pitch to take part in our last preseason game. I played center defender and although we were beaten again, I think my game is slowly improving. However, I did learn that you cannot raise the ball if a player is with five yards of you. Not even to clear your end. It is for safety as they don't want me clearing the ball into another players face, but it takes some getting used to as I have been taught "if you ever get in trouble, just put it high off the glass and out." However, even with that little mishap, I won Man of the Match which is the same as player of the game. At the end of each match we vote on a Man of the Match and a Donkey of the Match. Donkey of the match is given out to anyone who made the single most regrettable play and the Man of the Match is given out to who ever played their position best. Defense is where I am meant to be apparently. My hope is that the next game is not played in freezing rain and gale force winds. I might have contracted pneumonia this morning.

After the Hockey game I met up with John and we hopped a train to Edinburgh. As the title depicts, Edward Norton won Man of the Match, because as I was sitting on this train to Edinburgh a woman came up to me and asked me if I was American. I replied no and she explained that she thought I might be Edward Norton because I look like him and have the same accent. I regretfully explained that No, Ed was my older brother but I get that a lot. Joking, but it was a compliment and I thanked her and carried on to Edinburgh. Went to see the castle, roamed around town, poked around a few of the shops and otherwise just saw what all the fuss is about. It is a gorgeous city with some unbelievable architecture. I dare say it is more impressive than Glasgow but that could be that fact that it has a giant Castle on a Hill right in the middle of it all. The weather could have cooperated a little more but otherwise it was a good day.

Tomorrow I am headed down to Kelvingrove park with some of the football guys to play a game of "pass-ball" which I pretty sure is the same as flag football. Also need to get some reading done for Monday and otherwise try to get a real nights sleep.

Hockey Game and Feeling Old

Wednesday's are my day off. The day I sleep, study if necessary, travel if possible, but above all, relax. Unless of course I wake up late, realize I was supposed to play in my first two hockey games this afternoon one of which had already finished and the next was beginning in 20 minutes. However, rushed or not, playing in my first ever field hockey game was spectacular! I tried my best to not play like an ice hockey player and other than a few minor errors I think it went quite well. Although we lost 2-1, the general consensus was that I did not do anything to terrible and in the process made a few plays that will talked about for weeks to come. I learned a few things today: 1) Playing field hockey in front of your own net is not the same as playing ice hockey in front of your own net. In ice hockey there is one rule: Play the body and clear him out of the crease. In field hockey, the opposition does not take kindly to being removed from the front of the net. Although I did not receive a penalty and my team was quite happy with the whole situation, there is a very upset number 12 from the other team that is more than slight upset with me. 2) Field hockey players don't block shots nor do they attempt to block shots with their body or sticks. They were flat out amazed that anyone would dare throw themselves in the way of an offender while they are taking a shot. I still find it entertaining that both my team as well as the other team and the refs would stop to see if I am alright, after every time I slide to make a defensive tackle. All in all I was happy with todays outcome and "Moose" has officially secured a position with the Glasgow University Hockey Club playing with the tier 2 team regularly and tier 1 when they need players as well has a position on the tier 3 team as often as I can play with them.

Tonight I have made the decision that I am far to old to be living in residence and not be an RA. The crew in my corridor is actually quite mature and we get along very well. However, tonight there was a gathering in one of the rooms in the middle hallway (not my corridor) which consisted of a dozen first years and myself. This reminded me of a high school house party when we were still trying to sneak booze and anything that might even have a trace of alcohol in it sufficed. There as a large 60 of vodka being handed out and mixed with random assortments of juice, energy drinks or not mixed at all. I was fine with all this and other than the poor taste in music was feeling alright with the situation. However, it was not until the mother called of the girl who owns room and the room was summoned to silence, the music stopped and everyone practically held their breath. This was quickly followed by an array of snickering, giggling and covered laughter. And in turn, I felt very very old. I thought about if my parents called and I was half sauced with a crew in my room. I would laugh and make jokes and I might start to sing before telling them I would call them tomorrow. But maybe I just have better parents who knows.

Full day tomorrow, plenty of classes, have a little necessity shopping to do, and football tomorrow night. Should be a long day!