Guests! MOTM! and Finishing Exams

It has been an eventful end of the semester around here with people getting into the Christmas spirit and then subsequently heading home. I, on the hand, and welcoming arrivals rather than saying goodbyes. Lisa has finally made it from Canada and although she had a few changes in flights and flight cancellations and her luggage had a slight delay in London, she made it safe and sound and it is great to have her over here. With the original flight plan being Halifax-Ottawa-London-Glasgow and the snow storm rolling over Ottawa in the middle of last week, she ended up catching a flight out of Glasgow a while later to Toronto. No problem except for the 40 gate dash she had to make in a matter of a few minutes at Pearson, but again she made it. And after a gentle ride across the Atlantic, a terminal change at Hethrow and short hop to Glasgow, she actually made it 3 minutes before her original scheduled time of arrival. I have done my best to show introduce her to the Glasgow Gang including having a few drinks with my Football coaches, joining in on our hallways secret Santa and accompanying me to my final varsity field hockey game. Amidst all this I am trying desperately to study for my final Law Exam but can't thinking of all the other things I would rather be doing.

As for the other big events of the week, first lets start with the positive. I wrapped up my field hockey career capping off a perfect 9-0 record with a 3 Nil win over the weekend. The opposing team was very good but very aggressive. It was an all Pakistani team and much of what they yelled was not in English which made the regular banter of the game a little more difficult. It was a "highly spirited" game in which a few of these men became disgruntled by the fact that they could not score. We had shots being taken at our players, we had their captain taking charges at us and we even had a few sticks being wielded in a malicious manner. Our coach/captain switched up the positions a little and I was granted the role of 'offensive defensmen.' It is a gentleman's sport and I played as much like a gentleman as I know how. All is all one of their players injured themselves by taking a swing at me and missing only to have swung so hard his stick came around to hit him in the knee, and as we shook hands after the game their captain told me "You very good player, very hard to play against." (That sentence is not missing any words, he just had a very very thick accent.) I was awarded Man of The Match by my team and given an open invitation to play for them anytime I was back in Glasgow.

The next positive event would be our hallway Christmas party. We did a secret Santa in which I was given a book on how to make paper airplanes from dollar bills and a ring that is also a bottle opener! It was great to see everyone all at once, the Christmas "cheer" was flowing and we all had a great night.

The small negative of the week is based on my future travel plans. Little recap to set this story up - My mom has sent me advent gifts for the days before Christmas that I will not be at home, one of those gifts was a map of Europe. Upon opening this gift Lisa and I spread the map out on my desk and I pointed out all the places we are going in the next three weeks. One portion of our trip involves us getting off a boat in Portsmouth England and later that day catching a bus from Dover England to Paris France. I had looked it up online to ensure this was possible based on the time we had and the time we had to check in for the bus and according to google we could catch the Route 2 Local bus from Portsmouth to Dover and it would take approximately 35 minutes. It leaves every 40 minutes which was perfect because we have 4.5 hours from when we get off the boat until the bus from Dover leaves. So no problem.... There was no problem until I looked at this map of Europe I now had and noticed that the distance from Portsmouth to Dover was approximately the width of Scotland or twice the distance from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Knowing how long Glasgow to Edinburgh takes I thought, "That can't be write, we must be leaving from a different Dover." After looking around online and checking out a few things it has come to my attention that the Local Route 2 Bus does travel from Portsmouth to Dover in 35 minutes, unfortunately that is from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Dover, New Hampshire USA. So with a little bit worry and a whole lot of frustration I started desperately trying to find a way to get to Dover in time to catch our bus. No such luck folks! I could either grab the 5 hour and 20 minute bus ride that goes through London first, or I could pay a small fortune to grab a 4 hour and 5 minute train that still did not get me right to the bus station and also has no guarantee I would make it or be allowed on the bus checking in that late. So, I started cursing a lot at myself and then I started making phone calls. Through some fancy talking a few white lies I managed to rearrange my bus tickets to leave from Portsmouth to Paris rather than from Dover, and instead of holding 25% of my original ticket as a cancellation fee the wonderful people at National Express have offered to refund me 90%. It always works out for the best, but let me tell you, if I had received a map of Europe this week it would not have been working out for the best when I started looking for the Local Route 2 bus in Portsmouth!

My final exam is tomorrow and I have to get back to the books, but tomorrow night we leave for Ireland and the start of our adventure! I will try to update regularly when I have Internet access, however that might be few and far between so until next time!

Studying and Football

I will have to keep this one short as I have a small mountain of work to get through before the night is out, however I thought it necessary to update on the weekends events.

Last week included very little outside of studying and sleeping. I have been under the weather so sleep is of the essence and with finals this week and next, studying is a pretty close second. However, the weekend is meant for taking breaks and with that in mind I was geared up to play Hockey on Saturday and Football Sunday.

Saturday's fun ended before it started as our game got cancelled because "the pitch was frozen." This was the same reason our practise last Monday was cancelled as was out football practise on Tuesday. I was really looking forward to the game because I really did not want to be studying and I haven't played in 2 weeks now! I am getting that competitive itch that needs to be scratched. Instead I spent the majority of the day ensconced in International Financial Management which is only slightly more interesting than watching grass grow. Alright I admit it is not that bad, it is more like watching grass grow on the discovery channel where they speed it up for you and there is always a lady bug that climbs to the top of the middle blade.

Sunday almost started the same way with the Garsqube (our home pitch) staff trying to cancel our football game because, again, the pitch was frozen. By the way, it was -3 in Glasgow on Sunday. None the less this guy was convinced that we would injure each other if we played on a tough surface. I had to explain to him that a large part of the game was full grown men running full tilt into each other with their heads and shoulders. He admitted to not knowing a lot about the game and decided to wait till the refs showed to make a decision. It just so happens that in Scottish American Football the refs get paid just for showing up and they don't actually have to ref the game at all. So they jumped at the chance to go to the pub early and also said the pitch was cancelled. Our coaches made a few calls and rounded up another set of referees while we continued to work on the guy who ran the place. After about 2 hours of negotiations and the promise of booze he agreed to let us play. Once the ambulance showed up and everything was sorted out with the new refs, after a total of 4 hours we kicked off. And let me tell you, it was the start of something beautiful. This being my last game of 'professional' football I decided to go all out. Playing offense I recorded 18 blocks and a countless unknown total of hits. I took pride in the fact that two kids bounced off me on the opening kick off and in the second drive I hit a guy so hard he was sent backwards and knocked over another one of his players on his way down. In the 4th quarter I was changed to slot and was marked by a giant of man who didn't like me much and it wasn't even because of me talking to him. He was upset by the score and with the fact that I made him look like a clown so he decided to knee me in my left quad. It was not comfortable and they got a penalty on the play which eventually led to us scoring but I decided I would even the playing field anyway. - Before I get on with this story I will explain a key rule in the game of football. When playing offense or defense any player can block any other player provided they do not hold their opponent, block them in the back or touch them if the ball is being thrown in their direction. With that being said, it is not only 100% legal but also highly encouraged to hit anyone and everyone in the front as often as possible. The difference between this kind of hit and the hitting in almost any other sport I can think of is that you are allowed to leave your feet to hit someone. - Now then, on with the story. After being kneed by this oaf I was a little sore and not feeling overly friendly. I lined up with him again and give him a little smile that said "I know something you don't know and this is going to be fun." He started talking about how he had played high school football for a tier one school in Canada and how much of a joke I was. The ball was snapped, I stepped wide, planted one foot, dropped my outside shoulder and cut blocked that SOB as hard as I could. A cut block is when you drive low cutting the players legs from under them and sending them over your shoulder and onto their face. He was obviously upset by this got up and started grabbing and shoving and was consequently penalized another 15 yards. We lined up again and this time he didn't have nearly as much to say. So when the ball was snapped and I again stepped wide and planted a foot he ducked down expecting me to cut him again, so I launched myself into the air like a bugs bunny cartoon human rocket. It so happens that this giant of a man had lowered himself to the perfect height. I drove my shoulder and head right through him and made him think long and hard about ever kneeing anyone ever again. After this little spectacle which had got much attention from both benches, my coach asked if I wanted to play Defense. So I went in to play strong side linebacker and in 3 plays I sacked the QB twice and then had two O-linemen cover me and our other linebackers mobbed him anyway. On the second sack the QB actually shook my hand and told me it was a great hit. I should also mention that made my receiver coach pour an entire drink all over himself when he jumped with excitement over the sack. We won 30-6 against the undefeated Edinburgh team and I can't think of a better way to end my football career. And on a huge plus note, I played university football and never had to go to the hospital!

The rest of Sunday and all day today I have spent back in the books trying desperately to have something stick before Thursdays exam. The next update should include guest arrival, the completion of one exam and any shenanigans between now and then.

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